I'm not sure if any of that is true. His consistency is based on his string of 30 goal seasons, which is great, but isn't an elite number, and is based on health as much as anything compared to most of these guys. In terms of peak, he only had 4 seasons in the top 10 in goals and none of them came consecutively. He was a consistently good goalscorer with spike seasons among the best. I'm not sure I would say that the extended period between his first and last top 10 finish is a "peak". Meanwhile, Stamkos was top 2 in 4 consecutive seasons and 5 of 6 years, and Kovalchuk was top 10 for 7 consecutive seasons.
Second best career goal scorer after Ovechkin from recent history?
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I'm not sure if any of that is true. His consistency is based on his string of 30 goal seasons, which is great, but isn't an elite number, and is based on health as much as anything compared to most of these guys. In terms of peak, he only had 4 seasons in the top 10 in goals and none of them came consecutively. He was a consistently good goalscorer with spike seasons among the best. I'm not sure I would say that the extended period between his first and last top 10 finish is a "peak". Meanwhile, Stamkos was top 2 in 4 consecutive seasons and 5 of 6 years, and Kovalchuk was top 10 for 7 consecutive seasons.
Lebowski
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Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
There are three criteria: peak, prime, and cumulative. Consistency at the top, or prime, is generally considered valuable. But in the cumulative, one is in a sense the best goal scorer by definition. For this reason, as well as the short peaks of top goal scorers, I can definitely see the case for Iginla.
Imagine if they ever bothered to give him some talent to work with?!?
82Ninety42011
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Yes it's scary to think I can't remember who he even played with?? Was Daymond Langkow his centre for a bit??
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
Career numbers are a poor way to judge players, especially when others have a number of years left, and Iginla is done
Best career goal scorer....
11 straight seasons with 30 or more...
Then 2 seasons before that-28 and 29 goals.... and followed by a shortened season and then another 29 goal season.
2 time Richard winner....
And the most career goals.
Who beats that on this list when the question is asking for "best career goal scorer?"
Hanging around putting up decent but not great goalscoring seasons shouldn't hold a lot of weight. Kovalchuk played 12 years in the league overlapping Iginla's prime and outscored him in 8 and tied him in another, outscoring him overall in the time period. Putting up a couple 30 goal seasons outside of that is fairly meaningless.
Being a better compiler doesn't make you a better career goalscorer. Prime is far more important
Huh? This is such an HF thing to say. The guy was a consistent 30 goal scorer for almost his entire career. This is being used against him how? Look at who the guy played with, his centers weren't exactly all stars.
You can claim peak is more valuable......but as a GM I'm taking the guy that plays almost every game and you know is good for at least 30 apples.
You can like flash......I'll take substance.
I won't even bother bringing up all the other things Iggy brought to the table......
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
Both Iginla and Kovalchuk have four top three goal scoring seasons. Using this as a starting point, Iginla scores slightly higher in terms of domination of peers. Stamkos has five such seasons as of two seasons ago, so he scores higher than both of them.
It has nothing to do with flash. The point is that Kovalchuk and Stamkos were simply better goalscorers through their primes. If a player is only better once you start comparing their 9th, 10th, 11th type seasons, and those aren't elite goalscoring seasons, I find it very hard to consider that player a better goalscorer. And this is ignoring the fact that Kovalchuk left the NHL at 30 and was still playing in Russia. Very likely he would have continued to put up similar numbers to Iginla had he stayed, making Iginla's advantage in longevity even less important. People always ignore what happens in other leagues, but it's not like the guy retired.
It's not an HF thing to put far more stock in peak and prime. No one considered Mike Gartner a better goalscorer than Mike Bossy due to Gartner hanging around forever putting up 30 goal years. That's obviously more extreme than this comparison, but I would argue it's actually a very main board HF thing to look at career numbers instead of going deeper.
As I said earlier though, their primes overlapped and Kovalchuk outscored him in 8 of his 12 seasons and tied him in another, where they both won the Richard. Overall in this span, Iginla had 408 goals in 844 games, or 39.6 goals per 82, while Kovalchuk had 417 goals in 816 GP, or 41.9 GPG.
Iginla's '02 was obviously the best season between the two of them, which is big, but outside of that season, Kovalchuk was consistently better through his prime, with 8 top 10 finishes to Iginla's 4.
Of course, Iginla's 4 finishes are all top 3, and overall he has a bit of an advantage at the top couple years, but I think Kovalchuk's more years among the elite trump that. In the years before this, Iginla put up years of 21, 14, 28, 29, and 31 goals, and after put up 30, 29, 22 and 14 goals. The only years he was top 20 in those seasons in goals were 99-00, where he was in a 7-way tie for 19th, 13-14, where he was 6-way tie for 16th, and 14-15, where he was in a 4-way tie for 16th. Solid numbers, but when comparing players who were Richard winners, I just don't put a ton of stock in them.
I'm not saying there's no argument for Iginla and he certainly wasn't an actual compiler like Gartner or Andreychuk, but those post-prime years are compiler-ish, and I feel like some people put way too much stock in those post-prime years and simply looking at his career numbers like the poster I was responding too is overly simplistic.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
I added a few more names: Heatley, Gaborik, and Nash.
Yeah, that was pretty much what it was. I changed the title because I was starting to add too many names to it.
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If you can go Malkin, always go Malkin.
But in reality Kovalchuk should've been my vote.
I guess the 6 people that voted Crosby had the same way of thinking as me, just with another player.
But in reality Kovalchuk should've been my vote.
I guess the 6 people that voted Crosby had the same way of thinking as me, just with another player.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
I think you're selling Iginla short in this Iginla-Kovalchuk comparison. It's basically a wash in the overlapping seasons, Iginla had the higher goal scoring peak, and his career NHL numbers beat all with the exception of Ovechkin. What the players in question actually produce in the best league in the world needs to be acknowledged.
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When did Kovalchuk play with talent like Stamkos? Stamkos has had the benefit to play with 2x Art Ross winner Martin St Louis and now Kucherov. Kovalchuk never had that talent. He created those goals on his own.
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ricky0034
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top 10 finishes:
Iginla: (1,1,3,3)
Stamkos: (1,1,2,2,2,7)
Crosby: (1,1,7,8)
Kovalchuk: (1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9)
Malkin: (2,4,5)
i'll go with Stamkos
here's hoping Kovalchuk can get a 5th place finish at some point to fill in that missing gap
Iginla: (1,1,3,3)
Stamkos: (1,1,2,2,2,7)
Crosby: (1,1,7,8)
Kovalchuk: (1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9)
Malkin: (2,4,5)
i'll go with Stamkos
here's hoping Kovalchuk can get a 5th place finish at some point to fill in that missing gap
