Malkin is better. Better in the playoffs. Has a chance at 2 smythes, 3 Cups + 2 AR + Hart + Lindsay
Can we revamp the top 100 list?
- Thread starter Phil68
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Malkin is better. Better in the playoffs. Has a chance at 2 smythes, 3 Cups + 2 AR + Hart + Lindsay
Hockeyholic
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trentmccleary
Registered User
Iginla's actually gotten a lot of mileage out of only a couple of great seasons. The argument for Sundin would be that Iginla might take the top-5 seasons between them, but then Sundin soundly beats Iginla over their next 10 seasons.
IMO, neither belong on a Top-100 of all time list for the NHL.
Don't be so sure...
Sundin had 3 seasons of 40+ goals while Thornton has zero.
Sundin scored 30+ 13 times, Joe's done it twice.
Sundin averaged just over 1.00 PPG in more than 1300 games. Thornton's averaged just under 1.00 PPG in over 1400 games.
One guy was a better score; the other is a better playmaker. I'd be fine with calling them about even. I think putting Thornton on another tier is a stretch.
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Anyway, I agree that Malkin was a better player than Sundin and should be on the top 100 list, but Sundin was a better player than he's given credit for on this board. It's like people on here think, "yeah, he wasn't really anything special. The guy put up like 75-85 points a bunch of times. So what?"
But the reality is his prime fell during the infamous dead puck era, in which the rate of scoring was roughly equal to what it is today. It's not like he racked up a whole buch of points in the 80's or 70's. He didn't always have the best linemates, either.
How many players score more than 80 points in a season nowadays? We don't say, "oh yeah, this guy's JUST a 75 point scorer. He's not that good."
Why shouldn't that same standard apply to dead puck era guys?
Here's where Sundin ranks in points during the DPE:
http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?agg...032004&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,200&sort=points
He's third.
And it's not like he scored a bunch of points just because he was always healthy.
He's tied with Selanne for 13th in points-per-game during the era (and just 0.07 points-per-game below Lindros and dead-puck era Gretzky). But everyone loves Selanne and no one would ever question his inclusion on a list, right?
http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?agg...filter=gamesPlayed,gte,200&sort=pointsPerGame
Yeah, man, a guy who's 28th all-time in points was totally a scrub.
He only ranks ninth all-time in game-winning goals (one ahead of Alex Ovechkin currently) and is tied for fourth in career OT goals, so clearly he was just a "compiler" who only scored pointless goals against bad teams.
And his somewhat above average teams only made the playoffs six years in a row from '98-'04 and finished fourth in the EC just four times during that stretch, so it's not like he ever made a team better or anything either.
Let's rank him somewhere between Maxim Afinogenov and Chris Drury all-time.
I'd put Malkin ahead of Sundin, Thornton and Iginla.
Joe and Sundin are about even. Iginla, I can see an argument for over either or both.
Ovechkin is an obvious top one hundred guy. Leaving a guy who's won six Rocket Richards off the top 100 all-time list would be foolish.
Malkin should be on the list, but I don't think Sundin is the weakest entry. I know this post is going to turn into a, "WTF IS SUNDIN DOING ON THE LIST?!?!" type of post, though, so whatever.
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Bank Shot
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- Jan 18, 2006
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Bob Gainey is on the list.....
I don't care if the guy was a hockey playing robot that never made a single mistake in his entire career.
He averaged 30 points a season in the highest scoring era in league history..
Anyone would really take that player to start a franchise over a guy who won to scoring titles and was the league MVP?
I don't care if the guy was a hockey playing robot that never made a single mistake in his entire career.
He averaged 30 points a season in the highest scoring era in league history..
Anyone would really take that player to start a franchise over a guy who won to scoring titles and was the league MVP?
GreatGonzo
Surrounded by Snowflakes
Your comparing a goal scorer with a playmaker though. Hard to argue with those two. Thornton had a better and longer peak. Make more as an individual than Sundin did.
GreatGonzo
Surrounded by Snowflakes
During his prime, Thornton's Sharks were significantly better than any team Sundin ever played on as well.
I do agree that Thornton had the better peak.
If he had a somewhat more balanced goals-to-assists ratio, I'd probably give him the nod, but the guy's had too many seasons (especially recently) where he's only scored about 20 goals (in some cases, not even 20). It gives credence to the idea that he can be somewhat too reliant on playmaking and that that can work against him at times. I've seen people argue that his type of player (he's been compared to guys like Henrik and Backstrom) can really be limited in terms of effectiveness when the checking tightens up, and I think the theory has some merit to it.
GreatGonzo
Surrounded by Snowflakes
Well, They were better because of Thornton. Look at those Sharks teams while Thornton was putting up big numbers, hardly elite. Hardly even THAT good.
He's considered one, if not the greatest playmaker of all time. A little off the wall to use the fact that he doesn't score a lot of goals against him....like he's just an average playmaker. By the way I'm not taking anything from Sundin, but your selling Thorntons play pretty short here. It's not like Sundin was one, or the best goal scorer during his prime.
Quid Pro Clowe
Registered User
Sundin played on some talented teams that were near the top in salary. Just because Thornton got further doesn't mean Sundin played on bad teams.
I'm a Leafs fan... I watched those Leafs teams.
I didn't say they were bad; they weren't. However, those teams were never really considered true contenders. They were always behind teams like DET and COL in terms of talents and teams like NJ and DAL had better defense.
If we were finding a modern-day equivalent to the 1998-2004 Leafs, it would be something like the current Minnesota Wild. They're consistently in the playoffs and it's never surprising when they win a round, but people would be quite surprised if they made it out of their Conference. They've had some solid teams but could never beat CHI, who's simply a better team.
The narrative against Sundin (aside from the fact that he was the Captain of the most evil franchise in NHL history) seems to be that he wasn't a guy who put up a lot of shiny point totals in single seasons. While he did only have two top ten points finishes, he did finish in the top 15 in points six times and he finished in the top 20 in points eight times.
Excluding lockout shortened seasons, Sundin had one full season where he failed to score at least 60 points, which was his rookie season in which he still scored 59. Aside from that season, he never had fewer than 72 points in a season in his entire career aside from the shortened '94-'95 season (where he had 47 points in 47 games) and his final NHL season (in which he scored 28 points in 41 games).
In '92-'92, Sundin played with Sakic and scored a career-high 114 points. In '96-'97, he played with Gilmour until he was traded and he finished seventh in the NHL in points with 94.
After that season, it wasn't really until 2002-2003 that Sundin had a dynamic scoring forward to work with again (and then in '03-'04 Mogilny missed most of the season due to an injury).
In 97-'98, the Leafs' second-leading scorer was Mike Johnson, who had 47 points.
In '00-'01, no one else on the team had more than 53 points. In '01-'02, when Sundin finished fourth in the NHL in points, no other Leaf had even 60 points. In '03-'04 the team's second-leading scorer was defenseman Bryan McCabe, who had 53 points.
Do you really think it's fair to dismiss a guy who literally always managed to score at least 72 points when he played more than half a season despite the fact that he was often far and away the best forward his team had and he played during the dead puck era during his prime (an era in which the scoring was so low that the NHL had to come up with methods to increase scoring - such as calling penalties constantly for infractions in '06 and '07 - following the 2004-2005 lockout) and then played in his mid 30's on very lackluster teams (after the lockout, the Leafs weren't even average) due to the mere fact that he didn't somehow manage to score more than 90-100+ points more often?
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That list is more like the top 100 most influential/memorable players of the NHL more than the 100 best players of the NHL.
If you view the list in that regard it is more correct I would say.
Malkin belongs on that list either way but still.
If you view the list in that regard it is more correct I would say.
Malkin belongs on that list either way but still.
I think the fact that he played the 80's when the scoring was ridiculously high compared to now is what hurts his case.
Still, they put guys like Savard, Gartner, Francis and Lafontaine (other players who scored a ton in the 80's and early 90's) on there; therefore, it can be argued that Hawerchuk is worthy of inclusion.
Gartner is an interesting case because he only finished in the top ten in points once and never finished higher than tenth and yet he scored so many goals that it would be sort of ridiculous to not find him on a list of the NHL's top 100 players ever.
An argument can definitely be made that Hawerchuk should have made the NHL's top 100 list over LaFontaine. Pat barely made it to 1000 points in his career and it wasn't as though he was some dominant player like Lindros when he played.
JaegerDice
The mark of my dignity shall scar thy DNA
- Dec 26, 2014
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Go for it.
HFBoards is literally the only place on the internet people even still talk about it. You could put John Scott and Tanner Glass on it if you want to, nobody would complain because nobody cares.
LordNeverLose
Registered User
They literally invented the Selke to recognize how great he was. He deserves to be on there.
Bending and Tending
Registered User
LMAO it's not a "what have you done for me lately" comment. Malkin has consistently been one of the best. OV...not so much.
Ummm... yeah, he kind of has.
He was one of the absolute best players in the NHL in his first five seasons.
He had a couple of down years and then somewhat re-invented himself as a scoring specialist who could also play with a physical edge and won the Rocket Richard trophy four years in a row while finishing in the top ten in points in three of those seasons as well. You can't dismiss 50 goal seasons during a time when literally no one else scored 50 goals in a season.
If this is an Ovie vs Malkin thing, yeah, I can see a case for Geno... but Ovechkin is quite comfortably a top 100 player all time. Do you honestly think Pat LaFontaine had a better career than Ovechkin?
This is the reason why you can't compare beer league era players to modern ones.
Almost everything and anybody that happened before the WHA merged with NHL should be ignored. Even Bobby Orr to some extent, whose prime years happened to coincide with the first NHL expansion AND the formation of the WHA even further diluting the talent in the NHL. Imagine how good McDavid would look if the NHL expanded to 70 teams next season and banned all non-North American skaters. That's basically the Orr era.
Almost everything and anybody that happened before the WHA merged with NHL should be ignored. Even Bobby Orr to some extent, whose prime years happened to coincide with the first NHL expansion AND the formation of the WHA even further diluting the talent in the NHL. Imagine how good McDavid would look if the NHL expanded to 70 teams next season and banned all non-North American skaters. That's basically the Orr era.
Weztex
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- Feb 6, 2006
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It depends on how you rank them. Is it vs their peers or best hockey players ever.
If you drop those guys in todays game even with a year of training.... they aren't very good. Just watch some old video or any of the classic games everyone is pretty much terrible, even the good players.
PensandCaps
Beddy Tlueger
- May 22, 2015
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lol,look at the stats, Malkin is a better playoff performer, defensive play and better offensively. 1.18 PPG for Geno, 1.12 for Ovi.
"ovi is better, cus ovi" is basically the only argument people have.
Weztex
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- Feb 6, 2006
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But why would anybody want to rank players this way? Everybody knows that the quality of the game only keeps getting better but what goal does it serves to rank players by opposing them across eras in a sort of parallel universe? In this case, why don't we just take last season ranking and cal it the NHL 100?
Were talking about the top-100 players in NHL's history, it's pretty obvious that we're going by what players accomplished in the NHL, no matter when they played. Still those silly comments keep popping up around here. Sorry that Howie Morenz didn't take shots at 100mph or circle the rink under 14s. He still won three Hart trophies. That makes him a greater player that Ryan Kesler by any measure.
Napoleon's army would get destroyed by the Cuban Armed forced. Does that make him a poor general? Should we erase the winners of Best visual effect before the 90s because they didn't use CGI? It's pretty obvious what those kinds of lists are evaluating and anyone with half a brain understands it.
