Connor McDavid will go down as the 2nd best player of all-time

[La Bamba]

I'm a McDavid homer but no way he's #2 all time, unless he puts up a few 185+ seasons and has great longevity

It'll be Gretzky, Mario, Orr. He could end up #4 all time if he keeps it up

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

I am not sure how anyone could watch McDavid play this year and say he is NOT in a class of his own. My guess is they don't.

The way he handles the puck at the speed he handles it...defies everything I have learned or seen in my 50+ years of involvement with the sport.

 

[authentic]

 

[valet]

on a pure talent / eye test basis, i think there is already a pretty good argument that only gretzky was better. to me the question is more…. is he the goat? or is gretzky? no player has dominated like mcdavid since gretz. not even super mario

 

[authentic]

on a pure talent / eye test basis, i think there is already a pretty good argument that only gretzky was better. to me the question is more…. is he the goat? or is gretzky? no player has dominated like mcdavid since gretz. not even super mario

How has Mario Lemieux not dominated like McDavid has? This is just false.

Also, on the eye test alone and judging on pure skill he's obviously the best ever and that would include Gretzky since past players were more skilled than Gretzky as well. No one came close to dominating their peers like Gretzky though which is the only really relevant aspect of all-time rankings

 

[Cant Kick On 1 Foot]

Surely Ovechkin ranks in the top 5? Arguably the greatest goal scorer as of now, and when his career is over he may well have the most. He’s played through 2 work stoppages, and 2 shortened seasons due to COVID. If head had those full seasons he’d have already passed Gretzky. So if we’re considering Crosby as a top 5, then Ovechkin needs to be in the same list.

 

[rogking65]

He has to win some cups to be in the very top echelon. And with the owner and management team the Oilers have that will be a massive struggle.

so you are saying things he cannot conrtol affect where he will be ranked...real logical statement

 

[Maplebeasts]

He has zero shot at passing Gretz/Lemieux/Orr. Howe I think he can/will pass.

 

[LTIR]

Does he make the top 100 list of he doesn't win a cup?

 

[ScoreZeGoals]

His ceiling is 4th

 

[Frank Drebin]

Crosby? We talking about Crosby?

 

[LGBlues]

4th best. Can’t see how he surpasses Lemiuex or Orr. But I think he’s better than Crosby, from an offensive perspective

I wonder how many points Crosby would have if he played for a team that cared nothing about defending or winning and just scoring.

 

[Beerfish]

so you are saying things he cannot conrtol affect where he will be ranked...real logical statement

Yes, 100% for sure. It's that way in all sports. Logical or not when all is said and done guys that have won championships are rated higher than guys of similar skill stat sets.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

I wonder how many points Crosby would have if he played for a team that cared nothing about defending or winning and just scoring.

probably a few more but even Crosby never had the insane offensive skillset McDavid has

 

[LGBlues]

probably a few more but even Crosby never had the insane offensive skillset McDavid has

Agree with his speed and skillset - I just never seen much prime time defending and winning - Sid was playing to win the Cup starting year 2 it seems harder than the free for all Connor gets to play.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Agree with his speed and skillset - I just never seen much prime time defending and winning - Sid was playing to win the Cup starting year 2 it seems harder than the free for all Connor gets to play.

Pens had put together quite a good team around Sid. Oilers haven't. And Draisaitl is no Malkin.

 

[KCC]

To be fair he has 2 seasons where he is head and shoulders above the rest

2015-2016 he wasn't the best
2016-2017 --> he and Crosby was very similar in production (100 pts vs 97 pt pace)
2017-2018 --> he had 4/5 guys within 10 pts of his production (Malkin, Mack, Hall, Giroux, Kuch)
2018 - 2019 --> Kucherov was better than him
2019 - 2020 --> Draisaitl was better than him
2020 - 2021 --> Clear cut best player, was 25-30 pts better than anyone else
2021-2022 --> Matthews was very close pace-wise (120 vs 125 I think) and Gaudreau/Huberdeau both were at 115
2022 - 2023 --> He is again 25-30 pts better than anyone else (Draisaitl his teammate and Mack/Kuch being the challengers for 2nd)

He's also been robbed of the Hart a few times as well. At the end of the day he has 100+ points in 6 of his current 8 seasons and would have had 7 (and 7 straight) if not for the season ending early due to COVID. There is no one in the league over that span that comes even close to that. If he ends up with 150 points this year and next, he will have hit 1000 points and he will still only be 27. The only one who would be faster is Gretzky which puts him at hey, you guessed it second. If that happens that has to change a few people's minds. lol

 

[RickChartraw]

just don't see it as #2 overall. he needs some rings on his resume.

 

[moropanov]

Surely Ovechkin ranks in the top 5? Arguably the greatest goal scorer as of now, and when his career is over he may well have the most. He’s played through 2 work stoppages, and 2 shortened seasons due to COVID. If head had those full seasons he’d have already passed Gretzky. So if we’re considering Crosby as a top 5, then Ovechkin needs to be in the same list.

Surely not;d he is not top 1000 player of all time when you think about hockey level sure he score's goals but overall hockey player its joke to compare to him to likes of Jagr Forsberg or even Datsyuk Kopitar etc Ovechkins lazy bum compared to those hockey top players. Most overrated player in NHL history as seen in international competitions definitely worse hockey player than William Nylander when speaking of pure hockey ability

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think arguing Crosby vs McDavid at this point is pointless because we've seen Crosby's decline as well as his peak, while we haven't seen McDavid's decline yet. Through their age 26 seasons, I think they're pretty comparable when you take into account league scoring and strength of competition (aka having to contend with prime Ovi and Malkin for trophies). But Crosby took a noticeable step back after his age 26 season, which McDavid just hasn't played long enough yet to see if he'll have a similar regression. I think McDavid just has to maintain his current level for longer to end up clearly above Crosby for the long run.

When it comes down to #2 overall, McDavid will never make it unless he does something truly special. He'll never end up on a level above Gretzky, Lemieux or Orr unless he does something way more than he has done in his career so far. Just as an example, Lemieux came out of retirement after 3.5 years and put up 76 points in 43 games during the dead puck era. Another Lemieux example, he had to miss the entire 1994-1995 season due to issues from his cancer treatment and then he put up 69 goals and 161 points in 70 games in 1995-1996 after coming back. McDavid just hasn't done anything like that to break into that top tier IMO.

 

[Svencouver]

People just continuously forget how good Crosby was, which is strange because it wasn't that long ago. Crosby doesn't just have the team success argument, he was tremendously productive and could score at will in any way he wanted.

 

[barry halls]

I love him like a son, he dragged my beloved team out of unfathomable darkness. But in my opinion he hasn’t surpassed Crosby’s level of greatness yet, and Crosby would be 5th on my all-time list. I think he will get there when all is said and done, but he needs a ring.

 

[EK392000]

I think OP hit the nail on the head. Old players are mythologized and are reminisced on as being greater than they actually were. They were all greats, don’t get me wrong, but I think putting them on an untouchable pedestal takes away from the greatness of current players.

McDavid will go down as #3 in my books. I don’t care if he has to pass Orr and Howe to get there.

If only JFresh could time travel, he’d end all of these debates.

 

[Gunnersaurus Rex]

I have Gretzky 1, Howe 2, Orr 3, Lemieux 4
I think when it's all said and done, if McDavid can win one cup, he's easily top 5. 2 Cups, pushes to 3 or 4. His SC total would match those 2 but his personal trophy case will be greater as well as his longevity.
If he gets to 3 or 4 Cups and ends up #2 all-time in points, he's the #2 goat.

 

[ITM]

What does one say?

So the proposition is: One of Orr or Gretzky is going to be unseated by McDavid.

OK. Well. Once that's corrected and the Op resolves to propose: One of Mario Lemieux or Gordie How is going to be unseated by McDavid, we can begin to outline what constitutes greatness and what Lemieux and Howe achieved and the mountains McDavid has to climb in order to be considered.

Perhaps McDavid is the pinnacle of hockey evolutionary skill. But, you have to win everything there is to win to enter the conversation and we can't have different sets of comparisons to suit preference. We can't exclude what each player had to build upon and where they were in their era balanced against their peers.

Like...Wayne Gretzky wasn't simply a product of his time. He was a generation ahead of everybody else to say nothing of Bobby Orr.

Bobby Orr led the league in scoring twice as a defenceman; that's a perennial Norris-winning, two-time Conn Smythe winning defenceman. The measure that some define Mario Lemieux as greatest by in terms of advanced stats, irrespective of totals enters into the quantum realm with Bobby Orr. The "IFs" surrounding his possible career had all things been equal and had he not been injured (or injured when sports medicine was further along) are breathtaking. But as a stand alone, for what he did in the time he did it, I'm not sure how one doesn't loop back - immediately - to McDavid and state the obvious:

In order to unseat Bobby Orr, McDavid has to do what he's doing now...but as a defenceman and then do it as a defenceman who has won the Cup and the Conn Smythe, and do it twice.

And then there's Wayne and Mario and their two Smythes and their Cups and stats, totals and advanced.

And as for Howe, just on goals, if you take his last season with Hartford and those 19 goals and work back to when he left for the WHA and consider it a base average, Gordie Howe retires from the NHL with more goals than Gretzky.

So...Please...Op...Can we reasonably and respectfully call it a contest for fifth all-time?