Crosby enters the Top 100

[feffan]

But that discussion was about whether Crosby was just a "semi decent goal scorer". The OP replied to me saying he had 2 Richards by saying his Richards were weak, so I replied "a Richard is a Richard". That was still in the discussion about Crosby only being a "semi decent goal scorer". The rocket point was a point that it doesn't matter if the rockets were weak, a rocket is a rocket and Crosby winning 2 Rockets completely shoots down the original claim.

Agreed that it shot down the original claim

 

[Empoleon8771]

You forgot Tarasenko. Also Kucherov will most likely pass him by the end of the year (he's 3 behind).

Neither Tarasenko or Kucherov are better goal scorers than Crosby. Crosby's career average per 82 games is equal to the best season Tarasenko has ever had.

 

[StrangeVision]

You lost me at "semi decent at best". Isn't this the same guy who just won another Rocket Richard trophy last year?

That was a semi-decent Rocket Richard Trophy. A Pocket Richard, if you will.

 

[Habs 4 Life]

With a goal against Buffalo Crosby was able to tie Tomas Sandstrom in goals with 394 but since Crosby has more assists that means that he now officially has entered the Top 100 when it comes to career goals in the NHL. Hard to think of Crosby as a top 100 goal scorer of all time since I've always considered him to be semi decent at best when it comes to scoring goals, but there's no arguing with stats.

Crosby is on a roll otherwise too since he's on a 6 game Point streak and a 5 game goal streak. Plus he's also sneaking up on Ovechkin in all time Points as he's only 5 behind Ovechkin anymore. Crosby could actually pass Ovechkin before the year is over and become the highest scoring player in the NHL since 2005-06, especially since Ovechkin has been struggling lately. And Crosby is shooting up the Points list too. Could be battling for the Art Ross again if everything keeps going his way. Seems that Crosby's luck has turned around in the last few years and if this keeps up there's no telling what he might do...

I actually think he is a fantastic goal scorer, great wrist shot and back hand and with his explosive speed generates so many scoring chances
I also think he isn't enough of a hog, had he been during his career he would have had so many more goals. He is always looking to make that pass, he should shoot more.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

He has a chance to get to 600 goals before his career is over.

Maybe, I think he'll get to 500 at least. Which is still pretty damn good.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I actually think he is a fantastic goal scorer, great wrist shot and back hand and with his explosive speed generates so many scoring chances
I also think he isn't enough of a hog, had he been during his career he would have had so many more goals. He is always looking to make that pass, he should shoot more.

When Sid struggles to score, he force passes literally every play which is frustrating as hell and that was his season up until about 5-6 games ago where he's been putting up points at a 2ppg pace and is back to his old ways,

 

[Hockeyholic]

Maybe, I think he'll get to 500 at least. Which is still pretty damn good.

Still pretty underwhelming for how touted he was.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Still pretty underwhelming for how touted he was.

Unfortunately for him he was extremely unlucky with injuries during what was arguably the peak of his career.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Still pretty underwhelming for how touted he was.

Yeah, he'll magically stop getting assists during that time too. Are you serious?

For what he was touted to be, hes won multiple individual awards in the regular season and playoffs and he's won 3 Stanley Cups so far. He's also 5pts or so behind Ovechkin who has played 138 more games than him.

At worst, he finishes with around 1,400 to 1,500pts if he calls it a career before his contract is up. He needs about what, 2.5 seasons to hit 500 goals for his career? During that time, at his current pace if he were to go 1.0ppg, that's another 200~ pts for around 1,300pts.

Oh, how underwhelming.

 

[romba]

Fantastic hand eye for deflections, speed and sense coming out of his ass to be in the right place at the right time, an excellent release on a wicked wrister and backhand to go with his silky smooth handle which he only uses at the right time and place (not trying to deke 3 guys at either blue line). I guess his slapper would be his 'weakness' lol. Agree with the sentiment that he's only ok at scoring goals.

 

[613Leafer]

"Semi-decent at best when it comes to scoring goals"

394 goals over 810 games is a 39.88 goal pace over an 82 game season.

In pretty much the lowest scoring era of the NHL.

 

[end]

Crosby and probably Stamkos will be the only two players to reach 500 goals in the next 12 years.

 

[K Fleur]

Crosby’s goal scoring looks underwhelming when compared to his contemporary; Ovechkin.

Just about every goal scorer ever looks underwhelming when compared to Ovechkin though.

 

[BayStreetBully]

Can’t wait to see him score 500. He’s farther away than I thought, but then again so is everybody outside of Ovechkin.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Can’t wait to see him score 500. He’s farther away than I thought, but then again so is everybody outside of Ovechkin.

Barring injury, he likely gets there within the next 3 seasons. He's at, I believe, 392 right now, so 108 away. In a healthy season, he scores around 36 goals, which would be exactly 3 more seasons from now.

 

[The Pale King]

Looking at the list, I'm more surprised that Crosby has less career goals than Marian Gaborik.

NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Goals | Hockey-Reference.com

Gaborik needs two goals in the next five games then he needs to retire with 1000-400-400-800.

Joking (but only kind of).

 

[Lebowski]

Still pretty underwhelming for how touted he was.

He should retire with nigh 600 goals under his belt, losing a large chunk of his prime to injuries, in one of the lowest scoring eras of all time...

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

He should retire with nigh 600 goals under his belt, being injured for most of his prime, in one of the lowest scoring eras of all time...

Yeah, it's absolutely insane someone would think Crosby's career totals have underwhelmed when you consider he's well within reach of totals such as 600 goals and 1500 career points.

What were people expecting? That when all was said and done, he'd break all of Gretzky's career records? And so anything less than that was disappointing?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

How can a guy with two rocket Richard trophies and 394 goals in 810 games be a "semi decent goal scorer?

As for his Richards being weak. He was still second in gpg to ovechkin in 09-10. (Was the only player that season to have 50 goals without empty netters) and last season he may "only" have scored 44 goals but he did that in 75 games in a lower scoring season which comes out to 48 goals in 82 games and was first in gpg. 44 goals in 75 games is nothing to scuff at.

How many players in 100 years have multiple Richard wins? Off the top of my head I have


Gretzky
Lemieux
Bure
Crosby
Iginla
Esposito
Ovechkin
Richard
Howe
Stamkos
The hull's

Pretty elite company

 

[Lebowski]

Fantastic hand eye for deflections, speed and sense coming out of his ass to be in the right place at the right time, an excellent release on a wicked wrister and backhand to go with his silky smooth handle which he only uses at the right time and place (not trying to deke 3 guys at either blue line). I guess his slapper would be his 'weakness' lol. Agree with the sentiment that he's only ok at scoring goals.

As far as his slapper goes, he has never been used as a trigger man on a power-play, so that also plays a part in his totals. Ovechkin and Stamkos always got a large chunk of their goals with their patented one-timers, which isn't to say Crosby could do the same if put in a similar situation, but he'd certainly get more shots on net.

I wouldn't even say he QBs the Pens PP. For years he has been standing beside the goalie, tipping and tapping pucks and recovering pucks behind the net. That's not necessarily what leads to the most goal scoring chances, but that's probably what fits his skillset the best.

 

[Zuluss]

Crosby the goalscorer is a garbage man, somewhat like Esposito, but lacking the size and flair. And just like Esposito is never mentioned with Richard and Bobby Hull despite being statistically similar, Crosby's name is often an afterthought when it comes to great goal-scorers of our time. He does not look like a goal-scorer, and thus he is not treated like one.

In all fairness though, the distance betweem Ovechkin and Stamkos/Kovalchuk and then a similar, if not greater distance between Stamkos/Kovalchuk and other good goal-scorers makes the distinction of a 4th-best or top5 goal-scorer rather unimportant, because such player is not anywhere close to the top or even the 3rd place.
Crosby belongs to this "third tier" of good goal-scorers of our time, along with Nash, Perry, Heatley, Tarasenko, Malkin, Tavares, and I am probably forgetting someone. Can one make an argument that Crosby as a goal-scorer is a bit better than all of them? Probably. Can one, just as easily, make an argument that a significant number of these people are better goal-scorers than Crosby? I think yes.
For example, one can put a lot of weight on consistency and argue that Heatley managed five consecuitive top10 finishes and two back-to-back top5 finishes and Tarasenko has already managed three consecuitive top5 finishes, while Crosby has only back-to-back top10 finishes, and finished top10 in goals only four times.

As for career projections, in his seven best seasons Crosby is currently 46th all-time on the VsX-adjusted goals the History board usually uses. That's probably his fair place, somewhere between Keith Tkachuk and Mike Gartner. If he exhibits better-than-average longevity and given the low-scoring era, he should land somewhere around 40 on the career goals list as well. That would be 500-525 career goals.
600 career goals are most probably out of reach. He is 30 already, and he started this season with 382 career goals, so he needs 218 goals post-30. Only 37 players in the whole history did that, and at least 10 of them played in the 70s and 80s, when scoring was much higher. Many all-time greats fell short of 218 goals post-30, and the list includes Gretzky, Lemieux, and Yzerman (yes, health is a big factor post-30).

 

[Zuluss]

Neither Tarasenko or Kucherov are better goal scorers than Crosby. Crosby's career average per 82 games is equal to the best season Tarasenko has ever had.

That's a really misleading way of mixing together incomplete seasons and the times when we had like 10 40-goal-scorers every season and compare them with the period when no one not named Ovechkin can even repeat a 40-goal season.
Tarasenko is carrying a streak of three consecutive top5 finishes in goals. Crosby has never finished even top10 in goals in three consecutive seasons. Heck, he has not even been "on pace" for that.

 

[Lebowski]

That's a really misleading way of mixing together incomplete seasons and the times when we had like 10 40-goal-scorers every season and compare them with the period when no one not named Ovechkin can even repeat a 40-goal season.
Tarasenko is carrying a streak of three consecutive top5 finishes in goals. Crosby has never finished even top10 in goals in three consecutive seasons. Heck, he has not even been "on pace" for that.

Tarasenko also never won a Richard, heck, not even "close" to it.

Crosby has two.

You can't put either of these guy ahead of Crosby at this stage.

 

[Empoleon8771]

That's a really misleading way of mixing together incomplete seasons and the times when we had like 10 40-goal-scorers every season and compare them with the period when no one not named Ovechkin can even repeat a 40-goal season.
Tarasenko is carrying a streak of three consecutive top5 finishes in goals. Crosby has never finished even top10 in goals in three consecutive seasons. Heck, he has not even been "on pace" for that.

Crosby Richards: 2
Tarasenko Richards: 0

Crosby 50 goal seasons: 1
Tarsenko 50 goal seasons: 0

Crosby 40+ goal seasons: 2
Tarasenko 40+ goal seasons: 1

Crosby career goals/game: .486
Tarasenko career goals/game: .427

But yeah, Tarasenko is totally a better goal scorer than Crosby, just like you're totally objective when talking about Crosby.

It's also asinine to say that Crosby is only going to finish between 500 and 525 goals in his career. He's at 394 already and he's going to be playing for 7 years beyond this year at the absolute minimum (that's the date he keeps giving for a retirement date, at the end of his current contract). Let's say he gets 35 goals this year (completely fair guess), that has him at 417 goals with 7 years left. He needs 12 goals a season to hit 500 goals and 16 goals a season to hit 525 goals. Is it optimistic to say 600? Yeah, but that's a lot closer to reality than 500-525. Even with injuries, he's probably going to be hovering between 25 and 30 goals a season.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Sidney Crosby isn't Mario Lemieux, I'll start by saying that. However, if Mario Lemieux from age 35 to 39 can put up almost a 0.5 goals/game in the height of the dead puck era after taking 3 and a half years off from hockey, I think Crosby can score 25 goals a season for 7 seasons after this year. That puts him damn close to 600 career goals, and that's assuming he retires at that point.