Crosby vs McDavid (At Age 22)

[daver]

He had to battle Malkin for the Art Ross, even though they were on the same team, only one player could win it. My point was - prime Ovechkin and Malkin were bigger threats for the scoring title than McDavid is generally faced with.

Crosby could have won the AR in 07/08 if healthy but I doubt it would be viewed as more impressive than McDavid's wins. Malkin's AR win in 08/09 was on par with McDavid's wins.

 

[bobbyking]

Sid.

Let's not forget, he had to compete against a monstrous fresh-legged Ovechkin early on. Plus Malkin.

Also peak thornton. But ppl also forget that McDavid has mack and kuch to deal with
Probably Peterson in his peak as well

 

[FrozenJagrt]

Also peak thornton. But ppl also forget that McDavid has mack and kuch to deal with
Probably Peterson in his peak as well

No one forgets. Those guys just don't really compare.

 

[GreatGonzo]

No one forgets. Those guys just don't really compare.

I mean we can’t say anything just yet. Kuch and Mack are still very young, all while having elite supporting cast. In the end McDavid is probably one of, if not the only player at this moment with the weakest support.

 

[Future GOAT]

Sid.

Let's not forget, he had to compete against a monstrous fresh-legged Ovechkin early on. Plus Malkin.

Because Kucherov, MacKinnon, Rantanen Gaudreau and P. Kane are chopped liver....

lol

 

[bathdog]

Because Kucherov, MacKinnon, Rantanen Gaudreau and P. Kane are chopped liver....

lol

Great players, no doubt. But do you genuinely feel they are equivalent to Malkin/Ovechkin? And I think Kane generally doesn't get his due offensively.

Kane is currently on the wrong side of 30, but his career has largely overlapped, and since he entered the league he has...

...scored 1 points more than Malkin in 117 games more played.
...scored 82 points less than Ovechkin in 18 games less played - with Ovechkin not really having been a threat in the scoring race for nearly a decade.

 

[daver]

Great players, no doubt. But do you genuinely feel they are equivalent to Malkin/Ovechkin? And I think Kane generally doesn't get his due offensively.

Kane is currently on the wrong side of 30, but his career has largely overlapped, and since he entered the league he has...

...scored 1 points more than Malkin in 117 games more played.
...scored 82 points less than Ovechkin in 18 games less played - with Ovechkin not really having been a threat in the scoring race for nearly a decade.

Do you think the ARs won by OV and Malkin in 07/08 and 08/09 were stronger wins than McDavid's?

 

[bathdog]

Do you think the ARs won by OV and Malkin in 07/08 and 08/09 were stronger wins than McDavid's?

Haven't looked too closely at the numbers, if I had to guess I'd guess all of those wins were reasonably close from an environment "vs peer" or "adjusted" perspective. Ovechkin's peak was just special in the way he actually dominated while remaining healthy and having elite competition, even if the Ross wins from a statistical perspective weren't among the best post-lockout. I think absolute top3-5 competition during Ovechkin's peak was tougher than right now.

 

[daver]

Haven't looked too closely at the numbers, if I had to guess I'd guess all of those wins were reasonably close from an environment "vs peer" or "adjusted" perspective. Ovechkin's peak was just special in the way he actually dominated while remaining healthy and having elite competition, even if the Ross wins from a statistical perspective weren't among the best post-lockout. I think absolute top3-5 competition during Ovechkin's peak was tougher than right now.

The latter bolded claim should be meaningless in determining who was better. Any individual season can be assessed independent of seasons by players who were in the same era. That one or two players were also at the same level or superior should not be the primary metric to determine the strength of a season.

Statistically, there is no reason to think that McDavid would not have a reasonable chance to win the same ARs over OV in 07/08 and over Malkin in 08/09. As you said, it was close.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

The latter bolded claim should be meaningless in determining who was better. Any individual season can be assessed independent of seasons by players who were in the same era. That one or two players were also at the same level or superior should not be the primary metric to determine the strength of a season.

Statistically, there is no reason to think that McDavid would not have a reasonable chance to win the same ARs over OV in 07/08 and over Malkin in 08/09. As you said, it was close.

A 22 year old malkin and Ovechkin we’re better players than Mcdavid currently is

 

[bathdog]

The latter bolded claim should be meaningless in determining who was better. Any individual season can be assessed independent of seasons by players who were in the same era. That one or two players were also at the same level or superior should not be the primary metric to determine the strength of a season.

Statistically, there is no reason to think that McDavid would not have a reasonable chance to win the same ARs over OV in 07/08 and over Malkin in 08/09. As you said, it was close.

I think there are often more than one way to look at things, but even if you approach it black and white, if we're purely counting trophies (which seems like what we're doing) the absolute top end competition is highly relevant (which wouldn't be the case if we just compared how they fared "vs peers" and didn't make a huge fuss about finishing 1st or 2nd or 3rd in scoring). Even if the top30 guys even things out environment wise, having 2-3 more absolutely elite offensive players are going to affect any single one players chance of winning. Ovechkin cleaning up to the degree he did during his three year peak is very impressive to me. McDavid may or not may do the same, but adding another Ross this year wouldn't make it equivalent to Ovechkin's peak as far as I'm concerned.

 

[daver]

I think there are often more than one way to look at things, but even if you approach it black and white, if we're purely counting trophies (which seems like what we're doing) the absolute top end competition is highly relevant (which wouldn't be the case if we just compared how they fared "vs peers" and didn't make a huge fuss about finishing 1st or 2nd or 3rd in scoring). Even if the top30 guys even things out environment wise, having 2-3 more absolutely elite offensive players are going to affect any single one players chance of winning. Ovechkin cleaning up to the degree he did during his three year peak is very impressive to me. McDavid may or not may do the same, but adding another Ross this year wouldn't make it equivalent to Ovechkin's peak as far as I'm concerned.

We aren't comparing McDavid's first four years to OV's three year peak, which includes a season that was beyond Crosby's first four years.

You have not made any case as to why we should view Crosby's stats as being superior because he was up against OV and Malkin. I claim that McDavid would have been right there with those three if he started at the same time as Crosby based on how he dominated his peers (the Top 10 to 20 scorers) since he joined the league.

I wonder Future GOAT will finally 'like' me?

 

[bathdog]

We aren't comparing McDavid's first four years to OV's three year peak, which includes a season that was beyond Crosby's first four years.

You have not made any case as to why we should view Crosby's stats as being superior because he was up against OV and Malkin. I claim that McDavid would have been right there with those three if he started at the same time as Crosby based on how he dominated his peers (the Top 10 to 20 scorers) since he joined the league.

I wonder Future GOAT will finally 'like' me?

I haven't made a case for Crosby's stats being superior because I believe that McDavid's start, regular season wise, is actually greater than Crosby's. The point I was making was that parts of Crosby's first 4 years, the 2 latter ones to be specific, easily included tougher high end competition, so it's not as easy as counting number of Art Ross, which a lot of people are using as their main argument. Playoffs is what makes this debate really good but also hard to compare, and I'm usually pretty high on playoff performance.

 

[daver]

I haven't made a case for Crosby's stats being superior because I believe that McDavid's start, regular season wise, is actually greater than Crosby's. The point I was making was that parts of Crosby's first 4 years, the 2 latter ones to be specific, easily included tougher high end competition, so it's not as easy as counting number of Art Ross, which a lot of people are using as their main argument. Playoffs is what makes this debate really good but also hard to compare, and I'm usually pretty high on playoff performance.

It's not my argument so why are you responding to me? I clearly said that McDavid could win ARs in 07/08 or 08/09 or he could not win them as his two wins were pretty close to the same strength as OV's and Malkin's. Whether he hypothetically wins or loses those would not change how he would compare with Crosby.

I agree that playoffs, fair or not, cannot be simply ignored in this comparison. Regular season-wise, all things considered, I really don't think there is much to choose between them statistically. What is your argument for McDavid's being greater?

 

[bobbyking]

Great players, no doubt. But do you genuinely feel they are equivalent to Malkin/Ovechkin? And I think Kane generally doesn't get his due offensively.

Kane is currently on the wrong side of 30, but his career has largely overlapped, and since he entered the league he has...

...scored 1 points more than Malkin in 117 games more played.
...scored 82 points less than Ovechkin in 18 games less played - with Ovechkin not really having been a threat in the scoring race for nearly a decade.

They have lost in art ross races before . Even jagr did

 

[bathdog]

It's not my argument so why are you responding to me? I clearly said that McDavid could win ARs in 07/08 or 08/09 or he could not win them as his two wins were pretty close to the same strength as OV's and Malkin's. Whether he hypothetically wins or loses those would not change how he would compare with Crosby.

I agree that playoffs, fair or not, cannot be simply ignored in this comparison. Regular season-wise, all things considered, I really don't think there is much to choose between them statistically. What is your argument for McDavid's being greater?

That's a really good question, with a fairly simple answer. I didn't. It was you that started quoting me, it was only 7 posts prior to the one I'm responding to.

 

[daver]

That's a really good question, with a fairly simple answer. I didn't. It was you that started quoting me, it was only 7 posts prior to the one I'm responding to.

You are right. I am still questioning the validity of listing one or two players who they have competed with as a reason to pick one over the other as you seem to be doing.

You are saying that OV/Malkin > any of McDavid's peers with no context. I am saying that, statistically, OV and Malkin circa 07/08 and 08/09 were not putting up numbers or PPGs, relative to their peers, that we aren't also seeing in McDavid's era.

If you want to rank the best AR wins for the eight years in question, I would go:

Kane
Thornton/Crosby/Kucherov (obviously thru 51 games)
McDavid/McDavid/Malkin/OV

I think McDavid this season is pretty close production-wise to his other years, there just so happens to be one player who is clearly ahead.

 

[bathdog]

You are right. I am still questioning the validity of listing one or two players who they have competed with as a reason to pick one over the other as you seem to be doing.

You are saying that OV/Malkin > any of McDavid's peers with no context. I am saying that, statistically, OV and Malkin circa 07/08 and 08/09 were not putting up numbers or PPGs, relative to their peers, that we aren't also seeing in McDavid's era.

If you want to rank the best AR wins for the eight years in question, I would go:

Kane
Thornton/Crosby/Kucherov (obviously thru 51 games)
McDavid/McDavid/Malkin/OV

I think McDavid this season is pretty close production-wise to his other years, there just so happens to be one player who is clearly ahead.

No point going in circles with you.

 

[Beukeboom]

I struggle with this. 1-1 in Harts, but McDavid has two Arts and two Lindsays. That has to be deemed better than one+one and two "what ifs". So based off the hardware you'd have to go with McDavid.

Crosby on the other hand, had one long cup run and would go on to win in his forth season. Now he wouldn't have won if Pens back then would be like the Oilers today of course. But nevertheless he did perform great in the play offs.

I feel Crosby was a bit more well rounded in a sense. He was not dependent on one major skill.

Verdict. Things that have happened are better than things that "might" have happened. I think McDavid has had a better career up to season 3.5, but I do think Crosby was a better player.

Edit: Would be fun to check back after five seasons. Crosby's 08-09, and 09-10 were not very generational. To have two guys ahead of you and even worse, to loose to Sedin in his prime. That is unacceptable...

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

No one forgets. Those guys just don't really compare.

Peak Thornton>Mack and kucherov don’t kid yourself

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

I struggle with this. 1-1 in Harts, but McDavid has two Arts and two Lindsays. That has to be deemed better than one+one and two "what ifs". So based off the hardware you'd have to go with McDavid.

Crosby on the other hand, had one long cup run and would go on to win in his forth season. Now he wouldn't have won if Pens back then would be like the Oilers today of course. But nevertheless he did perform great in the play offs.

I feel Crosby was a bit more well rounded in a sense. He was not dependent on one major skill.

Verdict. Things that have happened are better than things that "might" have happened. I think McDavid has had a better career up to season 3.5, but I do think Crosby was a better player.

Edit: Would be fun to check back after five seasons. Crosby's 08-09, and 09-10 were not very generational. To have two guys ahead of you and even worse, to loose to Sedin in his prime. That is unacceptable...

31 points and 19 points in 13 games along with two top 3 scoring finishes is not unacceptable lol.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

Peak Thornton>Mack and kucherov don’t kid yourself

You quoted the wrong guy.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

I like and liked Crosby's game more. McDavid is obviously great, he's mainly about speed and being dynamic. Crosby was the best puck protector i've got to see and his ability to own pucks in the ozone and below the goal line does it for me.

Hockey porn for me....