Crosby vs Ovechkin - Pick a player moving forward after 2009-2010 - no hindsight available

[filinski77]

Well - I think being "hockey media's golden-child" counts in my choosing of who I pick. I'll certainly admit I get influenced by the media somewhat.

The 2 years younger is extremely relevant too. Players are usually only good until a certain age. The one whose 2 years younger usually has 2 more seasons/elite seasons left than the older one.

Again, only 1 draft year older. If 2 players were to have been drafted in the same year, one was 23, and only 10 months older than the guy who was 22, trying to say that the 10 month older dude has an advantage would be silly. They both grew up playing the exact same amounts of minor hockey, junior/pro hockey etc.

The 10 months do not make a difference with elite athletes who came in and dominated straight out of the gate. In fact, you would probably be laughed at for trying to make a claim that the 10 months is the excuse for one guy being better than the other, especially if they were in the same draft.

So age difference comes down to 1 draft year. That's it. If you really wouldn't take the guy who was easily the better player for 80% of the time in the 5 years before making that choice, because 1 guy is ONE draft year younger, then that's just silly.

 

[Gurglesons]

Draisaitl being on the same team is extremely trivial and irrelevant to the point I was conveying. The same thing could be used if Kucherov was only 1 draft year older, and had won 3 straight Pearsons.

What in the 2009 playoffs were Ovechkin's fault? Ovechkin lead that Pens/Caps series in points and goals, no way it was his fault. As mentioned above, the only disappointment in those playoffs were the Caps team not playing well (not Ovechkin), and Malkin having almost 3x as many points as Crosby in the Cup final series.

What disappointment in the 2010 playoffs? Ovechkin had 5g 10p in 7 games against Montreal, who then went on to beat Pittsburgh in 7 games as well, only difference is Crosby had half the points against the Habs that Ovi did against them. Caps lost because Price had a .939 Sv% and carried that team. If anything Crosby had inflated stats in the 2010 playoffs due to stomping on Ottawa's trash goaltending.

The Olympic thing is a terrible argument too, Crosby was not one of the best players on that team at all, and as mentioned earlier, only had 1 point in the 3 elimination games for Canada that year, and it was an extremely lucky (but memorable and important) goal. Canada was an absolute powerhouse of a team compared to the other teams in the olympics.

The Penguins and Team Canada being better teams does not make up for the fact that Ovechkin had 4/5 better head to head seasons, as well as 3 straight Pearsons. Not even close.

Funny how we start viewing elimination games when someone is a proven winner, but we go off raw point production when the player doesn’t have the wins to back it up.

Price wasn’t the goalie in the Habs series, but I imagine you didn’t watch the NHL at that point.

 

[filinski77]

Funny how we start viewing elimination games when someone is a proven winner, but we go off raw point production when the player doesn’t have the wins to back it up.

Price wasn’t the goalie in the Habs series, but I imagine you didn’t watch the NHL at that point.

1) Only using elimination games because half of the Olympics is played against non-NHL players, so I don't personally see much value on that.

2) My mistake, I typed that response up pretty quickly, and actually had the stats up to be able to pull an exact sv%. It was obviously a clerical error, no need to start throwing rocks by saying I don't watch hockey.

 

[Gurglesons]

1) Only using elimination games because half of the Olympics is played against non-NHL teams, so I don't personally see much value on that.

2) My mistake, I typed that response up pretty quickly, and actually had the stats up to be able to pull an exact sv%. It was obviously a clerical error, no need to start throwing rocks by saying I don't watch hockey.

Funny how the player that so routinely shutdown the Caps individually can’t even be remembered.

The Caps lost that series because of systematic changes throughout. Not solely Halak.

 

[filinski77]

Funny how the player that so routinely shutdown the Caps individually can’t even be remembered.

The Caps lost that series because of systematic changes throughout. Not solely Halak.

What part of clerical error did you not get? I mixed up a name when typing out a fairly lengthy post, and instead of you trying to substantiate any actual rebuttal to any of my points, you've just made 2 personal digs at me that had no merit.

Have a good day dude, but you are obviously not trying to have any type of meaningful conversation here about this topic.

 

[KoozNetsOff 92]

Nah.

Also the "Crosby wasn't around in the ECF and SCF" is wrong.

Lol exactly. You've thrown out shit arguments all thread (I'm not the first one to say that) and come back with "nah" when presented with facts.

I never once mentioned any ECF but I guess when you know your "argument" is garbage and it blew up in your face, you have to make up random bs.

 

[Voight]

Nobody thought this way in 2010 and a lot of it is used in hindsight to discredit Crosby for some odd reason.

I vividly remember Crosby getting criticism for being a non-factor in half the tournament. Since the team was still winning games (thanks to others) and playing well on home ice, there wasn't as much criticism but there was a good group asking why the alleged "best player in the world" was playing so bad.

Why is it odd that its allegedly being used in hindsight to discredit him? People love to bring up how "great" he was in the 2010 Olympics when the reality is he was quite disappointing and wasnt even TC's best player. It gets brought up because people say things like "stellar performances in high stakes games" when that is in fact false. He was an absolute non-factor in the two games preceding the Gold Medal game.

 

[Voight]

Nah.

Also the "Crosby wasn't around in the ECF and SCF" is wrong.

Not really.... he scored 3 points in 7 games in the 2009 SCF. Out scored by Max Talbot, scored the same as Tyler Kenendy & Ruslan Fedotenko. It was a paltry performance.

 

[bobholly39]

Not really.... he scored 3 points in 7 games in the 2009 SCF. Out scored by Max Talbot, scored the same as Tyler Kenendy & Ruslan Fedotenko. It was a paltry performance.

All the Crosby bashing is so ridiculous and annoying. This gets brought up constantly, over and over again. Any thread where Crosby is mentioned and playoffs are brought up "2009 finals, he didn't do well, only 3 points".

You know the Pittsburgh Penguins have made 4 finals since 2008 right? Here is Malkin's statline in those finals:

8 points
4 points
3 points
3 points

Crosby in the finals has:

8 points
6 points
4 points (2 in cup clinching game)
3 points

Unless my math is wrong, that's 18 points in 25 games for Malkin, vs 21 points in 25 games for Crosby.

No one ever talks about Malkin in a bad light for playoffs or finals though. Just Crosby.

Crosby isn't the best player in every single game of his career. If you look hard enough, you'll find some samples where someone outperformed him. Such as the 2009 finals. But 2009 playoffs overall, he's still very easily a top 2 player overall, and quite close to Malkin.

Crosby outscored Fedotenko, Talbot and Kennedy by 17, 18, and 22 points respectively in those playoffs. I'm going to go out on a huge limb here and say it's safe to say Crosby was the better player in the 2009 playoffs.

 

[bobholly39]

I vividly remember Crosby getting criticism for being a non-factor in half the tournament. Since the team was still winning games (thanks to others) and playing well on home ice, there wasn't as much criticism but there was a good group asking why the alleged "best player in the world" was playing so bad.

Why is it odd that its allegedly being used in hindsight to discredit him? People love to bring up how "great" he was in the 2010 Olympics when the reality is he was quite disappointing and wasnt even TC's best player. It gets brought up because people say things like "stellar performances in high stakes games" when that is in fact false. He was an absolute non-factor in the two games preceding the Gold Medal game.

Crosby played well in the 2010 Olympics. Saying he played bad is revisionist history. People had ridiculous expectations of him - and they thought he'd dominate like Gretzky did. Outscore everyone, combined, by a lot, in every game. If that's your bar for playing "good" and anything less is "bad" - than sure, he was bad.

No he wasn't team Canada's best player. Again - if that's the standard he's held to - if he's the best it's a good performance, if he's not the best it's a bad performance - well sorry to say he's going to be bad a lot.

Crosby is no Gretzky. But it doesn't mean he played bad. And he stepped up big time with a huge goal, one of the biggest ever.

Nobody ever says Paul Henderson had a bad Summit Series.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Good question. Normally I'd say take the center over the winger every time but Ovechkin was such a force that I think he negates that factor (at least somewhat). I'm also having trouble remembering... did Crosby have concussion/injury issues prior to 2010 or were all of those after? Are we also taking into account who would have been better for their team with the rosters constructed the way they were in 2010? If so, I'm not sure adding Crosby and removing Ovechkin would have been the right move for the Caps, though Backstrom and Crosby as a 1-2 center punch would have been a sight to see.

Regardless, both players exceeded their hype and potential which is a rarity in sports and a testament to both of them. Couldn't go wrong either way.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Considering ovechkin fell off a cliff after 09-10 answer is easy Crosby

 

[daver]

Crosby clearly had a SC hangover at the start of 09/10.

Here is how he did after he got going that year until his concussion next season:

NHL.com Stats

Compare this with OV's best run:

NHL.com Stats

The gap between them and their teammates is significantly different.

 

[Gurglesons]

Not really.... he scored 3 points in 7 games in the 2009 SCF. Out scored by Max Talbot, scored the same as Tyler Kenendy & Ruslan Fedotenko. It was a paltry performance.

In 3 of the games Crosby did not score in the Penguins had a total of two goals.

In a pivotal G3 and G4 Crosby scored and assisted on the GWG to bring the series back to Detroit. He played 1 period in G7 before injury.

There is a case for Crosby over Malkin in 2008-09 if you look past Malkin’s ridiculous point totals and view the type of heavy lifting Sid was doing comparatively to Geno at ES.

This exactly like the 2016 garbage where people try to say “well he didn’t show in in the SCF” in 2009, but then try to prop up Phil Kessel who had very little impact on the SCF in 2016 compared to Sid who was basically since the ECF that year responsible for 50% of the GWG to win them the cup.

 

[Gurglesons]

I vividly remember Crosby getting criticism for being a non-factor in half the tournament. Since the team was still winning games (thanks to others) and playing well on home ice, there wasn't as much criticism but there was a good group asking why the alleged "best player in the world" was playing so bad.

Why is it odd that its allegedly being used in hindsight to discredit him? People love to bring up how "great" he was in the 2010 Olympics when the reality is he was quite disappointing and wasnt even TC's best player. It gets brought up because people say things like "stellar performances in high stakes games" when that is in fact false. He was an absolute non-factor in the two games preceding the Gold Medal game.

There was a group asking that. Then as usual Sid iced the GWG in OT and all that criticism was gone aside from those that like to use “but it’s a team game” while also propping up point totals in series.

If it is “a team game” and winning series doesn’t matter why do we not take into account that Sid is always playing against the toughest competition and always playing on the top line when judging his point production?

 

[Voight]

Crosby played well in the 2010 Olympics. Saying he played bad is revisionist history. People had ridiculous expectations of him - and they thought he'd dominate like Gretzky did. Outscore everyone, combined, by a lot, in every game. If that's your bar for playing "good" and anything less is "bad" - than sure, he was bad.

No he wasn't team Canada's best player. Again - if that's the standard he's held to - if he's the best it's a good performance, if he's not the best it's a bad performance - well sorry to say he's going to be bad a lot.

Crosby is no Gretzky. But it doesn't mean he played bad. And he stepped up big time with a huge goal, one of the biggest ever.

Nobody ever says Paul Henderson had a bad Summit Series.

He arguably didn't play well when you consider his skill level. He beat up on some typically bad teams and then was nowhere to be found when Canada needed to beat Russia then Slovakia to advance. People just look at the points total and assume he ahd a good tournament but when you analyze the whole thing, it was nothing special.

Paul Henderson was never expected to have a good Summit Series. He was far from one of the best players in the league. Fortunately for him, he was in the right place at the right time much like Crosby. (lets not pretend like the goal was a goal nobody else on the team could've scored).

In 3 of the games Crosby did not score in the Penguins had a total of two goals.

In a pivotal G3 and G4 Crosby scored and assisted on the GWG to bring the series back to Detroit. He played 1 period in G7 before injury.

There is a case for Crosby over Malkin in 2008-09 if you look past Malkin’s ridiculous point totals and view the type of heavy lifting Sid was doing comparatively to Geno at ES.

This exactly like the 2016 garbage where people try to say “well he didn’t show in in the SCF” in 2009, but then try to prop up Phil Kessel who had very little impact on the SCF in 2016 compared to Sid who was basically since the ECF that year responsible for 50% of the GWG to win them the cup.

He had 3 points in 7 games. There is no excusing that. A player of his caliber should have performed much better.

There was a group asking that. Then as usual Sid iced the GWG in OT and all that criticism was gone aside from those that like to use “but it’s a team game” while also propping up point totals in series.

"As usal" meanwhile he has the same amount of OT GWG as Daniel Sedin and Patrik Elias, one more than Brad Marchand.

The criticism wasnt gone. People were just more focused on celebrating Canada winning Gold on home ice. There is criticism now because its been 10 years and most of us have had time to properly analyze it and have discussions.

 

[Voight]

Considering ovechkin fell off a cliff after 09-10 answer is easy Crosby

Winning a Hart Trophy & leading the league in goals 7 times = fell of a cliff.

 

[Varan]

Considering ovechkin fell off a cliff after 09-10 answer is easy Crosby

No hindsight my guy, meaning pretend this is October 2010 right now

 

[Gurglesons]

He arguably didn't play well when you consider his skill level. He beat up on some typically bad teams and then was nowhere to be found when Canada needed to beat Russia then Slovakia to advance. People just look at the points total and assume he ahd a good tournament but when you analyze the whole thing, it was nothing special.

Paul Henderson was never expected to have a good Summit Series. He was far from one of the best players in the league. Fortunately for him, he was in the right place at the right time much like Crosby. (lets not pretend like the goal was a goal nobody else on the team could've scored).



He had 3 points in 7 games. There is no excusing that. A player of his caliber should have performed much better.



"As usal" meanwhile he has the same amount of OT GWG as Daniel Sedin and Patrik Elias, one more than Brad Marchand.

The criticism wasnt gone. People were just more focused on celebrating Canada winning Gold on home ice. There is criticism now because its been 10 years and most of us have had time to properly analyze it and have discussions.

Nothing about Crosby’s legacy is properly analyzed at this point because there are a ton of built in narratives about the Penguins from rival fan bases.

After he retires people will begin to grasp what Crosby’s legacy is and the fact very few can match up to what he had done at the age he was at the end of 09-10.

 

[Varan]

Crosby clearly had a SC hangover at the start of 09/10.

Here is how he did after he got going that year until his concussion next season:

NHL.com Stats

Compare this with OV's best run:

NHL.com Stats

The gap between them and their teammates is significantly different.

“Hangover” where was his hangover at the start of the 16/17 season? Stop making excuses

 

[Voight]

Nothing about Crosby’s legacy is properly analyzed at this point because there are a ton of built in narratives about the Penguins from rival fan bases.

After he retires people will begin to grasp what Crosby’s legacy is and the fact very few can match up to what he had done at the age he was at the end of 09-10.

 

[Gurglesons]

Oh the irony of rating one of the best players of all time in the NHL above everyone from his era when his production and PPG are light years better than everyone besides his team mate..

But, “he doesn’t play defense really” or he only had 3 points in a six game stretch during 15 goal + 30 pt playoff run. Please.

 

[bobholly39]

He arguably didn't play well when you consider his skill level. He beat up on some typically bad teams and then was nowhere to be found when Canada needed to beat Russia then Slovakia to advance. People just look at the points total and assume he ahd a good tournament but when you analyze the whole thing, it was nothing special.

Paul Henderson was never expected to have a good Summit Series. He was far from one of the best players in the league. Fortunately for him, he was in the right place at the right time much like Crosby. (lets not pretend like the goal was a goal nobody else on the team could've scored).



He had 3 points in 7 games. There is no excusing that. A player of his caliber should have performed much better.



"As usal" meanwhile he has the same amount of OT GWG as Daniel Sedin and Patrik Elias, one more than Brad Marchand.

The criticism wasnt gone. People were just more focused on celebrating Canada winning Gold on home ice. There is criticism now because its been 10 years and most of us have had time to properly analyze it and have discussions.

The first bolded is what's wrong with you and many Crosby bashers on this site. Why are you double-dipping when it comes to analyzing his play?

Define what "plays well" means. Certain amount of points? Points per game? In each game? You pick - i won't even argue. But here's the kicker - apply the same method of evaluation to all players. I'm sure Crosby, if he won't be the best, will be one of the best, as he always is.

Did Connor McDavid have a good season in 2020? Absolutely. Or are you going to say "no it was a bad season - I expected him to score 140 points"? That would be idiotic.

The second bolded - I notice how you conveniently ignored my previous response to you on the 3 points in the finals. Do you know Malkin in 3 finals had performances of 3, 3 and 4 points? His 2009 performance of 8 points in the finals also matches Crosby's best. Is Malkin also a poor playoff performer?

Or - you do the sensible thing - and don't so narrowly focus on one specific stretch that makes a player look bad. 31 points in the 2009 playoffs is a great performance. So if you look at Crosby as a playoff performer after 2009, you think "wow, great playoff performance". You don't look at the 7 game finals and say otherwise.

“Hangover” where was his hangover at the start of the 16/17 season? Stop making excuses

I didn't read it as an "excuse", more of an observation. I agree that's no excuse. But regardless of reason why he didn't do as well at start of 2010 season - his pace that he quoted is absolutely insane.

 

[filinski77]

The first bolded is what's wrong with you and many Crosby bashers on this site. Why are you double-dipping when it comes to analyzing his play?

Define what "plays well" means. Certain amount of points? Points per game? In each game? You pick - i won't even argue. But here's the kicker - apply the same method of evaluation to all players. I'm sure Crosby, if he won't be the best, will be one of the best, as he always is.

Did Connor McDavid have a good season in 2020? Absolutely. Or are you going to say "no it was a bad season - I expected him to score 140 points"? That would be idiotic.

The second bolded - I notice how you conveniently ignored my previous response to you on the 3 points in the finals. Do you know Malkin in 3 finals had performances of 3, 3 and 4 points? His 2009 performance of 8 points in the finals also matches Crosby's best. Is Malkin also a poor playoff performer?

Or - you do the sensible thing - and don't so narrowly focus on one specific stretch that makes a player look bad. 31 points in the 2009 playoffs is a great performance. So if you look at Crosby as a playoff performer after 2009, you think "wow, great playoff performance". You don't look at the 7 game finals and say otherwise.



I didn't read it as an "excuse", more of an observation. I agree that's no excuse. But regardless of reason why he didn't do as well at start of 2010 season - his pace that he quoted is absolutely insane.

I could be wrong, but I think the intent is never to bash Crosby as a starting point, but rather to refute people bashing Ovechkin. It is a lot easier to find Pens fans, and homer Canadians who will absolutely shit on Ovechkin with no merit to their reasoning (if any was even given). Most Ovechkin fans are completely able to praise Crosby for how great he was, and are willing to even admit that Crosby was a better player for longer.

The main arguments for them being close all time is that Ovechkin had a higher peak that was full, and his legacy as the leagues (potential) best goalscorer of all time.

The issue is when other people need to bash Ovechkin, because they feel threatened that there are actual good arguments for Ovi as well:
- People shit on Ovechkin for not being good in the playoffs - so a counter argument will of course to bring up Crosbys stats in the cup finals etc.
- People shit on Ovechkin for not having enough international success - so of course its reasonable to state how Crosby's olympics require a ton of context as well
- People will claim that Crosby peaked higher than Ovechkin because of his partial seasons - so for sure a counter will be to bring up how Ovechkin had more dominating 'part seasons', (and full seasons as well)

The issue is that whenever someone tries to present a logical argument for why Ovechkin may have an upper hand in some aspect of a subject, people start just insulting and get way out of hand to defend Crosby.

 

[Video Nasty]

No one ever talks about Malkin in a bad light for playoffs or finals though. Just Crosby.

Crosby isn't the best player in every single game of his career. If you look hard enough, you'll find some samples where someone outperformed him. Such as the 2009 finals. But 2009 playoffs overall, he's still very easily a top 2 player overall, and quite close to Malkin.

A lot of what you say makes sense. I think the difference is that no one is trying to say or convince others that Malkin is top 5 all time. Any contender for top 5 is going to be more scrutinized, as they should.