GM Sakic and Yzerman

[Cursed Lemon]

but their paths were also very different

Okay so that's one difference.

 

[Dotter]

LOL, Sakic was the superior player, he was more clutch and clearly a better leader than Yzerman but okay...

Clearly. You dominating that :rollseyes: emoji! Clearly!

 

[Mickey Marner]

It would be interesting if Detroit were still out west. As is, it's simply neat nostalgia.

 

[Frosty415]

LOL, Sakic was the superior player, he was more clutch and clearly a better leader than Yzerman but okay...

Sorry bud, Yzerman was CLEARLY better

 

[Claypool]

Yzerman was and is better than Sakic, just like Detroit was and will always be better than Colorado.

God, it must suck being an Avs fan.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

Clearly. You dominating that :rollseyes: emoji! Clearly!

Sorry bud, Yzerman was CLEARLY better

Nope, Sakic was CLEARLY better, deal with it.

Yzerman was and is better than Sakic, just like Detroit was and will always be better than Colorado.

God, it must suck being an Avs fan.

LOL Someone is salty here. This is why the Avalanche is in the second round and the Dead Wings are... Dead Wings.

God, it must really suck to be a Dead Wings fan.

 

[FissionFire]

Their career totals may look similar - but their career paths are actually not that similar at all. Which is what I took the first post to mean.

Yzerman was an offensive guru up to age 27-28 or so. Then he became more of a defense player - still great offense, but significantly less than before. And in his last few seasons his offense dried up even more.

Sakic peaked offensively at age 31. He also had a 100 point season at age 37. He also combined Selke defense and league leading offense (#2) at same time in 2001, whereas with Yzerman in his career it was usually either/or.

In terms of playoffs - Sakic has the best single run between the 2 by far. Yzerman has very strong playoffs overall, but he was never a world beater come playoff-time, Sakic has a bit of an edge there.

Of course there are similarities between the 2 - but their career arcs/path are actually not all that similar. I stand by my initial comment.

You make some points but I will say Salic was not ever an excellent/Selke-caliber defensive forward. Sure, maybe he got votes back then when the standard for voting was VERY different (plus/minus was still considered a great indicator of defensive play for example) but he was never better than an average to slightly above average defensive player. There were at least a half dozen guys on his own team head and shoulders above him defensively every season of his career.

 

[LeafsNation75]

For people who watched during the 70s, I'm sure Philadelphia GM Bobby Clarke versus Montreal GM Bob Gainey was pretty interesting.

LA has former captain Rob Blake as GM but they didn't win Cups with him, Boston has Don Sweeney but he was never captain.

He's not their GM but don't forget about how Toronto has Brendan Shanahan as their team President. After all Shanahan and Yzerman were on the same Red Wings teams that went up against Sakic and Colorado when both teams hated each other.

 

[Helistin]

I think they are pretty close. Only clear advantage I see is Yzerman was superior talent in operating snow removal equipment.

 

[PullHard]

Wings fan:

Yzerman better overall career IMO

Sakic had a really amazing peak though, kind of reminds me of Fedorov in that sense (meaning their career year(s) showed an extremely dominant stretch of complete 200 foot game)

Yzerman also an amazing 200 foot player by the end of his career but he had more of a transition from extremely offensively oriented to being more defensively oriented - They are pretty darn similar players but as mentioned in this thread not identical, especially if you're looking at career arcs.

If you want to really get down to the nitty gritty you can say Sakic had edge in terms of points per/ goals per but Yzerman has that 3rd cup - really close either way you slice it

Sakic had a little bit more luck in terms of injuries, Sakic was pretty good almost right up until the end when his career ended with the freak injury. Yzerman had injuries that were pretty significant that he played through/ came back from at the end of his career - kind of diminishes his offensive totals but I mean you can't knock Sakic for being healthy at the same time, durability is a factor that Sakic had going for him

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

If you want to really get down to the nitty gritty you can say Sakic had edge in terms of points per/ goals per but Yzerman has that 3rd cup - really close either way you slice it

Wow... Individual accomplishment vs team accomplishment. One has an Hart and Pearson and the other one doesn't.

 

[wayninja]

Both of these guys were generational talents for their respective clubs and put up MONSTER numbers. It's almost a crapshoot to choose one who is clearly better. Yzerman had the better career, but I think it's also fair that he played for a team that was consistently better season-to-season too. Which is actually a trick, since the Avs in that time period were damn good, the wings were just the best of that era.

If I had to pick ONE guy to carry my club all things being equal, I'd probably choose Sakic, but I'm biased.

 

[PullHard]

Wow... Individual accomplishment vs team accomplishment. One has an Hart and Pearson and the other one doesn't.

Pretty much yeah - that was the case with the Wings for ~20 years

Not too many players had Hart/ Art Ross/ Richard type seasons between early 90s and early 2010s but think about the guys on those teams - Yzerman, Hull (admittedly at the end of his career but still a huge goal scoring threat), Lidstrom, etc.

Lidstrom got the Norris votes but not many forwards got recognition across the league as "the best" and that goes from Yzerman/ Shanahan/ Fedorov era into Zetterberg/ Datsyuk era .... but those teams were always a threat to win cups and did with two different sets of cores (Lidstrom being the holdover)

Sakic still had some great teammates in Forsberg, peak Tanguay, peak Hejduk, Blake, Foote, etc. but they typically looked a touch shallower on paper in terms of their 3rd/4th lines and Detroit obviously had the ownership factor.

These are all things I'm stating that are typically used to discredit Yzerman and boost Sakic - it is a classic individual vs team argument and it will be interesting if it is ever definitively answered. I think Sakic has the better peak but Yzerman better career.

 

[TheAngryHank]

Nope, Sakic was CLEARLY better, deal with it.


View attachment 218289
LOL Someone is salty here. This is why the Avalanche is in the second round and the Dead Wings are... Dead Wings.

God, it must really suck to be a Dead Wings fan.

Keep drafting those 1st overalls..
Lets not forget how historically bad the Avs were after the cap.
Don't make me break out The Mule to terrorize the Avalanche some more

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

Keep drafting those 1st overalls..
Lets not forget how historically bad the Avs were after the cap.
Don't make me break out The Mule to terrorize the Avalanche some more

Ya and lets not forget how historically bad the Wings were in the 70's and 80's when there was even not a cap lol.

Who cares about The Mule, we have a Forsberg to terrorize the Red Wings some more.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

These are all things I'm stating that are typically used to discredit Yzerman and boost Sakic - it is a classic individual vs team argument and it will be interesting if it is ever definitively answered. I think Sakic has the better peak but Yzerman better career.

Please tell me how Yzerman had a better career than Sakic when the latter has more individual awards (and 1st All-Star Team selections) than the former?

 

[PullHard]

Please tell me how Yzerman had a better career than Sakic when the latter has more individual awards (and 1st All-Star Team selections) than the former?

I just wrote two obnoxiously long posts basically explaining why I thought exactly that - I'm not sure what more you would want me to write?

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

I just wrote two obnoxiously long posts basically explaining why I thought exactly that - I'm not sure what more you would want me to write?

What you basically said in your posts was that the Red Wings was a better team than the Avalanche overall and it was the reason why Yzerman did have more team accomplishments (Stanley Cups) than Sakic, that's it. You also said that Sakic had the better peak but Yzerman the better career when it's not because one has more individual awards than the other one.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

Please tell me how Yzerman had a better career than Sakic when the latter has more individual awards (and 1st All-Star Team selections) than the former?

1755 is greater than 1641
3 is greater than 2

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

1755 is greater than 1641
3 is greater than 2

LOL Team accomplishment again...

One Hart and one Pearson greater than 0. Concerning total points career, one had played in the 80's and the other one did not and still scored 100 points at the age of 37.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

LOL Team accomplishment again...

One Hart and one Pearson greater than 0. Concerning total points career, one had played in the 80's and the other did not and still scored 100 points at the age of 37.

Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

Whatever you gotta tell yourself to sleep at night

Yep, the truth indeed but good night with your false belief that Yzerman > Sakic.

 

[New Scotland]

Yzerman was and is better than Sakic.

Nope.

Detroit was and will always be better than Colorado.

Nope.

God, it must suck being an Avs fan.

This one I can agree on. As an Avs fan, it does suck. Nothing exciting happening with them at all, no true star players ... stuck on the couch watching the playoff teams

 

[Hasbro]

Maybe this is the year Sakic starts getting some credit as a GM

Won a series, one of the youngest teams in the league, outstanding cap management, #4 pick at the draft etc.

Outside of cgf he has.

 

[Tuna Tatarrrrrr]

This one I can agree on. As an Avs fan, it does suck. Nothing exciting happening with them at all, no true star players ... stuck on the couch watching the playoff teams

Hahaha, this is so Dead Wings thing.