If Crosby played in the 80s, 90s

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Apr 29, 2015
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Probably near or at the top of the players below Gretzky and Lemieux (ie. Yzerman, Sakic, Jagr, Forsberg, Bossy, Hawerchuk, Savard, Francis, Bure, Hull, Federov, Modano, Messier, etc.)

Hate Crosby with a passion but i respect what he has accomplished but i would still have a few in the parenthesis ahead of him as of right now.
 

Mbraunm

Registered User
Oct 19, 2016
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Hate Crosby with a passion but i respect what he has accomplished but i would still have a few in the parenthesis ahead of him as of right now.

I agree that some of these players (ie. Lafontaine, Kariya, Lindros, Selanne, Yzerman, Sakic, Jagr, Forsberg, Bossy, Hawerchuk, Savard, Francis, Bure, Hull, Federov, Modano, Messier, etc.) may outperform Crosby in any given year. However, I believe Crosby would be at, or in the top 3 of this group consistently, year in-year out.
 

Rec T

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Jun 1, 2007
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Now I'm not reading all five pages to check, but the first page seemed to ignore a couple of things. If Crosby was dropped into the late 80s/early90s & played the same way that he played when he first arrived....he'd now be sitting in a dark room somewhere as a complete vegetable.

1-2 games of all the whining, cup checks, knocking equipment away that he did early on would have Stevens et al. laying him out within the first couple minutes of their first game together. Crosby was/is a phenomenal talent, but god he was a whiny ****** when he first arrived in the NHL. With all the headhunting/massive hits that went on back then, he simply wouldn't have survived without drastically changing his attitude/game.

Would he still be one of the best (assuming his brain wasn't turned to mush...), sure. However you can't just say if 'x' played during 'y' then 'z' without looking at more than what 'x' has done during his own time & transposing it to 'y'.
 

billybudd

Registered User
Feb 1, 2012
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In the 80s, he's a 160 point player.

In the 90s, I'm not sure where he'd come in. He'd have to carry the puck less than he did earlier in his career and I don't know what that would do to his numbers. Then again, goaltending has improved since then, so he might produce basically what he does now.
 

billybudd

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Feb 1, 2012
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If Crosby was dropped into the late 80s/early90s & played the same way that he played when he first arrived....he'd now be sitting in a dark room somewhere as a complete vegetable.

1-2 games of all the whining, cup checks, knocking equipment away that he did early on would have Stevens et al. laying him out within the first couple minutes of their first game together. Crosby was/is a phenomenal talent, but god he was a whiny ****** when he first arrived in the NHL. With all the headhunting/massive hits that went on back then, he simply wouldn't have survived without drastically changing his attitude/game.

Revisionism.

Gretzky did the same **** early in his career. More aggressive with the stickwork, in fact.
 

billybudd

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Feb 1, 2012
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As for goalies, take any elite goalie from the 80's who played in DPA you would see their numbers get much better. It's about style of the game rather than modern goalies being superior. Creativity of old time forwards allowed them to create more dangerous scoring chances even with the hack and slash until the DPA, where because of several factors scoring went down.

Nah. 1980s goaltenders were near-universally smaller and used techniques that were flat-out inferior at stopping the puck (if stand-up, for example, was viable, somebody would still use it). It would be utterly impossible for a prime Kelly Hrudey to lock down a starter job for any team in the NHL in 2017.

Some of that has to do with equipment weight, but nobody who remembers the era would ever dispute that the overall mean and median athlete quality in goal has increased a lot since then. A top guy like Fuhr could maybe have figured something out (Roy, in particular, you can put down as an "almost definitely"), but a lot of 80s netminders wouldn't have a prayer of ever getting a look with a modern NHL team.

Darren Pang played 81 NHL games. There's no way he gets out of the ECHL these days. Possible he never even gets a contract offer for that league.
 

WiLBoY

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Aug 29, 2009
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If Crosby played in the 80's with the training and conditioning he has now, other players wouldn't even stand a chance.

All these old generation folks can't accept the fact that a lot of mediocre superstars are worse than Crosby.
 

joez86

Registered User
Jan 20, 2006
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Nah. 1980s goaltenders were near-universally smaller and used techniques that were flat-out inferior at stopping the puck (if stand-up, for example, was viable, somebody would still use it). It would be utterly impossible for a prime Kelly Hrudey to lock down a starter job for any team in the NHL in 2017.

Some of that has to do with equipment weight, but nobody who remembers the era would ever dispute that the overall mean and median athlete quality in goal has increased a lot since then. A top guy like Fuhr could maybe have figured something out (Roy, in particular, you can put down as an "almost definitely"), but a lot of 80s netminders wouldn't have a prayer of ever getting a look with a modern NHL team.

Darren Pang played 81 NHL games. There's no way he gets out of the ECHL these days. Possible he never even gets a contract offer for that league.
Technique cannot be looked at independent of equipment. Goalie size is also an equipment dependent issue.

I think the overall "athlete quality" in goal hasn't changed much, but what HAS changed quite a bit is the kind of athleticism/skills/traits required to be a good goaltender.

It used to be much more of a reflex, agility, and fearlessness based position than it is today, where the primary traits required are now body size, puck tracking ability, and "efficiency of movement" (IMO).

The improvements in equipment technology is probably responsible for at least 90% of the difference between the league where Darren Pang can play 81 NHL games and the league where Jacob Markstron has gotten into 100. Neither would make the NHL in the others era.
 

billybudd

Registered User
Feb 1, 2012
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Technique cannot be looked at independent of equipment. Goalie size is also an equipment dependent issue.

I think the overall "athlete quality" in goal hasn't changed much, but what HAS changed quite a bit is the kind of athleticism/skills/traits required to be a good goaltender.

It used to be much more of a reflex, agility, and fearlessness based position than it is today, where the primary traits required are now body size, puck tracking ability, and "efficiency of movement" (IMO).

The improvements in equipment technology is probably responsible for at least 90% of the difference between the league where Darren Pang can play 81 NHL games and the league where Jacob Markstron has gotten into 100. Neither would make the NHL in the others era.

You have to remember that there was a lot less money in goaltending in 1988 than there is now, both in an absolute sense and a relative sense. There was no netminder who made 3% less money than Wayne Gretzky, but I could certainly say that about Lundqvist/Crosby.

Because the earnings gap between positions has narrowed, it's attracting better athletes now (same is true on D). Guys who were pros in the 80s will joke about how they used to just put the worst guy in net when they were growing up. You don't hear that so much these days.
 

Canucks1096

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Feb 13, 2016
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I think for most people agree that Crosby is the 3rd best player with a lot of players challenging season by season. I agree he is the 3rd best player that but I think a lot players are close to him.

About Crosby Legacy. Playing behind 99 and 66 he will not get the spotlight and awards and ast won't be there as well. 1980 to 1994 only 99 and 66 won the Ross. From 1995 to 2001 on 66 and 68 won the Ross. Jagr peak is higher that Crosby. I think it's safe he won't get any Ross or maybe 1. The 90s with Selannae Bure Hull i think it safe to say he won't get any Rocket as well. For those of you who don't think his Legacy will be impacted. I completely disagree.

About his points total. One user wrote 160, 150, 150 to 200, 300 (not sure if that user is joking). Same as Lemieux which is 150 to 199. Those points total I completely disagree. Crosby a great player(what makes a great player is that his consistency of finding way to be in the top 3 in scoring) But the thing with Crosby is his peak is not that high. His highest point total was 120 but that point is inflated with all the pps being called after the lockout. His next highest point total is 109. So his peak is 109 points. A lot of players had a higher peak than Crosby. This era both Malkin and Ovechkin had higher peaks. I think even H Sedin as well. Kane as well considering there were less pps when he had his 106 points. Dpe Sakic Forsberg Jagr Selannae all had higher peaks than Crosby. So the question is if so many stars players peaks is better than Crosby now. Then why would you think Crosby peak will be better than other players in the 80s? Aside from 66 and 99 and Yzermen one year and Nicholls 1 year no one else hit else 150. Nicholls did because of 99. Crosby might get 150 in a career year but realisticly I see Crosby getting 115 to about 140 points in the 80s.
 
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