If Kuch and McD both get 100 assists

[nowhereman]

This is just wrong

Goals per game were over 3 in 2005 and started going down until McDavid and Matthews entered the league, then they have gradually gone up

The players drive this, and it’s not just McDavid and Matthews alone, but they are 1. The best player maybe ever and 2. The best goal scorer the league has seen in 30 years

Add on the rest of the talent and yes, talent disparity is a massive reason we are back in a new golden age for the NHL and its fans.

Look at the numbers and track when the big names came into the league, there is for sure correlation there

And unless the NHL makes goalie equipment a little bit smaller every year, you’d only see a single up tick year and then the goals would flatline.

We see a steady growth as the players get better and better throughout their careers. Matthews and McDavid et al are in their primes now and the whole league is feasting.

But those few outlier players drive these numbers, just as they did in the 80’s and 90’s

Sid and Ovie generation just sucked

Then, by that rationale, all of the stars from that era should have seen their production dip more dramatically with age. But, for many, it didn't. Instead, you have stars like Stamkos and Karlsson setting career highs in their 30s or Ovechkin winning Richards with as many goals as he had in his prime. If you don't think that goalie pad changes, expansion, reduced physicality and an overall focus on offense-first hasn't impacted the game, you're kidding yourself. Either that or JT Miller is a better offensive player than Malkin.

You can make the argument that this generation being more offensively talented is one of the factors that scoring is up but it's one of several factors and certainly nowhere near as big a factor as you're making it out to be, especially since the difference in talent isn't significant. And, I'm sorry, I have to laugh at you bringing up Matthews as a reason as to why scoring is up, while also saying that OV's era sucked — despite OV being on the verge of breaking the all-time goalscoring record.

 

[Offtheboard412]

I very quickly did base league goals per game for the blocks of seven years for an easy comparison. I wasn’t trying to account for everything (like even strength, power play and shorthanded separately as I normally do). I agree with most of your post though. Here are the best seasons of the salary cap era adjusted to the cap 19 year average.

2006 to 2024 (Salary cap era) League averages:
EVG: 2.11, PPG: 0.66, SHG: 0.09

Best seasons adjusted to the average:

‘21 McDavid:
56 GP: 34 G, 73 A, 107 P (1.91)

‘23 McDavid:
82 GP: 60 G, 86 A, 146 P (1.78)

‘24 Kucherov:
76 GP: 40 G, 88 A, 128 P (1.68)

‘24 McDavid:
74 GP: 29 G, 94 A, 123 P (1.66)

*‘11 Crosby:
41 GP: 33 G, 35 A, 68 P (1.66)

‘24 MacKinnon:
78 GP: 44 G, 81 A, 125 P (1.60)

‘12 Malkin:
75 GP: 54 G, 65 A, 119 P (1.59)

‘10 Ovechkin:
72 GP: 52 G, 60 A, 112 P (1.56)

‘19 Kucherov:
82 GP: 41 G, 87 A, 128 P (1.56)

‘20 Draisaitl:
71 GP: 43 G, 67 A, 110 P (1.55)

‘23 Draisaitl:
80 GP: 51 G, 73 A, 124 P (1.55)

These results respect your intuition that OV and Malkin are as good as MacKinnon this year and close to Kucherov (same with Sid) with McDavid being the outlier on another level entirely.

The best versions (in my opinion) of Gretzky and Lemieux adjusted to this cap average are as follows. They obviously would still be the 1 and 2 in any era

‘84 Gretzky:
74 GP: 62 G, 86 A, 148 P (2.00)

‘89 Lemieux:
76 GP: 61 G, 84 A, 145 P (1.91)

Seeing this just makes me sad all over again about how many injuries Crosby and Malkin dealt with. The Pens medical staff really botched Crosby's neck injury. They completely missed it and cost him the better part of 2 seasons because of it. He's had multiple concussions (2 in the same season!) since then and only missed 8 games total from them. I think that era probably looks a bit better if Crosby/OV/Malkin all managed to play full seasons in that 2010-2013 stretch. We probably would have seen 3 consecutive 120+ point seasons between them.

 

[DFC]

I don't? Care to explain it to me??

90% primary assists just means fewer secondary assists. You're saying the player should stop getting secondary assists.

 

[WalterLundy]

Seeing this just makes me sad all over again about how many injuries Crosby and Malkin dealt with. The Pens medical staff really botched Crosby's neck injury. They completely missed it and cost him the better part of 2 seasons because of it. He's had multiple concussions (2 in the same season!) since then and only missed 8 games total from them. I think that era probably looks a bit better if Crosby/OV/Malkin all managed to play full seasons in that 2010-2013 stretch. We probably would have seen 3 consecutive 120+ point seasons between them.

I agree. At least Malkin and Ovi got to have full peak seasons. In Crosby’s case I think 2011-13 are three consecutive 120-130 point seasons back then that would translate to 1.65 to 1.70 for this cap average list. The only guy that would have a three season average that is higher is McDavid.

I wish he’d have had the health at his peak for another reason on top of this. That being him getting to the top of the pens leaderboard for major stat categories. Even with Lemieux’s shortened career his totals are still sick and Crosby having the most goals, assists and points in franchise history is something I frankly believe he deserves for all the time he’s put in.

 

[nowhereman]

Seeing this just makes me sad all over again about how many injuries Crosby and Malkin dealt with. The Pens medical staff really botched Crosby's neck injury. They completely missed it and cost him the better part of 2 seasons because of it. He's had multiple concussions (2 in the same season!) since then and only missed 8 games total from them. I think that era probably looks a bit better if Crosby/OV/Malkin all managed to play full seasons in that 2010-2013 stretch. We probably would have seen 3 consecutive 120+ point seasons between them.

Crosby still managed to string together a few more dominant stretches after his head/neck/wrist injuries but he was never really the same. Hell, even his ankle sprain in 2008 seemed to permanently affect his skating going forward. I still feel he could have flirted with what McDavid is doing, had he not been run through the meat grinder to the extent that he was.

Stamkos also jumps out to me as a player whose entire career trajectory was impacted by a significant injury. He looked like he was going to challenge OV for the game's best goalscorer but that completely changed when he broke his leg.

It's a lot easier to criticize an era when several of its best talents were held back from reaching their true potential.

 

[Offtheboard412]

Crosby still managed to string together a few more dominant stretches after his head/neck/wrist injuries but he was never really the same. Hell, even his ankle sprain in 2008 seemed to permanently affect his skating going forward. I still feel he could have flirted with what McDavid is doing, had he not been run through the meat grinder to the extent that he was.

Stamkos also jumps out to me as a player whose entire career trajectory was impacted by a significant injury. He looked like he was going to challenge OV for the game's best goalscorer but that completely changed when he broke his leg.

It's a lot easier to criticize an era when several of its best talents were held back from reaching their true potential.

That's something that doesn't really get discussed much when talking about Crosby's career but I absolutely agree he never really played the same game after his ankle injury. I'm not sure if that was totally the cause of his skating decline, I think he also bulked up a bit and really leaned into the around the net/ board play part of his game. But man, you go back and watch his highlights from his first 2 seasons and you find yourself saying," Where the hell did THAT guy go?" I was sure we were going to see him have some 140-150 point seasons going forward. It didn't help that the league allowed many of the same problems that plagued the late 90's/ early 2000's to creep back into the game and scoring went way down again.

But it does make me kind of chuckle when people question those partial seasons. I'm not saying he was a lock to hit 130 every year but we definitely missed out on something special. We're talking about the best player of his generation, who was the league MVP and won the scoring title at 19 years of age. If anyone was going to have a ridiculous stretch like that, it was Crosby.

 

[johnnyonthspot]

90% primary assists just means fewer secondary assists. You're saying the player should stop getting secondary assists.

I am saying based on percentage of primary assists these two are up there with other known playmakers such as Mark Scheifiele whose primary assists account for 73% of his total. I do think secondary assists are typically meaningless .

 

[DFC]

I am saying based on percentage of primary assists these two are up there with other known playmakers such as Mark Scheifiele whose primary assists account for 73% of his total. I do think secondary assists are typically meaningless .

I understand, but using percentage is also meaningless.

 

[Regal]

I am saying based on percentage of primary assists these two are up there with other known playmakers such as Mark Scheifiele whose primary assists account for 73% of his total. I do think secondary assists are typically meaningless .

I suppose it’s fair criticism of the historical nature of these seasons if you don’t put any stock in secondaries, but keep in mind, no one other than Gretzky has more than 70 primary assists in a season.

 

[johnnyonthspot]

I understand, but using percentage is also meaningless.

It is not meaningless; it actually shows you who is getting the easier assist. I was shocked they were each over 70%
It is very impressive!

I suppose it’s fair criticism of the historical nature of these seasons if you don’t put any stock in secondaries, but keep in mind, no one other than Gretzky has more than 70 primary assists in a season.

I did not know that and it certainly puts things into perspective if they can each go over 70 primary assists as I said regardless they are in ratified air. I would rather see them do this than Auston McMaplesyrup get 70 goals

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

I suppose it’s fair criticism of the historical nature of these seasons if you don’t put any stock in secondaries, but keep in mind, no one other than Gretzky has more than 70 primary assists in a season.

Think thornton had 70 out of 96 in 06. Could be wrong though

 

[Regal]

Think thornton had 70 out of 96 in 06. Could be wrong though

Yup. Thornton in ‘96 and Lemieux in ‘89 both had 70 and are the two highest outside of Gretzky.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Then, by that rationale, all of the stars from that era should have seen their production dip more dramatically with age. But, for many, it didn't. Instead, you have stars like Stamkos and Karlsson setting career highs in their 30s or Ovechkin winning Richards with as many goals as he had in his prime. If you don't think that goalie pad changes, expansion, reduced physicality and an overall focus on offense-first hasn't impacted the game, you're kidding yourself. Either that or JT Miller is a better offensive player than Malkin.

You can make the argument that this generation being more offensively talented is one of the factors that scoring is up but it's one of several factors and certainly nowhere near as big a factor as you're making it out to be, especially since the difference in talent isn't significant. And, I'm sorry, I have to laugh at you bringing up Matthews as a reason as to why scoring is up, while also saying that OV's era sucked — despite OV being on the verge of breaking the all-time goalscoring record.

This was the response I was going to write to the other poster. If there's so much more talent in the league, and the previous generation "sucked", why are so many players from the previous generation aging like fine wine? This wouldn't be possible if the previous generation has been surpassed by a newer, more talented group of players.

On the contrary, it supports the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats - players like Crosby, Ovechkin and Pavelski (among others) are putting up numbers that are much better then they "should" be at this stage in their career. That's partly because they're great athletes (obviously) - but it's also partly because they're playing in a higher scoring league.

The idea that McDavid is somehow singlehandedly raised leaguewide scoring is nonsensical. If we replace McDavid with an average #1 centre who scored 80 points, the leaguewide scoring average changes by less than 1%.

 

[MadLuke]

We haven't seen an era of scoring like this since the 80s and it's skewing perceptions (i.e. see the "Crosby vs. MacKinnon" thread from a couple weeks back).

Is scoring now higher than 90-96 or 2006 ?

Average team is at 3.09 goal a game
2005-2006: 3.02
1995-1996: 3.15

Big 3 aside this year, 4 to 10 top ppg:

4.	Artemi Panarin • NYR	1.47
5.	David Pastrňák • BOS	1.37
6.	Leon Draisaitl • EDM	1.34
7.	Auston Matthews • TOR	1.33
8.	Mikko Rantanen • COL	1.32
9.	Kirill Kaprizov • MIN	1.27
10.	William Nylander • TOR	1.26

2006:

4.	Jason Spezza • OTT	1.32
5.	Alex Ovechkin • WSH	1.31
6.	Sidney Crosby • PIT	1.26
7.	Ilya Kovalchuk • ATL	1.26
8.	Dany Heatley • OTT	1.26
9.	Peter Forsberg* • PHI	1.25
10.	Eric Staal • CAR	1.22

1996:

4.	Ron Francis* • PIT	1.55
5.	Joe Sakic* • COL	1.46
6.	Peter Forsberg* • COL	1.41
7.	Sergei Fedorov* • DET	1.37
8.	Teemu Selänne* • 2TM	1.37
9.	Alexander Mogilny • VAN	1.35
10.	Mark Messier* • NYR	1.34

SCoring is high yes but probably around the post expension average/good, not specially high like the 80s or 92/93, more like 1995-1996 or 2005-2006

 

[Video Nasty]

Then, by that rationale, all of the stars from that era should have seen their production dip more dramatically with age. But, for many, it didn't. Instead, you have stars like Stamkos and Karlsson setting career highs in their 30s or Ovechkin winning Richards with as many goals as he had in his prime.

It must really perplex you that Sakic at 31 scored 3 more goals and just 2 less points in a scoring environment similar to 2013-2014 than he did at age 26 in a scoring environment similar to this season.