Ted Leonsis: We will do everything to help Ovi to beat Gretzky's goals record

[User9992]

But that’s how great Gretzky was. The goal scoring record is so hard to break yet it is one of Gretzky easiest records to break in comparison to his other records. 160 assists in a season for instance.

160 assists are impossible in modern circumstances. 80's and early 90's were all-time high scoring eras where Gretzky did most of his scoring records.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

I'm 42. Just a huge fan of Gretzky, don't want to see it broken. Not all fans want to see it broken either.

Nah. I'd like to see modern day record.

Also then it's possible to break again and someone else will try to take down Ovechkins record.

 

[Leafs1991]

I don’t actually think that. I wasn’t making a declaration. I was simply reversing the ridiculousness of people like you who think accomplishments in those days don’t count as much as they do today in the hopes that you’d see it. You ignore the equipment, training, medicine, rule changes, etc of today as though if Ovechkin played in the 80’s, he’d already have 1000 goals. Sure, if he had all the advantages of today and the others didn’t, yeah he’d have the most goals. In reality, no way he’d be playing into his 40’s. It’s only easier to score in those days if you had today’s advantages.

Have you seen the old hockey highlights and terrible the goalies and defense were? Some Gretzky's goals wouldn't have gone in if goalies were actually competent. A lot of his goals, in the end, aren't that impressive. It was incredibly easy to score back then. Yeah, those accomplishments aren't as significant. Hockey is a lot harder to play nowadays due to all those reasons you mentioned and more.

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

The focus of this thread should be more about the caps owner saying that he has Ovechkin's back when it comes to breaking the record. This is huge comming from the owner. This means he can influence everything surrounding Ovi. He'll make the right trade deals and signings when it comes to benefitting Ovechkin. And what stops him from giving other players huge bonuses to keep them motivated? Like giving another player a huge bonus if he hits 60 assists in a season? Will make sure that player is fully committed to making Ovechkin score as much as possible! Plus I bet there's good players willing to sign with the caps so they can be there to help and experience first hand when Ovechkin breaks the record. Could totally see some good young Russian players signing with the Caps just to help Ovechkin break the record.

And how about @The Panther and @Big Phil is it time to finally give up and admit that Ovechkin is going to break the all time goals record now that both Ovechkin and the owner is gunning for it?!

How in the hell are they going to attract any good player when they will have multiple 35+ years olds taking up the large majority of their cap.

Unless those good players want to take a large pay cut, the Capitals will have pocket change to try and sign them. You can’t pay almost 40 year old players $10 million and expect to attract good players for feel good moments.

 

[Olddays73]

But they don't count the same today, there are levels to this. The far more absurd notion is taking stats from a game that isn't reality anymore and comparing them to a much more difficult one and saying that's the mark to beat as if modern players can't measure up. I'm not claiming Ovechkin would have 1000 goals but to state he wouldn't' have more is just a little naive. He's bigger, stronger, faster and has a better shot than anyone left in the upper echelon of scoring goals. Ovi isn't a product of modern training either for the most part, he's just a large man, his body isn't a specimen but he's extremely durable and guys were shooting cannons with wood sticks, yes the wrister wouldn't fly off the stick as well but against that goaltending it wouldn't have to.

Only in the NHL do we hold onto nostalgia this tightly and it's banana lands. Also, I'm 42 and was born in Brantford which is Gretzky's hometown, I'm as big of a fan of the man as there is but he isn't getting those goals in the modern era of hockey and at the very least we have to adjust for era.

Only in the nhl does the human body evolve leaps and bounds in a timespan of 20 years

 

[Mulletman]

How in the hell are they going to attract any good player when they will have multiple 35+ years olds taking up the large majority of their cap.

Unless those good players want to take a large pay cut, the Capitals will have pocket change to try and sign them. You can’t pay almost 40 year old players $10 million and expect to attract good players for feel good moments.

Dude all the other players on the capitals are expendable except Ovechkin! Niobody will give a shit if the caps ship out Backstrom, Carlsson, Oshie and others if they lose a step. Ovechkin is the only one that is safe even if he falls off a cliff production wise! The cap space will be there once it's needed, don't you worry!

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

Dude all the other players on the capitals are expendable except Ovechkin! Niobody will give a shit if the caps ship out Backstrom, Carlsson, Oshie and others if they lose a step. Ovechkin is the only one that is safe even if he falls off a cliff production wise! The cap space will be there once it's needed, don't you worry!

It takes two to tango in a trade. Who in their right mind is taking Backstrom, Oshie and Karlsson with their cap hits and being 35+ years old?

Even if they are able to ship them out, they probably won’t get anything of value in return at this point.

The Capitals are a sinking ship and the Captain (Ovechkin) is going down with it.

(Not saying that it is a bad thing, but people see this and no one is coming to their aid)

 

[Leafs1991]

How in the hell are they going to attract any good player when they will have multiple 35+ years olds taking up the large majority of their cap.

Unless those good players want to take a large pay cut, the Capitals will have pocket change to try and sign them. You can’t pay almost 40 year old players $10 million and expect to attract good players for feel good moments.

Their cap space is fine.

 

[tarheelhockey]

160 assists are impossible in modern circumstances. 80's and early 90's were all-time high scoring eras where Gretzky did most of his scoring records.

160 assists was also "impossible" in the 80s and 90s unless your name was Wayne Gretzky.

As recently as a decade ago we had Joe Thornton hitting 92 and 96. In the 80s and 90s, the highest non-Gretzky assist seasons were by Mario Lemieux (114, 98) and Adam Oates (97).

In a world without Gretzky, we would be talking about this topic in terms of Mario Lemieux having one strange fluke season of 114, and the upper boundary of "possible" otherwise being around 100.

Gretzky had seasons of 102, 109, 109, 114, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 135, 163. There is more to this picture than just stat inflation.

 

[Leafs1991]

Only in the nhl does the human body evolve leaps and bounds in a timespan of 20 years

They don't but training does get better.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Only in the nhl does the human body evolve leaps and bounds in a timespan of 20 years

It has nothing to do with evolution, and everything to do with the talent pool becoming far larger due far more international reach. Canada's share of the NHL has dropped from 90% to 43%, while Canada's own population has grown significantly.

 

[Midnight Judges]

The Capitals are a sinking ship and the Captain (Ovechkin) is going down with it.

...said HFBoards in 2017.

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

Their cap space is fine.

Almost 70 million already committed to 14 players next year and the average age of those players is about 32 years old.

You are right. There is nothing to worry about for them.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It has nothing to do with evolution, and everything to do with the talent pool becoming far larger due far more international reach. Canada's share of the NHL has dropped from 90% to 43%, while Canada's own population has grown significantly.

Canada's population has grown because of immigration, which doesn't feed the NHL talent pool. The number of native-born Canadians, actual competition for NHL roster spots, has dropped a lot since Gretzky's generation. Hockey has also become much more economically exclusive during the same time period.

It's legitimate to say he was only competing against part of the world, due to the Iron Curtain and lower NHL representation from Europe generally.

 

[Olddays73]

It has nothing to do with evolution, and everything to do with the talent pool becoming far larger due far more international reach. Canada's share of the NHL has dropped from 90% to 43%, while Canada's own population has grown significantly.

So then if we only consider the north American talent pool today, would that be comparable to the one when Gretzky played? How does that explain the false narrative being discussed that Gretzky played with and against mostly beer leaguers or the implications of that statement that he would be an average player in 2021? Would he not be the best North American player at least with your logic?

 

[Leafs1991]

Almost 70 million already committed to 14 players next year and the average age of those players is about 32 years old.

You are right. There is nothing to worry about for them.

The age doesn't matter. Cap space isn't that big of an issue, especially for 14 players already signed and having 10mil available is more than enough. The year after and the year after that they get wide open for cap space. You're acting like they are in trouble for the next 5 years when they're definitely not.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Someone should sign Gretzky to come out of retirement and just shadow Ovi on the PP.

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

The age doesn't matter. Cap space isn't that big of an issue, especially for 14 players already signed and having 10mil available is more than enough. The year after and the year after that they get wide open for cap space. You're acting like they are in trouble for the next 5 years when they're definitely not.

You think one would be intelligent and see that they are fine a couple years from now because they only have a handful of people signed for that long….

If you think having multiple 35+ year olds taking about almost 50% of the cap won’t cause cap problems or worse them being plain awful…. Then we can just end the conversation.

 

[Leafs1991]

You think one would be intelligent and see that they are fine a couple years from now because they only have a handful of people signed for that long….

If you think having multiple 35+ year olds taking about almost 50% of the cap won’t cause cap problems or worse them being plain awful…. Then we can just end the conversation.

Of course they have to resign players but if they don't they have cap space available. I'm not claiming they will be good. I'm just stating their cap space is going to be fine.

 

[Daeni10]

It would be really cool to see Ovi break the record, however I hope that its not like the most games played record where breaking the record is the only reason the player is still in the legaue.
Would suck to see Ovi on a 1 year deal scoring like 11 goals to break the record. Hope he can do it in style with a 30+ season

 

[Midnight Judges]

Canada's population has grown because of immigration, which doesn't feed the NHL talent pool.

It does though. Kids play whatever games other kids are playing. Immigrant kids will do the same.

Hell, my kid plays soccer, and I HATE soccer lol. (Not truly, but the bottom line is he didn't get it from me or his Mother. He got it from the other kids at school).

Regardless, the birth rate is a fair thing to look at, and Canada today has nearly the same birth rates as they did during the baby boom. And it was lower in the 80s and 90s than the baby boom - which is the applicable range for today's NHL'ers.

 

[Midnight Judges]

So then if we only consider the north American talent pool today, would that be comparable to the one when Gretzky played?

Maybe? But I think not because the game has grown significantly in the USA to the point where American participation in the NHL has increased from ~10% to 26%. This alone probably more than swamps whatever reductions may exist (if they exist at all) in the Canadian talent pool.

How does that explain the false narrative being discussed that Gretzky played with and against mostly beer leaguers or the implications of that statement that he would be an average player in 2021? Would he not be the best North American player at least with your logic?

If anyone says Gretzky played against beer leaguers, you should quote that person and disagree with them.

I think it's a fact that Gretzky competed against many scrubs who would have no chance at making today's NHL. Maybe they make the the AHL, KHL, SHL, Liiga, or some other professional league. It simply stands to reason that as the talent pool expands, the cutoff is reduced to a more exclusive portion of athletes. This is also consistent with the eye test: Gretzky and Orr skated circles around guys who would look wildly out of place in today's NHL.

 

[filinski77]

160 assists was also "impossible" in the 80s and 90s unless your name was Wayne Gretzky.

As recently as a decade ago we had Joe Thornton hitting 92 and 96. In the 80s and 90s, the highest non-Gretzky assist seasons were by Mario Lemieux (114, 98) and Adam Oates (97).

In a world without Gretzky, we would be talking about this topic in terms of Mario Lemieux having one strange fluke season of 114, and the upper boundary of "possible" otherwise being around 100.

Gretzky had seasons of 102, 109, 109, 114, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 135, 163. There is more to this picture than just stat inflation.

I think part of the issue is being able to separate the idea that the actual physical gaps from Gretzky vs. current players are inflated because of the league scoring.

Using the Thornton comparison you used: 96 assists vs. 163 assists is a 70% increase. Does this mean Gretzky was 70% better at accumulating assists than Thornton was? Not likely. This can be seen by the very obvious and large gap in average scoring within the league.

Taking Gretzky's assist total and converting it to the league average scoring to 05/06 (when Thornton had 96 assists) - Gretzky's total drops from 163 to 126. Now, the gap from 96 to 126 is about 32%. This is much more likely, as Gretzky being 32% better at accumulating assists compared to one of the other best playmakers of all-time seems a lot more reasonable than 70%.

It's never about discrediting Gretzky, it's just about understanding that Gretzky's gap and dominance isn't as large as the raw stats indicate. But obviously, 32% is still completely dominant.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It does though. Kids play whatever games other kids are playing. Immigrant kids will do the same.

Hell, my kid plays soccer, and I HATE soccer lol.

I wish that were true, but it's pretty easy to look at the NHL population and identify that immigrants are almost entirely unrepresented. I did a count last season based on players of color, and found zero first-generation immigrants and six children of immigrants. It's possible that there may be some others who are not visible minorities (e.g. Stan Mikita) but those are going to be marginal cases relative to overall Canadian immigration, which comes overwhelmingly from Asia and the Middle East.

Most notably, only one player in the NHL last year had parents from a country which is in the top-10 for Canadian immigration. That was Jujhar Khaira, family from India, and only the 3rd Punjabi player in NHL history (the other two having retired in 1999 and 2016).

That is an absolutely disgraceful record for the NHL and the game of hockey in general, but it is the unfortunate reality we are faced with.

Regardless, the birth rate is a fair thing to look at, and Canada today has nearly the same birth rates as they did during the baby boom.

The graph below shows the number of native-born Canadian children over time. For reference:

• Sidney Crosby was born in 1987
• Connor McDavid was born in 1997
• This year's draftees were born around 2002
• Wayne Gretzky was born in 1961

When we take the two points together (number of babies AND the fact that hockey draws poorly from the families who are now the major source of Canada's population growth) it's pretty clear that the Canadian talent pool is barely half what it was circa 1990.

That's before we even touch the question of whether most middle class children have more/less access to elite organized hockey today than they did 2-3 generations ago.

It's sad, but the numbers are what they are.

 

[Uncle Scrooge]

Well it still sends the wrong message of an individual being more important than the team.

A good reply would be, for example, that they expect Ovechkin to help their team in positive ways, whether it's via goalscoring, playmaking, physicality or whatever else. Not something suggesting that they're going to try to inflate his goal amounts as much as possible.

I get what you're saying, but this is the Washington Capitals.. I don't know which team has the most points in the last decade, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's them. Their culture of winning shouldn't be in question.

If people are looking for Ovechkin too much and being too fancy, they'll address it and play better. Again like i said before, he's no stranger to being in the spotlight. As the teams captain his job is to keep the focus on the team and it's nothing new for him. If the team is losing and reporters ask him about how it feels to get one goal closer to the record, he'll be the first to tell you it doesn't mean shit right now.

In other words, i wouldn't be worried about any of that.