The Crosby vs Ovechkin rivalry

[BackToTheBasics]

You are right, how can anyone deny that two President's trophy winning teams didn't have a lot of talent.

I get that you're doing your best to pimp Crosby. Let's not just throw around the fact that he played on two president's trophy winning teams pretending like the players around him performed to their capabilities . In the 2010 playoffs, Ovechkin lead his team in scoring in the playoffs with 10 points. Semin, Green, and Fleischmann put up a combined 0 goals. They played a huge role in the regular season and provided valuable depth goal scoring but clearly dissappeared in the playoffs. Sure, it sounds like I'm simply making up excuses but that doesn't take away from the fact that Ovechkin did produce as well as you would expect but the depth players around him didn't hold up their end.

Again, this past season, Ovechkin lead his team in points with 12 points in 12 games. Kuznetsov led the team in scoring during the regular season and Burakovsky had a breakout season as the Caps' second line LW. They combined for a total of 2 goals and 3 points. Not to mention that 3rd line center Mike Richards failed to record a single point all playoffs.

Should Ovechkin carry some blame for those dissapointments? Of course. However, it certainly shouldn't negatively impact his legacy as he clearly performed as well as he could.

 

[daver]

Malkin and Letang are nobodies. Ovechkin has had a much better surrounding team, how can anyone deny that??????????

You are right, how can anyone deny that two President's trophy winning teams didn't have a lot of talent.

I get that you're doing your best to pimp Crosby. Let's not just throw around the fact that he played on two president's trophy winning teams pretending like the players around him performed to their capabilities . In the 2010 playoffs, Ovechkin lead his team in scoring in the playoffs with 10 points. Semin, Green, and Fleischmann put up a combined 0 goals. They played a huge role in the regular season and provided valuable depth goal scoring but clearly dissappeared in the playoffs. Sure, it sounds like I'm simply making up excuses but that doesn't take away from the fact that Ovechkin did produce as well as you would expect but the depth players around him didn't hold up their end.

Again, this past season, Ovechkin lead his team in points with 12 points in 12 games. Kuznetsov led the team in scoring during the regular season and Burakovsky had a breakout season as the Caps' second line LW. They combined for a total of 2 goals and 3 points. Not to mention that 3rd line center Mike Richards failed to record a single point all playoffs.

Should Ovechkin carry some blame for those dissapointments? Of course. However, it certainly shouldn't negatively impact his legacy as he clearly performed as well as he could.

Silly posts require silly responses.

Blaming the Caps' failures all on OV is as silly as saying Crosby did not contribute to the Pens successes.

 

[xxxx]

Is was absolutely ridiculous that 2 of the voters already had Crosby as their Conn Smythe winner at that point and not a single objective person would disagree with this.

I'm not an objetive person then I guess. I knew I was born being subjective, I knew it!! now it's confirmed!

As for the topic, I don't really feel the rivalry anymore, to me Crosby is simply better and comes as a winner from almost every battle right now.

 

[Preisst*]

Wrong. Playing in the NHL gives you a(n) (small) edge up on those who haven't, but it sounds like you're saying all NHLers have more knowledge than all non-NHLers, and that's hilariously false.

What's hilarious is your inane leap to faulty conclusions.

 

[Zuluss]

The thing is, Crosby has been in the contention for the best player in the world since he entered the league. I don't think he's been the outright best for that many seasons, but he's been on the cusp or injuries prevented him from finishing the season.

Was Ovechkin "on the cusp" this past season? If so, you will probably find a good amount of people with 10 seasons falling under "on the cusp or injured" among those who are currently playing or just retired (Malkin, Datsyuk, Thornton just off the top of my head).

I personally think that Ovechkin was not "on the cusp" in 15/16, 6th best finish in Hart voting is a bit too far to make an argument he was the best that season. But then so was not Crosby, neither in 14/15, nor in 08/09, nor in 05/06. If you take out his seasons that were dramatically shortened by injuries (07/08, 10/11, 11/12), we are essentially left with five seasons Crosby was the best or close (06/07, 09/10, 12/13, 13/14, 15/16). The same is true about Ovechkin: five seasons out of eleven he was nominated for Hart (07/08, 08/09, 09/10, 12/13, 14/15) and won it three times.

So what is the difference? The extrapolations from the three seasons Crosby did not complete or barely started? After the past two seasons, I am even less inclined to buy that. Up to 2014, the people doing the extrapolations at least had a leg to stand on, "Crosby has not been under ppg for a prolonged period of time". The past two seasons gave us ample evidence how prime Crosby can be well below ppg for dozens of games (someone counted that his under-ppg streak was almost at 100 games). So by now there are multiple examples of prime Crosby's actual performance you can add to either 07/08 or 10/11 or 11/12 and get a season that would not have deserved a top5 Hart finish, let alone a nomination.

I actually think Ovechkin has easily the highest rated three-year peak of this generation.

How does that square with what you said in the post before that, "It was fun to debate for the first years of their careers when it was actually debatable and close."?
So Ovechkin was "easily" better for three years out of their first five (your words), he won Calder over Crosby in a convincing fashion in their first year (124 1st-place votes to 4 1st-place votes for Crosby), and yet it was close over the full five-year period? I know back then the media was trying to spin it this way, for the lack of a better story ("NHL is dominated by Russians" rubs too many people the wrong way even if true, as it was in 2007-2009). But now we do not have to pay attention to that, we can just accept the fact that Ovechkin was a tier above Crosby in their first five years.

Personally I just can't rank Ovechkin ahead of Crosby anymore. I did for a long time. But today, I just simply can't put myself to do that.

I think you just got tired. If a good amount of people around said the sky is green, you would start seeing a greenish hue in it, and everybody would. Arguing with people who constantly come up with something "Crosby has been the best for 11 years", or "every season he is among the best", or "he is a top5 goalscorer of his era", or "he always comes up big in big games" is tiring, and you end up just accepting things like that as facts, even if you would not if you really analyzed those statements.

 

[NeedleInTheHay]

Was Ovechkin "on the cusp" this past season? If so, you will probably find a good amount of people with 10 seasons falling under "on the cusp or injured" among those who are currently playing or just retired (Malkin, Datsyuk, Thornton just off the top of my head).

I personally think that Ovechkin was not "on the cusp" in 15/16, 6th best finish in Hart voting is a bit too far to make an argument he was the best that season. But then so was not Crosby, neither in 14/15, nor in 08/09, nor in 05/06. If you take out his seasons that were dramatically shortened by injuries (07/08, 10/11, 11/12), we are essentially left with five seasons Crosby was the best or close (06/07, 09/10, 12/13, 13/14, 15/16). The same is true about Ovechkin: five seasons out of eleven he was nominated for Hart (07/08, 08/09, 09/10, 12/13, 14/15) and won it three times.

So what is the difference? The extrapolations from the three seasons Crosby did not complete or barely started? After the past two seasons, I am even less inclined to buy that. Up to 2014, the people doing the extrapolations at least had a leg to stand on, "Crosby has not been under ppg for a prolonged period of time". The past two seasons gave us ample evidence how prime Crosby can be well below ppg for dozens of games (someone counted that his under-ppg streak was almost at 100 games). So by now there are multiple examples of prime Crosby's actual performance you can add to either 07/08 or 10/11 or 11/12 and get a season that would not have deserved a top5 Hart finish, let alone a nomination.



How does that square with what you said in the post before that, "It was fun to debate for the first years of their careers when it was actually debatable and close."?
So Ovechkin was "easily" better for three years out of their first five (your words), he won Calder over Crosby in a convincing fashion in their first year (124 1st-place votes to 4 1st-place votes for Crosby), and yet it was close over the full five-year period? I know back then the media was trying to spin it this way, for the lack of a better story ("NHL is dominated by Russians" rubs too many people the wrong way even if true, as it was in 2007-2009). But now we do not have to pay attention to that, we can just accept the fact that Ovechkin was a tier above Crosby in their first five years.



I think you just got tired. If a good amount of people around said the sky is green, you would start seeing a greenish hue in it, and everybody would. Arguing with people who constantly come up with something "Crosby has been the best for 11 years", or "every season he is among the best", or "he is a top5 goalscorer of his era", or "he always comes up big in big games" is tiring, and you end up just accepting things like that as facts, even if you would not if you really analyzed those statements.

Those are all true though.

 

[Rhiessan71]

I think most had Kessel over Crosby after three rounds but Crosby was better than Kessel in round one and round three. That a writer had picked Crosby as the MVP thru 3 rounds is far from being a FACT that there was bias against Kessel or a FACT that they were going to pick Crosby regardless of what happened in the SCF.

It was 2 writers and they were both actively and very publicly campaigning for Crosby saying he has already won the Smythe as far as they were concerned.

As far as Crosby vs Kessel...
Round 1 was Crosby by a moderate edge. Kessel was by no means a slouch at all in this round.

Round 2 was Kessel by a freaking landslide (people are still reviewing game tape from round 2 to see if Crosby was actually playing or not).

Round 3 was Kessel with the slight edge. Crosby played very well at the end of the series and potted the OT winner in game 2 but most forget that it was Kessel that scored the Pens 2nd goal of that game in the first place.
Kessel was better game in and game out over the entire series IMO.
Maybe we call it a wash but that's as good as it gets for Sid in this round.

So going into the Finals, Crosby's no-show in round 2 looms large and should have clearly put him behind Kessel's 9 goals and 18 points in the CS race.

I really don't see any argument to be made for Crosby being in the Conn Smythe lead entering the Finals even on his own team let alone over-all with the way Couture had played up to that point.

So you can keep making excuses as to why the 2 voters came out so publicly pre-Finals that Sid had already won the CS in their eyes till you're blue in the face but anyone not wearing Sid-coloured glasses knew how unprofessional, biased and so NOT objective those statements were at that point.
This was reflected by many, many posters at the time.

You can keep calling me biased all you want but remember, I didn't argue very hard once Sid won the Conn. I thought it could've gone either way in the end and IMO Sid's glaring no-show in round 2 should've held more weight giving the edge to Kessel but it was forgotten of course.

As it was, Crosby barely edged Kessel out by a single 2nd place vote, 63-60 with 1 voter not voting for Crosby at all and 2 not voting for Kessel at all.
I guess in the end what really cost Kessel the CS were the 2 idiots that gave Letang 2 first place votes...

 

[Zuluss]

Those are all true though.

None are true if you give it some thought.
E.g., Crosby was not the best in 05/06, nor in 08-10. So "Crosby has been the best for 11 years" is false.
Likewise, a player whose top10 goal-scoring finishes are 1, 7, 7 in his 11 prime seasons should be very cautiously introduced even in the "top10 goal-scorer of his time" discussion.
For example, in addition to Ovechkin, Stamkos, Kovalchuk, and Perry are clearly better goal-scorers than Crosby by pretty much any metric.
Even if we leave out Iginla saying he is from the previous generation, we still have Nash, Heatley, Malkin, who are better goal-scorers than Crosby, and who knows how Benn's, Taveres' and Seguin's careers will pan out, not to mention Tarasenko and Kucherov, with whom you can probably play the "different generation" card.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Round 3 was Kessel with the slight edge. Crosby played very well at the end of the series and potted the OT winner in game 2 but most forget that it was Kessel that scored the Pens 2nd goal of that game in the first place.
Kessel was better game in and game out over the entire series IMO.
Maybe we call it a wash but that's as good as it gets for Sid in this round.

Crosby scored 3 out of the Pens' 4 game winners that series. I'd say that should give him the edge over Kessel for which one was more instrumental in the Pens moving on past the Lightning.

Kessel literally outplayed Crosby 1 round (Washington). Crosby was the better player in 3 out of the 4 rounds. And yes, that includes all around play, not just point totals.

 

[K Fleur]

Yep, all 3 members of the HBK line and Murray combined with Crosby being all but invisible in the Caps series put Crosby 5th.

Crosby had just finished a series with 3 game winning goals, and had his two best games of the playoffs when his team needed it the most (in a 3-2 hole). Meanwhile Matt Murray was coming off his worst series of the playoffs, one were he was even, albeit undeservedly, benched.

"Distant fifth" only shows which glasses you're wearing .

Hahahaha!
Wait, are you actually trying to say that 2 of the voters already awarding the Conn to Crosby before the Finals even started was objective?
Hate to be the one to break it to you but that is actually the exact opposite of being objective going in heh

Not at all, because this did not happen. Nobody awarded anybody anything before the finals started. Sorry I forgot, it's a big media conspiracy!

[mod]

Is was absolutely ridiculous that 2 of the voters already had Crosby as their Conn Smythe winner at that point and not a single objective person would disagree with this.

Seeing as you're HF's true bastion of objectivity I'll just have to take your word as gospel on the matter.

Again, have a I ever said that Crosby didn't deserve the Conn? No, I have not.

You're media conspiracy theory strongly implies he did not. It is mind numbing that you can't understand this after it's been explained to you numerous times.

 

[Benneguin]

I can't believe this is still a debate. The Washington Capitals would take Crosby over Ovie in a heartbeat and so would every other team in the league.

 

[yrrebbor]

Diving crybaby vs. the guy with only one move

I wouldn't want Crosby in my team; he's trash.

 

[NeedleInTheHay]

None are true if you give it some thought.
E.g., Crosby was not the best in 05/06, nor in 08-10. So "Crosby has been the best for 11 years" is false.
Likewise, a player whose top10 goal-scoring finishes are 1, 7, 7 in his 11 prime seasons should be very cautiously introduced even in the "top10 goal-scorer of his time" discussion.
For example, in addition to Ovechkin, Stamkos, Kovalchuk, and Perry are clearly better goal-scorers than Crosby by pretty much any metric.
Even if we leave out Iginla saying he is from the previous generation, we still have Nash, Heatley, Malkin, who are better goal-scorers than Crosby, and who knows how Benn's, Taveres' and Seguin's careers will pan out, not to mention Tarasenko and Kucherov, with whom you can probably play the "different generation" card.

Crosby has been near or usually at the top for 11 years, that means he's the best player of the past 11 years.

Derek Rose won an MVP over prime Lebron, did anyone consider Rose a better player of his generation after that season?

Of course not because consitiency means something.

Crosby has the 34th best goals per game in the history of the NHL, which is higher than Malkin, Perry, Heatley, Iginla, Nash, Tavares, Seguin, etc etc.

Did you ever consider that metric? Literally the most important one.

 

[Preisst*]

Crosby had just finished a series with 3 game winning goals, and had his two best games of the playoffs when his team needed it the most (in a 3-2 hole). Meanwhile Matt Murray was coming off his worst series of the playoffs, one were he was even, albeit undeservedly, benched.

"Distant fifth" only shows which glasses you're wearing .




Not at all, because this did not happen. Nobody awarded anybody anything before the finals started. Sorry I forgot, it's a big media conspiracy!

[mod]




Seeing as you're HF's true bastion of objectivity I'll just have to take your word as gospel on the matter.



You're media conspiracy theory strongly implies he did not. It is mind numbing that you can't understand this after it's been explained to you numerous times.

Crosby clearly deserved the Smythe. It was a no brainer and a one horse race.

 

[Plural]

I'm not going to answer your points when you pick and choose three sentences from my post. Maybe the most annoying thing in this forum is when people take small parts of your posts to pick and choose what to reply to and therefore lose all the context provided. Also, leave the "you are just a sheep" attitude away. It's idiotic and tries to paint my as some idiot with no rational thoughts of my own. I think I've earned the right to form my opinion without being questioned to be some kind of spineless "yes man".

 

[Plural]

Regarding Crosby's goal-scoring. I think it's undeniable that Ovechkin, Stamkos and Kovalchuck are all ahead of him in that department. Crosby is then in the discussion with Heatley, Perry and few more. I'd say that Heatley has the best case after those three. Making Crosby at best, 5th best goal-scorer of this generation.

Which is not a bad feat at all.

 

[Zuluss]

Crosby has been near or usually at the top for 11 years, that means he's the best player of the past 11 years.

That's a different thing. "He has been the best player for 11 years" and "he is the best player of the past 11 years" are two different statements. The first one states he was the best in all 11 years, the second is less extreme in saying that his record is the best even with a few off years. The first one is plain false, the second one is debatable.

Crosby has the 34th best goals per game in the history of the NHL, which is higher than Malkin, Perry, Heatley, Iginla, Nash, Tavares, Seguin, etc etc.

Did you ever consider that metric? Literally the most important one.

All that means is Crosby is relatively young and, say, Iginla is much older. Crosby's gpg will inevitably go down as he ages.

 

[Hank Plank]

Diving crybaby vs. the guy with only one move

I wouldn't want Crosby in my team; he's trash.

Then you don't like winning, but hey you have your insults to make you feel better.

 

[xxxx]

What about the World Cup? Crosby was miles and way ahead of Ovechkin it's not even fair to compare them. Ovechkin was quite invisible the whole tournament. He scored that one goal against Sweden (and almost tied the game by himself in the last few seconds) but other than that? I would just expect him to produce more, when he's an NHL 50-goalscorer, and when he played Canada, he had some hits, but almost didn't have even a shot on goal (!), and I don't think the games in group stage were much different.

Crosby was the MVP of the tournament, so. There's no comparison really. And it seems like it's the same case over and over, from the 2010 olympics, to the Sochi olympics, to the World Cup now (or even the World Championships in 2015). Some people will say that Crosby plays for Canada and even Ovi would look good there. Maybe. But Russia plays different teams too. And in those games against Sweden, Finland, or other teams, Ovechkin is not the dominant force he should be really. I don't know, maybe I'm too harsh on him, he's definitely had some good moments in international tournaments, but when playing for Russia at olympics (or this year's world cup) he's a different Ovechkin it seems. The point is, Crosby is definitely better on international stage, too.

 

[daver]

It was 2 writers and they were both actively and very publicly campaigning for Crosby saying he has already won the Smythe as far as they were concerned.

Do you have any links to these "public campaigns"?

 

[NeedleInTheHay]

All that means is Crosby is relatively young and, say, Iginla is much older. Crosby's gpg will inevitably go down as he ages.

What about Tavares, Perry, or Seguin who you also mentioned as better goalscorers than Crosby?

The age argument doesn't really fly anymore.

What about Malkin? you said he was better, yet he has worse stats only being 1 year older

 

[c9777666]

Benn/Seguin could have taken Crosby's place in the WCOH tournament and they still would've won if #87 never played a second this tournament. That's how deep Canada is.

 

[Purity*]

Crosby clearly deserved the Smythe. It was a no brainer and a one horse race.

Good to see you back brother!

But to correct you it was actually one of the closest Conn Smythe races in recent history.

Go ahead and thank Pittsburgh for us dumping our garbage off on them again.

 

[DearDiary]

Benn/Seguin could have taken Crosby's place in the WCOH tournament and they still would've won if #87 never played a second this tournament. That's how deep Canada is.

I read a post here that said Crosby contributed on 44% of Canada's goals

 

[Preisst*]

Good to see you back brother!

But to correct you it was actually one of the closest Conn Smythe races in recent history.

Go ahead and thank Pittsburgh for us dumping our garbage off on them again.

Close race means nothing to me. Same group of geniuses who have voted guys as all-stars at positions they didn't even play......lol lol