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Tsn: is Crosby the best penguin ever

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fan67

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Dec 22, 2008
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I saw this on tsn a week or so back in the midst of crosby's point streak, and couldn't help but feel it was a completely ridiculous question. While I fully expect most people would naturally jump to the "ever hear of man named Mario"Conclusion, I'm more curious to hear what you hockey historians have to say on the topic of evaluating a player so early into said players career, relative to players who have completed theirs. Do you feel the original question is valid(vs Lemieux essentially)? What if Crosby had been drafted by an organization that didn't boast a top5 all-time player, how about Colorado(Sakic) or the flyers(Clarke) is it fair to argue Crosby 5 years into his career over players like that?
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Hardyvan123

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Jul 4, 2010
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The only fair comp is to compare players 1st 5 years or apples to apples, if we want to compare the entirety of a career then we have to wait for Sid's to be over.

Mario had more regular season success than side but only reached the playoffs in his 5th year and Sid has been in 4 times with one Cup as the captain.

In other comps guys with the playoff success get a lot of credit but I really wonder if there would be any consistency to it in this case.

Either way playoff success is more of a team stat and Mario really took off playoff wise during the Pens 2 cup wins.

Sid also plays a better 2 way game and Mario had a better supporting cast in his 5 years overall IMO.

At the end of the day it would be hard for a lot of people to just view both guys in the context of what they did in their 1st 5 years (because we know what Mario did after wards) but there is a strong argument for either guy IMO but I'm pretty sure if we had a poll on it in this section that it would lean pretty heavily towards Mario.
 
kmad

kmad

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ichangedmyname said:
Jagr Lemiuex Francis Lang Malkin are all better than Crosby by far
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o_0

IMO Crosby also projects to be better than Francis at this point. Just a matter of time. He could pass Jagr if he plays at this level for another 9-10 years. He will never catch Lemieux.
 
nowhereman

nowhereman

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Jan 24, 2010
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ichangedmyname said:
Jagr Lemiuex Francis Lang Malkin are all better than Crosby by far
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What?! Are you drunk? Robert Lang?! :laugh:

Don't be ridiculous. Lemieux is the only Penguin whose talents far exceed that of Crosby's. In fact, there's really only a handful of players who can make that claim. Right now, Sid's better than Francis and Jagr were. He just needs to show that he can consistently perform at this level.
 
finchster

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I think Crosby will catch Jagr, Jagr was a great talent but moody and it often affected his play. Crosby plays hard every shift and he is one of the hardest working players I have ever seen. If he doesn't get injuried I think he will pass Jagr, he will never catch Lemieux. I do think the highest possible point of Crosby's talent is a top 5-10 player of all time but not in the top five
 
willfenix

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finchster said:
I do think the highest possible point of Crosby's talent is a top 5-10 player of all time but not in the top five
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Wow, doesn't that really sum up this argument? I'm sorry to all you Pens fans since you only have the 6th best hockey player of all time on your roster for the rest of his career :shakehead. For being such a meaningless sentiment, hype really has a negative effect on evaluating the talents of hockey players. Ron Francis is one of my favorite hockey players of all time but I think it does a disservice to both him and Crosby to say that Sid is ahead of him as if Crosby is on a linear journey of leapfrogging every Penguins legend that has played the game.

Mario was a once in a lifetime hockey player, Crosby is amazing, but it seems like everyone is overly hung up on where his place is. You are trying to make an assessment that can only be accurately made in a career retrospective type situation.
 
Trottier

Trottier

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Clearly, in a cost-cutting measure, TSN is handing its programming over to its college interns. :facepalm:

I consider Sidney Crosby a generational talent, the best hockey player on earth. I likewise consider the mere question asinine and worthy of no further commentary on my part.

Note to Hardyvan123: sorry, you have got to be kidding. :shakehead
 
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Regal

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Mar 12, 2010
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There wouldn't even be a Penguins team for Crosby to be on if it weren't for Mario. Sid is great, and I could see putting him over Jagr for everything he's meant to the franchise even if he hasn't matched him in on ice play yet, but over Lemieux is ridiculous. When you consider what he's done for the team both on the ice and off, as well as having played his whole career there, I'm not sure if there's a more iconic player for a franchise than Mario.
 
Big Phil

Big Phil

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Mario for sure. Plus Sid hasn't matched Jagr as a Pen yet, and certainly hasn't equalled his career value yet. I think he will but he'll need more time to do that.

If we look strictly at their Pens careers Mario and Jagr are ahead of him. There is no debate on that right now. Jagr won 5 scoring titles, all as a Penguin. Plus he came close to a Mario-like level in 1999 and 2000. In 1999 he led the NHL in points by a substantial margin - 20 points. In 2000 he won the scoring title by playing in 63 games. That is something usually reserved for Mario talk. Let's see Sid finish this year first, it'll be his 6th. But can he equal in 6 years what Jagr did in 11 as a Penguin? Not yet.

Francis was a fine Penguin but he has dreams of being as talented as Crosby. Sorry, no dice here. After that, the next best is either Barrasso, Murphy or Stevens. As a Pen alone, Sid has them all beat. Then there's a big drop off with the likes of Rick Kehoe and such
 
tony d

tony d

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No, Crosby is not the best Penguin ever. Right now I think he'll probably equal or top Jagr but no way does he ever pass Lemieux.
 
VanIslander

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Crosby is the 3rd best Penguin ever.
He could become the 2nd best before long.

He will have to show more than he has to ever compete for top billing. Compiling career stats through consistency could help his case, but even then, he just isn't the level of a healthy Mario Lemieux. My eyes tell me that.

Is Ovechkin the best Capitals player ever? Last season some would have thought so.

These kinds of threads are only tangentially about the history of the game. They are more about fawning over present-day NHLers, especially with such thread titles!
 
smitty10

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Lemieux was better and more dominant than Crosby is. An argument could also be made for Jagr and Francis, although I think that Crosby has passed Francis already. I'd say as of right now he is #3 all time, but if he dominates these next few years he could realistically climb to #1. I don't see him putting up ~200 points though and even Jagr broke 120 four times in his career.
 

RECsGuy*

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The replies in this thread are proof that most HF members are under the age of 25...

 
BillD

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VanIslander said:
Crosby is the 3rd best Penguin ever.
He could become the 2nd best before long.

He will have to show more than he has to ever compete for top billing. Compiling career stats through consistency could help his case, but even then, he just isn't the level of a healthy Mario Lemieux. My eyes tell me that.

Is Ovechkin the best Capitals player ever? Last season some would have thought so.

These kinds of threads are only tangentially about the history of the game. They are more about fawning over present-day NHLers, especially with such thread titles!
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Uhhhh........This.
 

StephenDedalus

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Apr 16, 2009
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