What are the odds that McDavid becomes a member of the Big 5?

[daver]

Jagr and Esposito, I find, are still wonderful playoff performers. If there is any knock on them, it is that the "other" guy on those championships was better and was the Conn Smythe winner. Rightfully so, although especially Esposito I think he was more than capable of carrying the mail (eg. see Summit Series). I mean, the guy led the playoffs in scoring three times, and one other time took a less than ideal team to the Cup final near the end of his career. That seems to make up for the fact that they both have lots of hardware but stopped at a certain age from winning them again.

The point was to say that while McDavid's potential Art Ross wins, in a vacuum, could rival Mario and Howe's # of wins, the application of context, in this case McDavid's playoff performances, may not see him rise to the level those Art Ross wins may dictate.

IMO, Jagr's level of play in the playoffs was befitting his regular season resume; arguably the best offensive player in his prime but did not show that he could really step things up on his own. His playoff legacy is one that doesn't gain him any spots in all-time ranking while perhaps keeps him below a player or two who have arguably inferior regular season legacies.

 

[Czech Your Math]

Er... okay (I don't see Daver's posts), but isn't it a bit silly to compare playoff legacies of guys with 130 and 208 playoff games to a guy with 21? This topic, of necessity, requires some projection into the future...

Anyway, it'll all come out in the wash. Just wait 15 years.

It's not an exceptionally strong start at all, in fact almost the opposite. If you want to make it a Big 5 (and not just join the argument for #5), you have to be exceptionally strong.
But I agree, 4 series is not much to go on. Let's at least wait 5 years for jumping to any conclusions (and 15 before cementing any).

 

[bobholly39]

It's not an exceptionally strong start at all, in fact almost the opposite. If you want to make it a Big 5 (and not just join the argument for #5), you have to be exceptionally strong.
But I agree, 4 series is not much to go on. Let's at least wait 5 years for jumping to any conclusions (and 15 before cementing any).

Yeah. He can even do more of the same for 5 more years, meh, no playoffs, subpar round 1 elimination, etc etc....and then at 29 win a smyte/cup/42 points, and do the same the next year....and nothing else after. 2 Performances alone could be enough to cement his legacy in such a scenario, if they're strong enough performances. There are many paths to greatness, and it's definitely way too soon to write him off.

Even if by age 24 - he's arguably the last place in history of hockey for playoff legacy for a player of his magnitude (which is all of ~15-20 players).

 

[Czech Your Math]

The point was to say that while McDavid's potential Art Ross wins, in a vacuum, could rival Mario and Howe's # of wins, the application of context, in this case McDavid's playoff performances, may not see him rise to the level those Art Ross wins may dictate.

IMO, Jagr's level of play in the playoffs was befitting his regular season resume; arguably the best offensive player in his prime but did not show that he could really step things up on his own. His playoff legacy is one that doesn't gain him any spots in all-time ranking while perhaps keeps him below a player or two who have arguably inferior regular season legacies.

I agree with the bolded, except there wasn't any real argument (Lindros couldn't stay healthy enough to play full seasons, so none of this PPG B.S.).

Just based on his regular season exploits thus far, I think McDavid is going to end up being compared to Jagr & Crosby, the two best scorers since the NHL fully integrated non-Canadian talent (or since Wayne/Mario). So let's take a look at these 3 greats using the metrics I consider most when evaluating forwards, particularly elite scoring forwards.

PEAK/PRIME SCORING LEVEL

I believe there are better alternatives to VsX, but I will mostly use that as the best generally accepted scoring standard for now.

7 Year VsX: Jagr 114.2, Crosby 102.4
10 Year VsX: Jagr 105.9, Crosby 99.6

While the future is always uncertain to some extent, it's particularly true in McDavid's case. He's had five very good seasons in a row, but this past season was obviously extraordinary (both his performance and the conditions of playing 6 teams for a total of 56 games). We'll need at least a couple more seasons until we can determine whether he's hit a new level and what that level is. I don't consider a new level to be hit when it's a single shortened season. Crosby's 2013 & Jagr's 1995 seasons were during 48-game lockout schedules where they at least played the rest of the conference and much more importantly in each case it's their fifth best season (at least by my metrics). Their 7 & 10 year averages aren't reliant on those seasons, it's merely one of their typical better seasons. McDavid's four 2017-2020 seasons are clustered very close together, at least in my metrics, and would each be Crosby's 4th best (so 4th-7th) and Jagr 7th best (so 7th-10th). So while it seems likely he should end up at or above Crosby's level in peak/prime scoring, we're going to need at least a few more seasons until we can even guess how he might stack up with Jagr's preak/prime scoring.

ADJUSTED PLUS-MINUS & OTHER EVEN STRENGTH DATA

I can't find any "official" adjusted plus-minus data (I believe overpass was the original author of this metric), so I had to use my own. I am familiar with the original methodology used.
Crosby and particularly Jagr are also among the best in the adjusted plus-minus metric. Here's a look at each player's peak, prime and career (for McDavid, it's his career for each) data.

PEAK					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-26	2005-06	2013-14	550	1.44	1.09	1.32	+221	+0.40	1.44	0.92	1.57
Jagr	22-35	1994-95	2006-07	880	1.43	0.89	1.61	+369	+0.42	1.43	0.90	1.58
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Jagr & Crosby appear very close, but remember the spans chosen have 60% more games played for Jagr than Crosby. They both played at historically high levels, Jagr just did it for much longer.
McDavid is keeping pace so far, he will just need to sustain it for two (vs. Crosby) and increase it for six (vs. Jagr) more seasons to match these legends.

PRIME					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-31	2005-06	2018-19	943	1.39	0.98	1.41	+301	+0.32	1.39	0.97	1.43
Jagr	20-35	1992-93	2006-07	1,041	1.43	0.92	1.56	+417	+0.40	1.43	0.90	1.58
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

As the gap in games played narrows, a substantial gap between Jagr and Crosby appears. The good news for MdDavid is that his on/off ratio could slip significantly over ~7 seasons and still be in Crosby's prime range. He'd need ~8 seasons of increased efficiency to match Jagr's prime though.

CAREER					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-33	2005-06	2020-21	1,039	1.35	1.01	1.34	+288	+0.28	1.35	1.00	1.36
Jagr	20-45	1990-91	2017-18	1,733	1.44	0.94	1.56	+530	+0.31	1.36	0.95	1.43
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Jagr's career adjusted plus-minus per game, on ratio & on/off ratio are each around Crosby's prime level, except in over 80% more games. Given how strong Crosby is in ES data, this is very telling.
The key for McDavid will be sustaining and perhaps bettering his ES numbers, and if/when his team improves (and therefore the off ratio increases), will he be able to increase his on ratio in a proportional manner.

PLAYOFF SCORING

It's too early to say much, but McDavid has a lot of work to do. Here's the peak/prime data:

PEAK										Series
	AGES	START	END	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG	+/-	Won
Crosby	19-26	2007	2013	82	40	65	105	1.28	+16	10
Jagr	23-36	1995	2008	105	56	73	129	1.23	+31	9
McDavid	20-24	2017	2021	21	11	11	22	1.05	+2	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

PRIME										Series
	AGES	START	END	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG	+/-	Won
Crosby	19-30	2007	2018	154	63	144	177	1.15	+22	19
Jagr	20-36	1992	2008	144	74	94	168	1.17	+35	15
McDavid	20-24	2017	2021	21	11	11	22	1.05	+2	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

PLAYOFF PLUS-MINUS DATA

I know there is more detailed playoff ES data, but I was unable to find it with searches.
I used a quick & dirty method for playoff adjusted plus-minus (APM), since I don't have detailed playoff on/off data:

Off PM = (Team PM - Player PM*5)/5 [Here we're deducting the player's effect by multiplying it by 5, the typical number of skaters at ES, then subtracting from team's PM. We now have a total team +/- without the player on the ice, which we must divide by 5, since again there are typically 5 skaters at ES.]

Adjusted PM = Player PM - (Off PM/2) [We divide that result by 2, because we expect top liners to have ~1/3 of ES ice time or 1/3 of ES scoring events, although that of course is a rough estimate. This gives us an expected PM for the player's ES ice time if that time was replaced/absorbed by the rest of the team. This is how much the player exceeded the expected PM, calculated above as Off PM.]

Since there's many fewer playoff games per season and plus-minus data fluctuates more than does scoring, I'm just using prime data to get a more reliable sample size that still encompasses the prime years of each player's career.

PRIME	AGES	START	END	GP	+/-	Team +/-	Off +/-	APM	APM/GP	PM/GP
Crosby	19-30	2007	2018	160	+21	+193	+18	+12	+0.08	+0.13
Jagr	20-36	1992	2008	145	+36	+8	-34	+53	+0.37	+0.25
McDavid	20-24	2017	2021	21	+2	-42	-10	+7	+0.34	+0.10

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Again, these are just very rough, ballpark numbers, but the fundamental data tells you all you need to know: Crosby was +21 on teams that were +193 (+15 on teams that were +105 for his career), while Jagr was +36 on teams what were +8 (+30 on teams that were +52 for his career). Think about that for a few seconds and it's rather obvious the player with a much higher +/- on teams that were dramatically worse was the much more effective ES player. McDavid is off to a pretty good start, being plus on a weak playoff team, but again it's too early for any meaningful comparison.

Conclusion: I don't see any area where McDavid shouldn't be at least competitive with Crosby over time, and there's a very good chance he surpasses him in at least some areas. It's much too early to tell how he will stack up against Jagr's record, but there's not an area where he's hopelessly behind him. It's mostly the playoffs where his data is sparse and relatively unimpressive that is a slight cause for concern at this point.

 

[The Panther]

I agree with the bolded, except there wasn't any real argument (Lindros couldn't stay healthy enough to play full seasons, so none of this PPG B.S.).

Just based on his regular season exploits thus far, I think McDavid is going to end up being compared to Jagr & Crosby, the two best scorers since the NHL fully integrated non-Canadian talent (or since Wayne/Mario). So let's take a look at these 3 greats using the metrics I consider most when evaluating forwards, particularly elite scoring forwards.

PEAK/PRIME SCORING LEVEL

I believe there are better alternatives to VsX, but I will mostly use that as the best generally accepted scoring standard for now.

7 Year VsX: Jagr 114.2, Crosby 102.4
10 Year VsX: Jagr 105.9, Crosby 99.6

While the future is always uncertain to some extent, it's particularly true in McDavid's case. He's had five very good seasons in a row, but this past season was obviously extraordinary (both his performance and the conditions of playing 6 teams for a total of 56 games). We'll need at least a couple more seasons until we can determine whether he's hit a new level and what that level is. I don't consider a new level to be hit when it's a single shortened season. Crosby's 2013 & Jagr's 1995 seasons were during 48-game lockout schedules where they at least played the rest of the conference and much more importantly in each case it's their fifth best season (at least by my metrics). Their 7 & 10 year averages aren't reliant on those seasons, it's merely one of their typical better seasons. McDavid's four 2017-2020 seasons are clustered very close together, at least in my metrics, and would each be Crosby's 4th best (so 4th-7th) and Jagr 7th best (so 7th-10th). So while it seems likely he should end up at or above Crosby's level in peak/prime scoring, we're going to need at least a few more seasons until we can even guess how he might stack up with Jagr's preak/prime scoring.

ADJUSTED PLUS-MINUS & OTHER EVEN STRENGTH DATA

I can't find any "official" adjusted plus-minus data (I believe overpass was the original author of this metric), so I had to use my own. I am familiar with the original methodology used.
Crosby and particularly Jagr are also among the best in the adjusted plus-minus metric. Here's a look at each player's peak, prime and career (for McDavid, it's his career for each) data.

PEAK					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-26	2005-06	2013-14	550	1.44	1.09	1.32	+221	+0.40	1.44	0.92	1.57
Jagr	22-35	1994-95	2006-07	880	1.43	0.89	1.61	+369	+0.42	1.43	0.90	1.58
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Jagr & Crosby appear very close, but remember the spans chosen have 60% more games played for Jagr than Crosby. They both played at historically high levels, Jagr just did it for much longer.
McDavid is keeping pace so far, he will just need to sustain it for two (vs. Crosby) and increase it for six (vs. Jagr) more seasons to match these legends.

PRIME					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-31	2005-06	2018-19	943	1.39	0.98	1.41	+301	+0.32	1.39	0.97	1.43
Jagr	20-35	1992-93	2006-07	1,041	1.43	0.92	1.56	+417	+0.40	1.43	0.90	1.58
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

As the gap in games played narrows, a substantial gap between Jagr and Crosby appears. The good news for MdDavid is that his on/off ratio could slip significantly over ~7 seasons and still be in Crosby's prime range. He'd need ~8 seasons of increased efficiency to match Jagr's prime though.

CAREER					Based	On	Totals			Weighted	By	GP
	AGES	START	END	GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF	ADJ +/-	APM/GP	ON	OFF	ON/OFF
Crosby	18-33	2005-06	2020-21	1,039	1.35	1.01	1.34	+288	+0.28	1.35	1.00	1.36
Jagr	20-45	1990-91	2017-18	1,733	1.44	0.94	1.56	+530	+0.31	1.36	0.95	1.43
McDavid	18-24	2015-16	2020-21	407	1.21	0.79	1.53	+184	+0.45	1.21	0.79	1.53

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Jagr's career adjusted plus-minus per game, on ratio & on/off ratio are each around Crosby's prime level, except in over 80% more games. Given how strong Crosby is in ES data, this is very telling.
The key for McDavid will be sustaining and perhaps bettering his ES numbers, and if/when his team improves (and therefore the off ratio increases), will he be able to increase his on ratio in a proportional manner.

PLAYOFF SCORING

It's too early to say much, but McDavid has a lot of work to do. Here's the peak/prime data:

PEAK										Series
	AGES	START	END	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG	+/-	Won
Crosby	19-26	2007	2013	82	40	65	105	1.28	+16	10
Jagr	23-36	1995	2008	105	56	73	129	1.23	+31	9
McDavid	19-24	2017	2021	21	11	11	22	1.05	+2	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

PRIME										Series
	AGES	START	END	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG	+/-	Won
Crosby	19-30	2007	2018	154	63	144	177	1.15	+22	19
Jagr	20-36	1992	2008	144	74	94	168	1.17	+35	15
McDavid	19-24	2017	2021	21	11	11	22	1.05	+2	1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

PLAYOFF PLUS-MINUS DATA

I know there is more detailed playoff ES data, but I was unable to find it with searches.
I used a quick & dirty method for playoff adjusted plus-minus (APM), since I don't have detailed playoff on/off data:

Off PM = (Team PM - Player PM*5)/5 [Here we're deducting the player's effect by multiplying it by 5, the typical number of skaters at ES, then subtracting from team's PM. We now have a total team +/- which we must divide by 5, since again there are typically 5 skaters at ES.]

Adjusted PM = Player PM - (Off PM/2) [We divide that result by 2, because we expect top liners to have ~1/3 of ES ice time or 1/3 of ES scoring events, although that of course is a rough estimate. This gives us an expected PM for the player's ES ice time if that time was replaced/absorbed by the rest of the team. This is how much the player exceeded the expected PM, calculated above as Off PM.]

Since there's many fewer playoff games per season and plus-minus data fluctuates more than does scoring, so I'm just using prime data to get a more reliable sample size that still encompasses the prime years of each player's career.

PRIME	AGES	START	END	GP	+/-	Team +/-	Off +/-	APM	APM/GP	PM/GP
Crosby	19-30	2007	2018	160	+21	+193	+18	+12	+0.08	+0.13
Jagr	20-36	1992	2008	145	+36	+8	-34	+53	+0.37	+0.25
McDavid	19-24	2017	2021	21	+2	-42	-10	+7	+0.34	+0.10

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Again, these are just very rough, ballpark numbers, but the fundamental data tells you all you need to know: Crosby was +21 on teams that were +193 (+15 on teams that were +105 for his career), while Jagr was +36 on teams what were +8 (+30 on teams that were +52 for his career). Think about that for a few seconds and it's rather obvious the player with a much higher +/- on teams that were dramatically worse was the much more effective ES player. McDavid is off to a pretty good start, being plus on a weak playoff team, but again it's too early for any meaningful comparison.

Conclusion: I don't see any area where McDavid shouldn't be at least competitive with Crosby over time, and there's a very good chance he surpasses him in at least some areas. It's much too early to tell how he will stack up against Jagr's record, but there's not an area where he's hopelessly behind him. It's mostly the playoffs where his data is sparse and relatively unimpressive that is a slight cause for concern at this point.

This is all true, but then there's this:

By age 24
McDavid - 3 Art Ross, 2 Hart, 3 Pearson
Jagr - 1 Art Ross, 0 Hart, 0 Pearson

Let's give McD a little time to recover from joining the last overall team, managed by Peter 'franchise destroyer' Chiarelli.

 

[daver]

I agree with the bolded, except there wasn't any real argument (Lindros couldn't stay healthy enough to play full seasons, so none of this PPG B.S.)

I meant this as being arguably the best offensive player in the playoffs, not the regular season. His playoff PPG was the best in his prime but Forsberg and Sakic were closer to him than they were in the regular season while playing more games.

As I said, he doesn't lose points for his playoff resume but rather others gain points on him.

 

[Czech Your Math]

Yes, there is: NHL Standings.

Thanks for this, otherwise would not have bothered to look at this next part.

a couple of years ago, with his 2018 art ross and him having that insane march and *almost* challenging kucherov toward the end of 2019, i wondered if mcdavid's second half production were just garbage time points. but after what we saw this spring, i'm looking back at his monster stretch runs and what you see is he goes off whether he's in a playoff race or not.

i think the more likely explanation is that he's just flat out a superior athlete, which is pretty undeniable, and at points in the season where fatigue and nagging injuries are slowing other people down, he stands out even more because he's still going at october speed.

if you look at the stretch run of this season, when he scored three points a game for two weeks and averaged two points/game over two months, sure he destroyed post-COVID vancouver (14 points/5 games). but he destroyed the jets just as badly, 13 points/5 games.

if you look at his first MVP year, on march 12, he's two points ahead of kane in the scoring race, just three points ahead of crosby and four over malkin (and well behind both in points/game). the oilers are 35-24-9, and while i don't know where they are in the standings (is there a way to look that up? i don't know how) that's a 95 point pace. 95 points would have squeaked them into the playoffs with a one point cushion over the 9th place team.

after that game, mcdavid wins all the trophies with a 25 point in 14 game run. more importantly, the oilers go 12-2-0. they finish with 103 points and come within a win of catching anaheim for first in the division (whom they lost to 4-3 during that stretch run, three point game by mcdavid). the team they played and had home ice advantage over in the first round, san jose, was 41-20-7 on march 12.

all to say, there were real stakes in those stretch run games where mcdavid went off. i mean, this is the time of year when the games get *more* competitive right?

He won the 2017 Ross by 11 points, so it's a deserved win in any case, but since you brought it up (and the link mentioned above was provided), I took a look at his 2017 stretch run.
What you say is mostly true, but I think you made a mistake I have probably made myself at some point: Including the "95 point Oilers," without taking out the actual "103 point Oilers." So they actually would have beaten out 9th place Winnipeg with 87 points. While I look at each stretch game, I'm going to see whether EDM's opponent has clinched or been eliminated, and what place they are in. We could divide these games into categories for each of EDM and their opponents:

A) Before EDM clinches, all their games are high importance. After they clinch, all their games are low importance.
B) For their opponents, all opponents that have been eliminated or that have already clinched, are low intensity. The teams not yet eliminated, but in 9th place or lower are high intensity.

EDM High: 8-4-10-14 (1.75)
EDM Low: 6-3-8-11 (1.83)
OPP High: 4-3-2-5 (1.25)
OPP Low: 10-4-16-20 (2.00)

So the only real difference in splits is McDavid performing better against low-intensity opponents. Overall, it was one typical of his career after his injury-shortened rookie season and while those games may have helped his margin of victory some, that doesn't seem very important. I do wonder though whether we can similarly (but not exactly) apply similar logic to last season: His last 7 games were vs. eliminated VAN and clinched MTL. When he played his last 3 games vs. WPG, the Jets were in a rather comfortable spot (16 point lead on 5th with 12 games left). In those total of ten games, he had 27 points. If you deducted those games, that would leave him with 78 points in 46 games, or about 139 points in 82 games. If he has hit a new level, as it seems he has, then I'm guessing it's closer to that range than the 154 points that his 2021 projects to in a full, normal season.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

He's got a good shot in my opinion. I think he has a career year next season.