What would peak Ovechkin look like in the 80's?

[Alexander the Gr8]

Stamkos and Subban come to mind.

Any PP that relies heavily on a single player for his shot will be closely covered. Ovechkin isn't unique in that regard.

Stamkos doesn't even draw top defensive pairing anymore, that's a myth. Tyler Johnson receives all the attention.

As for Subban, he is covered just as much as Pacioretty.

 

[Lebowski]

Stamkos doesn't even draw top defensive pairing anymore, that's a myth. Tyler Johnson receives all the attention.

As for Subban, he is covered just as much as Pacioretty.

You are talking of PPs here, correct? In which case, no, not at all.

Although Tampa's PP has had its issues this season, but in the past Stamkos has always been the guy to watch out for. A lot of his goals come from the same spot Ovechkin and Kovalchuk used to score their goals on the PP.

As for Pacioretty on the Habs' PP, trust me on this, he's a non factor. No one has to cover him since he's never in a position to shoot. All of the Habs PP goes through Subban, and he's heavily pressured as a result.

 

[Black Gold Extractor]

Let's put a little perspective on this (absurd, sci-fi) topic, and then I'll let it go.

The thesis of this thread is a self-congratulatory "The-NHL-I-watch-today-has-the-best-players-EVER!". My thesis would be that the NHL changes over time, and that the entire approach/style of the game changes; but I wouldn't argue that one era's players are better than another's. (Slightly off-topic: another point I'll always argue until I'm blue in the face, which some of you surely agree with, is that the only player vs. player comparison that makes any sense or is at all relevant is when a player is compared to his peers. Therefore, I'm not arsed whatsoever whether Stamkos has a better slapshot than Gordie Howe because it's irrelevant. The only relevant issue is that Gordie Howe dominated his era more than Stamkos his [so far]. But I'm getting off topic.)

Back to the 80s/90s issues. Let's consider a few factors before we anoint Ovechkin as the player who would score 150 goals a season in the 80s.

The top point scorer of the 1980s was Wayne Gretzky. The top point scorer of the 1990s was... Wayne Gretzky. Consider the 1997-98 season, when Gretzky was 10 years past his prime, a year from retirement, playing for a no-talent losing team that wasn't even challenging for the playoffs and was one of the lowest-scoring teams, and finished 3rd in NHL scoring with 90 points at the onset of the 'dead-puck era'. In fact, the Rangers scored only 197 goals (fewer than 26 teams this season), which means Gretzky got a point on 46% of their goals, which is about the same ratio he was having in Edmonton in the mid-80s.

Compare the top point-scorers that year (player-age at season's end in parentheses):
Jagr (26) 102/228 = 45%
Forsberg (24) 91/231 = 39%
Gretzky (37) 90/197 = 46%
Bure (27) 90/224 = 40%

So, to review: Ten years past his prime, Gretzky matched or outscored Jagr (still playing today), Forsberg, and Bure... not to mention other no-name bums like Selanne, Sundin, and Lindros. What's more, every team these guys played for had a better record (and scored more goals) than the Rangers, excepting Bure whose Canucks were just as bad as the Rangers (but scored more goals). And this was a Gretzky who was a shell of his former self, no longer going to the front of the net, winning races to loose pucks, or challenging defenders.

So, there's that. Next, consider that during his 7-year prime Gretzky outscored the 2nd-best scorer in the NHL by 71%. In one season, he won the scoring title on January 7th.


So, considering these two factors -- (1) that 10-years-past-his-prime Gretzky was matching prime Jagr, Selanne, Forsberg, and Bure in the late 90s -- just 6 years before Ovechkin was drafted -- and (2) that young Gretzky dominated his peers offensively by a margin that no player before or since can even begin to approach by half, do we really think that Ovechkin in the 80s, with a wooden stick and 80s' equipment to match everybody else and little-to-no protection from goons by the referees, would score twice as many goals as Gretzky in 1984? Let's just say I have my doubts.


In any case, these kind of sci-fi topics are nuts. I consider players' greatness and importance only relative to their peers. Ovechkin is the greatest goal-scorer of his era (well, in the regular season anyway), no doubt about it. This indeed puts him high in the upper echelon of greatest goal scorers in history. But his dominance over his peers isn't as impressive as several players in history, yet. We'll see how he does in his 30s. Looking forward to finding out!

I'd like to add that it's not just romanticizing the past or nostalgia, but it's also about respecting the players of past and present by giving them their due. It's fair to assume that modern players would do well in the past, but it's also fair to assume that past stars with modern training and equipment would also do well in the present.

As for Gretzky, he was 4th in scoring in the 1996-97 season with 97 points, a season in which the Rangers made it all the way to the Conference Finals before being stopped by the Flyers. Gretzky had 20 points in 15 playoff games (including 9 points in 5 games in the Conference Finals). The next closest in scoring on the Rangers were Messier and Tikkanen, each with 12 points in 15 games.

Again, this was Gretzky, who was playing with a bad back a decade past his prime, in an era of grabbing and holding, interference, high-physicality, excellent goaltending (for example Vanbiesbrouck with 0.929 SV%, Brodeur with 0.937 SV%, Hextall with 0.924 SV%, and Snow with 0.828 SV%... well, maybe not Snow), and two-line offsides.

Ovechkin born in the 60's playing in the 80's would probably have goal totals approaching that of Gretzky as a peak but with more consistency by the end of the first decade, and way fewer assists.

 

[Never]

yeah no....

Ovechkin with 2015 equipment and conditioning? Sure he could.

Ovechkin with 1980's equipment and "conditioning"? Yeah then he wouldn't.

 

[hockeystick89]

He would probably be running a nasty mullet.

 

[octopi]

He would probably be running a nasty mullet.

80's ate it for hairstyles...he'd look hilarious bad with all that grey

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Ovechkin isn't exactly the poster child for conditioning. Not that I'm saying he's not in shape, but I think that factor is being over-rated.

Even given tech from the old days I think he'd still dominate offensively with the best, and might possibly be THE best. The talent, size, and skating ability he has would enable that. You think he couldn't give it right back to the goons of that era? He's no wilting flower. He could easily hold his own. To do what he's done in this era where goalies are infinitely bigger, faster, and more talented than they were in the 80s, and defensive structure has improved enormously, is amazing. He would absolutely own the tiny, no-one-else-wanted-to-do-it-so-we-got-this-guy goalies in a wide open game even with a wooden stick.

But that's just an opinion. I can't prove it nor can I say the opposite opinion is false. We will never know.

 

[TOML]

Why are people so affixed to the 80's?

Yes, there were a lot of weak teams back then.