Don't know if it would be the best, but Fedorov, Lindros, and Bure would be the most fun to watch. Bure and Lindros were great in their limited time together at a point in their careers where they were both ravaged by injury. Prime Lindros clearing space for prime Bure, and then adding Fedorov into the mix? That would be just amazing to watch.
Which line would you rather have right now all at peak level?
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Mrb1p
PRICERSTOPDAPUCK
I think Forbserg ever being the best in the world is more plausible than Fedorov, even if his case isnt perfect.
I think you're exaggerating on Forsberg. He too was the best player in the world for a stretch, and that's in the ~2002-2004 timeframe. You can probably argue for Lemieux if you want, but he was old and missed so many games it's hard to get a fair assessment.
And saying Forsberg didn't win the pearson in 2003 - well, he should have. Gretzky didn't win the pearson the year he scored 215 points either, sometimes votes don't make sense. Coming back to 2003 specifically, isn't that trophy voted on by players earlier in the season? Forsberg staged a hell of a comeback in the last 2 months to win the Art Ross (despite playing 75 games to Naslund's 82). But if players were voting in ~February, Naslund was still ahead then. That likely played some part in that.
Clearly we're agreed prime Jagr > peak Forsberg. But by 2002, Jagr wasn't playing that well for a cpl years, so edge to Forsberg.
CupInSIX
My cap runneth over
Give me 2 and don't give me crap about recency bias. The amount of breakaways and odd man rushes would be unprecedented.
They'd be so fun to watch.
They'd be so fun to watch.
Foppberg
Registered User
Exactly. Matthews is scoring at a 65 goal pace. I have a hard time believing in future seasons that he would be scoring at a 75-80+ goal pace.
Same for McDavid. He is scoring at a 135 point pace, I have a hard time seeing him scoring at a 150, 160+ point pace in the future.
Both are probably around peak level right now.
ManofSteel55
Registered User
Forsberg was nearly the ultimate player, aside from his injuries. He was among the most dominant players I have ever seen along the boards, had amazing touch, pristine accuracy with both passing and shooting, and was one of the best defenders in the NHL while doing it.
I rank these 5, 1, 3, 2, 4
ManofSteel55
Registered User
Number 5 quite easily. Every other line has at least one player from tier below Sakic/Forsberg/Jagr
Mrb1p
PRICERSTOPDAPUCK
Legionnaire
Help On The Way
You're confusing peak and prime. Peak is one season.
It's Fedorov - Lindros - Bure pretty easily. Fedorov and Lindros are only behind Gretzky and Lemieux when it comes to peak seasons I've seen.
nowhereman
Registered User
I'd still say he was the best at that point, since being "the best player in the world" (in my book) is not something that happens in one season. Forsberg had the body of work.
There's a difference between being the actual best player in the game and having the best season. For instance, Patrick Kane, Cary Price, the Sedins and Perry were never the best players in the NHL but they all had individual seasons that won them hardware. However, during that time, Crosby and OV were the best two players in the league, until McDavid took the mantle years down the line. And, even though Kucherov beat out McDavid in the scoring race that one year, that doesn't mean Kucherov was the better player.
Fedorov's 93-94 season was a tremendous high mark for him but it was an outlier that he never once came close to touching again. As far as I'm concerned, all that means is that he had the best single season that year but Lemieux was clearly the best in the game, with Gretzky still doing Gretzky-like things.
That said, for the purpose of this thread, Fedorov fits in just fine. But he was never the best.
Based on adjusted production, OV, Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, etc. have all peaked higher. Lindros' best season is barely over a 100 points, if adjusted for era. Personally, I don't think either matches up to those aforementioned four at their pest.
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Connor McConnor
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- Nov 22, 2017
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Utilized a similar "point" system as other posters and I came up with, in order:
[TBODY]
[/TBODY]
Totals
[TBODY]
[/TBODY]
| Pts | LW | C | RW |
| 5 | Ovechkin | McDavid | Jagr |
| 4 | Forsberg | Crosby | Kane |
| 3 | Fedorov | Sakic | Malkin |
| 2 | Stamkos | Lindros | MacK |
| 1 | Matthews | Datsyuk | Bure |
Totals
| Line 1 | 9 |
| Line 2 | 8 |
| Line 3 | 6 |
| Line 4 | 10 |
| Line 5 | 12 |
Ben White
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The period from 2002 playoffs until 2006 mid season injury Forsberg was and was considered the best player in the world. The stats as well as the experts’ and other players’ opinions clearly backs that up. No one in the league was particularly close during that period. You could make an argument if you want to that the competition was slightly weaker compared to the mid 90’s for example but the fact remains.
Sidney the Kidney
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I don't think "peak" should be just 1 season. Peak, IMO, is when a player was at his best during his prime. That could encompass a 2 or 3 year stretch.
Otherwise you could get an outlier like Jonathan Cheechoo's "peak" goal scoring season being better than someone who consistently scored 50 goals for 3 straight years, then scored 40 goals for the other 7 seasons surrounding that. IMO, the guy with 50 goals for 3 straight years had the higher peak than Cheechoo and his 56 goals, 36 goals, and 28 goals as his three highest years of his prime.
Ben White
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If the question is peak level I would rank the players like this (including where I think currently young players will peak):
McDavid
Crosby
Jagr
Forsberg
Lindros
Malkin
Fedorov
Ovechkin
Bure
Sakic
Datsyuk
Kane
Matthews
MacKinnon
Stamkos
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Ben White
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“Peak play” and “peak season” are two different things. Why would you narrow the definition of a player’s peak level to a given 82 game stretch during one season where the the player happened to be healthy for the entire season?
Sidney the Kidney
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Ben White
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dr robbie
Let's Go Pens!
That was my same thought process. Every other line has a weak link and if we're talking about peak, these three would be a step above the other proposed lines handedly.
Video Nasty
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This very well could be the peak level of play for both players, but their numbers will seem fantastical only because we’re going up to 56 games.
Think of it this way. Crosby’s 2010-2011 is constantly talked about because it ended for him at a very clean 41 games and he went on a serious heater until a couple of games before the end. It’s easy for many to romanticize what could have been.
What is rarely brought up is his sophomore 2006-2007 season where he won the scoring title with 120 points in 79 games.
He had 95 points through 56 games. That’s almost 1.7 PPG and no one ever talks about it, no one ever mentions that he went 15 games deeper into the season than in 2010-2011 with a PPG that was .10 PPG higher, and a 139 point pace.
The reality is that he scored 25 points in his final 23 games and got to 120. No one mentions it because he played the rest of the season, won the awards, and it didn’t really matter that he didn’t push 140. Playing the full season naturally evened it out and fantasy talk didn’t spice it up more than it already was.
I believed that McDavid could flirt with 100 points going into this season because for 2.5 years straight, he had been averaging over 1.5 ppg and it didn’t seem inconceivable to me that given full health, his age, and the all conditions and stipulations of this season, that he could bump his production up an additional 10-15 points.
I don’t believe for a second that even if he gets to 100 in 56 that it means he would cross 145 points in a full normal campaign. Going past 130 would really surprise me.
If we get a full season next year, McDavid will very likely break his career high of 116 points and it will be seen as a slight disappointment or drop off from this season (if he ends up with 95-100 points) because he’s going to play 26 more games (if healthy) that will naturally drag down his PPG, pace, projections, and so on.
Mrb1p
PRICERSTOPDAPUCK
Then what do you do when a player has multiple seasons at the same level? Like Crosby, McDavid, Lindros, etc.
Hockey Outsider
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That's why I tend to value the Hart over the Lindsay/Pearson. The Hart is voted on after the season is over, the Lindsay/Pearson wasn't for many years - not sure if that's still the case though.
It's not that Naslund was bad down the stretch in 2003. From March 22nd onwards, he had 10 points in seven games. But Forsberg was unstoppable - he had 18 points in the final nine games. On the very last day of the season (after the Pearson voting was already done), Forsberg took the Art Ross from Naslund. He also propelled his linemate Milan Hejduk to take the Rocket Richard trophy from Naslund, and the Avalanche took the division title from Naslund's Canucks. Forsberg was obviously the better two-way player as well. We don't know with certainty, but it's inconceivable to me that the players would have picked Naslund over Forsberg if they did the vote at the end of the season.
