Ovechkin never had an Evgeni Malkin (no insult to Backstrom)
Crosby easily
Top 5 player all time
3 Cups / 2 Conn Smythes
he's already 10th all time in playoff points, will likely finish top 4
he's currently 6th all time in points per game (OV is 23rd)
2 gold medals
Golden Goal is the most famous goal scored of all time
- The first is highly debatable.
- 3 cups / 2 conns mythes is nothing unique. There are hundreds of players with more than 3 cups. Bernie Parent has two Conn Smythes too, but is never really in any discussions about the best goalies ever.
- Points per game is where this turns into legacy discussion. Whenever it's brought up it's because the player wasn't actually playing games and producing the actual points. In actual Points, Crosby is behind Ovechkin. In PPG he is up there, but with the likes of Mike Bossy, Peter Forsberg, Peter Stastny, Kent Nilsson players. A lot of discussion about these players is about "what could've been", and this is likely what a discussion about Crosby will be targeting. I think this will be his legacy.
- Olympic medals are nice, and his legacy in Canada will of course be different because of that. Outside of Canada I think most people appreciate just how much of a power house Canada is in international hockey enough to put an asterisk next to team achievements, especially playing on that team.
- See above. It's not the most famous of all time where I live for sure.
Assuming Ovi gets 900 goals, he'll have the greater legacy and it won't be particularly close. That all time goal record is likely better than anything Crosby has/can accomplish. Ovi finally got that elusive Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe. He also has the calder over Crosby. Then he has an Art Ross, Hart, Pearson/Lindsay, and a shitload of Rockets. They'd be close on personal hardware if you take away Ovi's rockets, but with all those and if he gets the goal scoring record I don't know how Crosby can even be argued as having a better legacy.
Worst case for Crosby is he's remembered as a Sakic/Yzerman type, an over PPG "Captain Canada" thats won it all. Best case maybe he pushes himself up into Howe/Jagr/Messier borderline top 5 all time status. Personally I think as time goes on and Crosby is gone while we see guys like McDavid, Draisaitl, MacKinnon, etc dominating the league, Crosby's status will be closer to that of Sakic and Yzerman. But Ovi (again assuming he gets it) will always be the GOAT goal scorer until someone eventually dethrones him. The longer his hypothetical record stands, the stronger his legacy will be over Crosby.
The only way Crosby comes close is if he can crack 2000, maybe just 1800 points. But that seems unlikely given his inability to stay healthy and I just can't see him having the longevity to hit a milestone like that given his health.
I consider Crosby more like an inferior version of Lemieux: Injury-prone but less points than Lemieux's.
Some scorching hot takes in this thread. “Crosby isn’t a unique player, doesn’t have anything special in his resume”, “Will be remembered as a Yzerman or a Sakic at best”, it keeps getting better..
While I like the Lemieux comparison given they were both great players with questionable health, Crosby never dominated his peers like Lemieux did. For the sake of argument lets say Ovi is to Crosby what Gretzky was to Lemieux. You remove Gretzky and Lemieux instantly becomes the best player. You take Ovi away, and does Sid really become the hands down best player? At any given time he had Malkin, Stamkos, Kane, Thornton, the Sedins, and now more recently McDavid, Draisaitl, Kucherov and MacKinnon just behind/ahead of him. Now if you factor out injuries Crosby is one of the few on that list who was consistently great every season, but he was never that much better than the next guy that I'd put him on Lemieux's level.
Yeah, I agree with that. That's why I said Crosby is an inferior version of Lemieux. Also, as much as I'd hate to admit this, the Sedins don't deserve to be on the list aforementioned. They're good, but not elite.
Yea I'd agree with that on all points. I simply listed the Sedins as I was looking at guys who flirted with the point totals Crosby got, even if only for a year or two.
If you don't have Malkin to add, then it's doesn't really matter who you will choose.I still view Sid as the better all around player, and at the end of the day if I could draft either of them at 18 to build a team around for 20 years it's gonna be Crosby.