Will McDavid Have Surpassed The Following Hall Of Fame Players' Careers If He Sweeps The Awards?

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Not by themselves.

Lemeiux didn't win anything nor go far in the playoffs until he had Coffey, Francis, Jagr, Murphy etc. Likewise Yzerman until he had more talent around him. Takes more than a single great player to win the Stanley Cup.

Both still won regardless

 

[psycat]

I only voted the two highest vote getters but I mean an argument could be made that he past all except Forsberg in that case.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Peak Gretzky/Orr/Lemieux? Good enough to win by themselves (not literally). Put those peak versions of players in a ~5 year stretch on an average team, and they almost surely win a cup or 2.

All the evidence points to you being wildly wrong.

Lemieux and Gretzky never won a cup without 6 or 7 other hall of famers on their team (Lemieux had 7 both times).

Peak Lemieux, at age 22 and 24, couldn't even get his team into the playoffs back when 16 out of 21 teams made it in.

Orr needed another all time great player in Esposito. And even then the Bruins were an otherwise solid team. In fact they won substantially more games in 1976 after Bobby Orr left than they did with Orr's Art Ross production in 1975.

The overwhelming evidence clearly demonstrates that hockey is a big time team sport, and no single player has ever carried a team. It. Has. Never. Happened.

You are massively overrating these players, and your assertions are utterly unsupported by real life.

 

[Video Nasty]

Great players win rings PERIOD

Exactly, so the benefit of the doubt should be given, until we’re talking about a McDavid in his 30s who hasn’t even participated in a Cup Final. And even then, anyone with an ounce of rational critical thinking should be able to analyze his career with context. Bourque was still the second best defenseman ever, pre Stanley Cup. Winning it changed nothing, besides having a warm fuzzy sports moment and his own personal journey and goals fulfilled.

I guarantee if these boards existed in 1990, you wouldn’t take the same stance with Mario as you do with McDavid.

Mario made the playoffs once and played 11 playoff games during his first 6 seasons in which all but 5 teams made the playoffs.

He missed 54 games in his 7th year, but the team was finally good enough to weather his absence until he made his season debut in late January and obviously, he led them on a historic playoff run.

Luckily, his team did more than tread water for the first 4 months of the season because if not, his entire storyline changes. He would miss the playoffs for the 6th time in 7 seasons and the timeline shifts in a way we’ll never know. He played 90 out of a possible 160 games in the regular season during the 2 Cup years.

The Oilers are not making the playoffs in two seasons where half the teams make them if McDavid misses 44% of the games.

I say none of this to discredit Lemieux (he’s my second favorite ever), but you got to call a spade a spade sometimes.

Try not to be such a slave to the sweater once in a while.

Players as great as McDavid usually gets theirs in the end. And if they don’t, well, people should understand what he was drafted into.

Zero regular season and playoff success doesn’t stop players like Barry Sanders from being considered the greatest (or one of) at their position. The same should hold true for McDavid. Gretzky and Lemieux have that position locked up forever. McDavid can be the 3rd greatest C with time though. We understand how bad his situation is and while things should get noticeably better for next season with cap space, people should be able to step back and think more critically than the regurgitated talking points of shock jock radio.

 

[Dust]

You have a pretty strong argument that he's passed all of these players already. He'll probably catch Bure and Neely in career points in the next 2-3 seasons, despite playing something like 200+ less games.

The big caveat will be if he stays healthy. There's the big "what if" question with Neely, Bure, Lindros, Kariya, and Forsberg because those guys could have had far more prolific careers had they been able to stay healthy.

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

Both still won regardless

Yes because they won a team trophy while playing on a good team.

Surely, with your logic, this would mean you can finally accept that Gretzky was better than Lemieux. After all, Gretzky won more than Lemieux.

 

[JJ68]

All except Forsberg

On another note, Datsyuk is the most overrated player on HF, damn. The guy isn’t even a career point per game and never had a 100 point season, while playing on absolutely stacked teams. McDavid’s career is already better than his.

it's becauae he sometimes did a dirty dangle. He's Kovalev but works harder. I ageree, overrated.

 

[JJ68]

Teams win cups. Not players.

Teams consist of 20-30 players.

Exactly. I guess Hawerchuk wasnt that great because his team was never stacked in Winnipeg like Edmonton and he had no help.

 

[snipes]

All of the above

 

[jbeck5]

Exactly. I guess Hawerchuk wasnt that great because his team was never stacked in Winnipeg like Edmonton and he had no help.

Exactly. Ray Bourque didn't become great in Colorado. He was great all along in Boston. That argument needs to die.