Will the Great 8 score 895?

[MattySnipes]

You know what? Gretz always says "records are meant to be broken", but I don't think he means that for his own. He's just too nice a guy. Wish I could've seen him play live. My only regret is being born in the 80s.

Love OV as a player, no doubt. I was only 16 when he was drafted, growing up while watching both him and Sid has been a privilege. I wish OV all the success, he's a great person too. But...I don't want to see him break that record, or 50 in 39.

 

[82Ninety42011]

Ovechkin is 11th in assists since the lockout and has virtually the same career assists per game as John Taveras, and higher than Patrice Bergeron.

Ovechkin is a great passer. I can post video evidence if you aren't convinced.

Nevermind the physical aspects of his game.

When saying all he does was referring to goals and assists bad choice of words as he does hit and do others things. As per being 11th since lockout I'm surprised especially considering since then he's had years of 24 (lock out), 28,28,21 and then a respectable 36,38,38 assists. He had much better assist numbers first 6 years in league though. No idea why he had such a drop off for a 3 year stretch though. However if you go assists per game since lockout minimum 100 games I bet he's nowhere near 11th.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Hockey reference adjusts for the 70 game seasons vs today's 82. They simply multiply Howe's totals by 1.17. They also adjust specifically for the scoring rates of the era, so neither the two factors you mentioned hurt Howe unless there is some other factor they didn't take into account.

Here is their explanation:

Adjusted Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Their adjusted goal total for Howe is 925 vs 740 for Ovechkin.

I am thinking maybe you are counting WHA goals - a league where a 45 year old Howe was MVP.

What I meant (maybe I wasn't clear) is Howe's unadjusted total (801 goals) understates his performance, because he spent basically all of his career playing a short schedule, and most of his best years playing in a low-scoring era - I realize hockey-reference.com adjusts for that.

The adjusted stats that I posted don't take any of Howe's time in the WHA into account. That is, his 1,100+ adjusted goals are strictly from his time in the NHL.

What really propels Howe in the VsX system is he was so high up in the goal-scoring race for so many seasons. Howe placed in the top seven in goals 18 times in his career. Only three other players have done that even ten times (Richard, Hull, and Ovechkin - and the closest of them is a full half-decade behind Howe). Yes, he played in a smaller league with less competition - but he was still ridiculously far ahead of anyone else from his era. I think it's a very defensible position to say that Howe had the best "high level longevity" among the NHL's best goal scorers. We'll see if Ovechkin one day takes that title from him.

 

[JianYang]

Ovechkin has to play a long time, at a high level, and I won't dismiss that from being possible considering that everything to date suggests he is a freak of nature.

One thing to keep an eye on is how desirable it is for him to keep going in the NHL versus being with his family. As time passes, sometimes it's the fire that diminishes just as much as the physical ability.


Alot of things need to align in order for ovy to have a shot at this, but I'm not dismissing the idea, simply because it's ovy that we are taking about.

 

[Midnight Judges]

What I meant (maybe I wasn't clear) is Howe's unadjusted total (801 goals) understates his performance, because he spent basically all of his career playing a short schedule, and most of his best years playing in a low-scoring era - I realize hockey-reference.com adjusts for that.

The adjusted stats that I posted don't take any of Howe's time in the WHA into account. That is, his 1,100+ adjusted goals are strictly from his time in the NHL.

What really propels Howe in the VsX system is he was so high up in the goal-scoring race for so many seasons. Howe placed in the top seven in goals 18 times in his career. Only three other players have done that even ten times (Richard, Hull, and Ovechkin - and the closest of them is a full half-decade behind Howe). Yes, he played in a smaller league with less competition - but he was still ridiculously far ahead of anyone else from his era. I think it's a very defensible position to say that Howe had the best "high level longevity" among the NHL's best goal scorers. We'll see if Ovechkin one day takes that title from him.

Eh I'm skeptical of VsX but only know the basics. You have twice linked to a thread that explains a little about it but that explanation links to another explanation from another guy and that link isn't working for me.

 

[Leafs87]

He’s the greatest goal scorer for me regardless. Doubt he gets to 895 though. Go back and look at a a lot of the great ones goals though. Zero chance they go in between 2006 and 2019

 

[dragonballgtz]

I hope he gives it a good go in these last years of his career. Whats even crazier is he would need less if it wasn't for the lockouts smh. Also, why in the hell is everyone trying to jinx him by saying he is a tank.

 

[Nino33]

Scoring in the 1970's is completely irrelevant given that goalies were virtually non-existent cardboard cutouts. Its basically a different sport at that point. The implication being that yes Gretzky scored 92 goals...but it was in the 1970's, not in today's NHL which is what Ovechkin has done. Look into era adjusting and you'll see that Ovechkin's best season actually adjusts to 93 goals.

Sorry but given you don't even know when Gretzky played (and doubled down on being wrong about it), for me the value of your hockey opinions is non-existent

 

[bobc222]

Sorry but given you don't even know when Gretzky played (and doubled down on being wrong about it), for me the value of your hockey opinions is non-existent

Ok wow. Try reading the posts, I was quoting another poster who used "1970s" in their post (hence it being bolded). Beyond that, notionally, whether or not one knows the dates of when Gretzky played is completely irrelevant to whether or not an argument related to statistical analysis and era adjusted goals is in fact accurate. You seem to be making a logical leap in your post.

Your argument:
1. X person doesn't know when Gretzky played therefore X person's argument about era adjusted goals is invalid.

That argument is, in fact, not sound. While it may be valid in structure, its contents are not syllogistic in nature. Maybe do some research into basic logical argumentation. Then, come back and try again.

PS, be sure to read the posts, because you should be angry at the original poster who went on about the 1970's if you actually read my posts in this thread you will see that I call him out for being inaccurate when he brings up the 70's.

 

[Zuluss]

Here is the full list of players who scored 150+ goals being 34 and older (Ovechkin is turning 34 this September)
Player Season Finder | Hockey-Reference.com

The list includes just 13 players, at least three of them were greatly helped by the high-scoring environment of the 70s.

Two interesting examples are Brett Hull (187 goals in 6 seasons; the table says 7 seasons because it counts the five games Brett Hull played after the 2005 lockout as a "season") and Teemu Selanne (216 goals in 9 seasons, which included 26 games in 07/08, 54 games in 09/10, 46 games in 12/13 (lockout)).

Ovechkin is a better goal-scorer than both of them, so assuming he plays 6 more seasons and retires at 40 (or at 41 if there is a full-season lockout), he should get at least 187 goals, which would put his career total at 658+187=845.
Now, assume Ovechkin is 41 (a full-season lockout happens or a partial season lockout happens plus some injuries for the old man). He sits at 845, 50 goals to go to break the record.

If he decides to pull a Selanne and stick around for 3 more seasons (Selanne retired after turning 43), he should score at least as much as Selanne did in 2.5 seasons (during the shortened season of 12/13 Selanne was 42). Selanne got 26+12+9=47 goals - throw in 3 more, and there you go.

So, as was said many times in similar threads, the question is whether Ovechkin decides to play past 40 to go for the record - he will likely sit at close to 850 goals then.

 

[vippe]

Is Ovechkin within striking distance of the record, he will keep playing. If healthy and fit to play ofc.

 

[Nino33]

Ok wow. Try reading the posts, I was quoting another poster who used "1970s" in their post (hence it being bolded).

Here's what you quoted/bolded (post #84)

"Gretzky also scored in 92 and also scored 87 once and twice scored in the 70's. If you want to be considered better than Gretzky, then you have to score 93 in a season. No one will ever do that again."

And here's what you said

I highlighted two phrases (that you said) for you that when paired together should open your eyes. Try again.

The "in the 70s" refers to his two seasons scoring 70-79 goals and is not a reference to the 1970s (notice the poster didn't actually use "1970s" like you still think).

And that's what I pointed out...

Pairing together

• Gretzky scored 92 goals (in 1981-82)
• Gretzky twice scored in the 70s (71 in 1982-83, 73 in 1984-85)

...opens eyes to see what exactly?

And now that you doubled down/tripled down on your mistake, my question has been asked

 

[blue425]

Barring something unforeseen I think he gets close but falls short - 850's or so.

That said I hope he does it.

 

[bobc222]

Here's what you quoted/bolded (post #84)

"Gretzky also scored in 92 and also scored 87 once and twice scored in the 70's. If you want to be considered better than Gretzky, then you have to score 93 in a season. No one will ever do that again."

And here's what you said




The "in the 70s" refers to his two seasons scoring 70-79 goals and is not a reference to the 1970s (notice the poster didn't actually use "1970s" like you still think).

And that's what I pointed out... And now that you doubled down/tripled down on your mistake, my question has been asked

While I concede that I misinterpreted OP, although if you review the edit history on the post you will see my confusion, I still hardly see how it's relevant to the point I was making.

All of this is entirely semantic in so far as it is related to the actual point I was making about era adjusted goals, irrespective of my misinterpretation of that clause. So, you are right in the regard to the setup I made, but that's all it was. It was just a lead in to a separate argument I was making about goal scoring.

 

[Nino33]

While I concede that I misinterpreted OP

Glad you finally see it (that took awhile)

I actually made no comment about adjusted goals or goalscoring or anything like that; you should quote those that do if you want to carry on about these things

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Ovechkin isn't an average NHLer though, he's one of the best to have played the game. I think with the way the game is played now and is shaping up to be played in the future helps him. We've seen a lot more players play past their late 30's in the last decade plus, I don't see how Ovechkin is any different than some of the greats to play beyond 40. If he's close to reaching what's thought of as an unbreakable record he'll likely stick around.



You act as if a lockout is inevitable, we just don't know that yet. Hell, maybe a lockout would help him.
He may miss more games due to injury than he has in his entire career, but this isn't an Ales Hemsky. we're talking about. Mother nature might slow him down but I think he's going to be closer to hitting 50 goals at 36 than he is to retiring.



He got 51 this year. Just because he's 34 doesn't mean his career is anywhere close to being over. If he played until 40 he'd need to average 40. If he pots another 50 goal season at any point in his career he's only 187 away and would need to average 31 goals if he played to 41. That's a lot more realistic than you are giving him credit for.

No it is not realistic to think Ovechkin will average 40 between now and 2025-2026

Maybe this coming season but eventually age to gets everybody Ovechkin is not special he is no different.

 

[JianYang]

No it is not realistic to think Ovechkin will average 40 between now and 2025-2026

Maybe this coming season but eventually age to gets everybody Ovechkin is not special he is no different.

What you are saying makes total sense, but Ovechkin is an absolute freak, and the conventional rules have not been applying to him so far. He's changed his game a little bit, but he liked to play the game in almost a predatory way that should have broken down his body by now, yet his body is still holding up well. Maybe he's a rare exception to conventional wisdom.

 

[Ukapitalo]

As of this season, Alexander Ovechkin must score 237 goals in order to better The Great One's all time goalscoring record. In this thread I do some back of the envelope calculations to estimate with what probability that will happen, and plot the results.

Key assumptions: I assume that he will play 5 more seasons. One could of course assume more or fewer. There are two main sources of uncertainty with this calculation: how many games will he play, and at what rate will he score. In each case a distribution must be assumed. For each distributional assumption you will get a different result.

To model his scoring rate, I draw samples from a Gaussian distribution fit to his GPG in his 14 seasons in the NHL. First, a line of best fit is found to model the trend of scoring throughout his career. This is slightly negative and likely underestimates the effect of ageing. For each year, a sample is drawn from a distribution with the mean given by this trend, and standard deviation given by the year to year variance of his goal scoring.

View attachment 244669

To model the number of games he will play I use a triangular distribution with its peak at 78, max at 82 (obvs) and minimum at 67, which is 5 fewer than the smallest number of games Ovi has played in a full length season. Ovechkin has been an extremely healthy player during his career, but obviously this could change.

The two are multiplied together and rounded down to give an estimate of goals scored in a given year. This process is repeated for each of his remaining 5 years, and 10,000 montecarlo trials are done.

Results: Here is the normalized histogram for 100,000 trials and the empirical CDF.

View attachment 244687

View attachment 244671



TL;DR: There's about a 4% chance that Ovechkin scores 895 or more under these assumptions. In this case, we can pretty safely conclude that a severe injury or a lockout would basically eliminate the possibility of Ovechkin setting a new record.

However, the total isn't the only record up for grabs. Also in jeopardy is the number of 50 goal seasons record. Under these assumptions, Ovechkin has about an 18% chance of setting the new record (10). However, under these assumptions, it is almost a certainty that Ovechkin will eclipse Gordie Howe for 2nd all time on the scoring list. Given league scoring trends and games missed to lockouts, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Ovechkin very well may be the greatest goalscorer who ever lived.

This looks exactly like how I do "back of the envelope" data modeling as well.

 

[bobc222]

Glad you finally see it (that took awhile)

I actually made no comment about adjusted goals or goalscoring or anything like that; you should quote those that do if you want to carry on about these things

I'm not saying that you made a comment about it- my whole point is that you were focusing on the irrelevant intro to my discussion instead of the actual meat of my argument which was about adjusted scoring

 

[Soundgarden]

No it is not realistic to think Ovechkin will average 40 between now and 2025-2026

Maybe this coming season but eventually age to gets everybody Ovechkin is not special he is no different.

Yes, he's probably not going to score 40 going into his late 30's but it's not out of the question that he can still hit 15-30 even going into his 40s.

Even if he doesn't get 50 or even 40 ever again he can still realistically get to 237, I even included a catastrophic season and a 20 goal decrease from this year.

34: 30 = 207
35: 30 = 187
36: 30 = 150
37: 12 = 138
38: 35 = 103
39: 28 = 75
40: 15 = 60

At that point he can play until he hits 60. You have to admit he has a realistic chance at it. You're automatically thinking his career ends the second he hits 40.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Yes, he's probably not going to score 40 going into his late 30's but it's not out of the question that he can still hit 15-30 even going into his 40s.

Even if he doesn't get 50 or even 40 ever again he can still realistically get to 237, I even included a catastrophic season and a 20 goal decrease from this year.

34: 30 = 207
35: 30 = 187
36: 30 = 150
37: 12 = 138
38: 35 = 103
39: 28 = 75
40: 15 = 60

At that point he can play until he hits 60. You have to admit he has a realistic chance at it. You're automatically thinking his career ends the second he hits 40.

If I am reading that right you have him scoring 12 goals at 37 and then have him jumping to 35 goals at age 38 when was the last to,e. Anything close to that happened at that age? you are betting on magic essentially

 

[Soundgarden]

If I am reading that right you have him scoring 12 goals at 37 and then have him jumping to 35 goals at age 38 when was the last to,e. Anything close to that happened at that age? you are betting on magic essentially

These are all just loose predictions, the first few being on the lower end, it's more likely he hits over 30 in the next two or three seasons. I just put in the 12 goal season as a worst case scenario season for him, like maybe he misses 11 games for the first time in his career .

Here's a more realistic view and I'll still err on the side of caution and not give him a season with over 40 goals and no seasons where he tops the previous.

34. 40 - 198
35. 38 - 160
36. 35 - 125
37. 28 - 97
38. 25 - 72
39. 22 - 50
40. 20 - 30
41. 15 - 15
42. 10 - 5

You're not admitting that it's in the realm of possibility and I still believe he's got at least one or two more 50 goal seasons in there. Why don't you think it's possible?

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

These are all just loose predictions, the first few being on the lower end, it's more likely he hits over 30 in the next two or three seasons. I just put in the 12 goal season as a worst case scenario season for him, like maybe he misses 11 games for the first time in his career .

Here's a more realistic view and I'll still err on the side of caution and not give him a season with over 40 goals and no seasons where he tops the previous.

34. 40 - 198
35. 38 - 160
36. 35 - 125
37. 28 - 97
38. 25 - 72
39. 22 - 50
40. 20 - 30
41. 15 - 15
42. 10 - 5

You're not admitting that it's in the realm of possibility and I still believe he's got at least one or two more 50 goal seasons in there. Why don't you think it's possible?

Becaus it isn't possible it is ridiculous to even suggest

 

[Soundgarden]

Becaus it isn't possible it is ridiculous to even suggest

I just showed you how it's possible even with a decline and even without hitting 36 goals, you're just being obtuse at this point. Your answer to why you don't think it's possible is because it isn't possible?

How many goals do you see him hitting next year? 40+?

 

[rintinw]

If I am reading that right you have him scoring 12 goals at 37 and then have him jumping to 35 goals at age 38 when was the last to,e. Anything close to that happened at that age? you are betting on magic essentially

Brett Hull (age 38), 2002-03 season, 37 goals
Teemu Selanne (age 40), 2010-11 season, 31 goals
Martin St. Louis (age 38), 2013-14 season, 30 goals