Agreed. I wasn't alive when he played, but always admired the old footage of him carrying a crappy team for so many years in those gorgeous mustard jerseys.

If he spent his prime somewhere other than LA he would have gotten more due.

Just goes to show how asinine Tanner's statement was. OV is great, but I don't see how he even cracks top 10 in goal scorers. Perhaps his worst lulz statement.
- FLflames34

The five people in your hockey pool ahead of you understand the game better than you do

Agreed. I wasn't alive when he played, but always admired the old footage of him carrying a crappy team for so many years in those gorgeous mustard jerseys.

If he spent his prime somewhere other than LA he would have gotten more due.

Just goes to show how asinine Tanner's statement was. OV is great, but I don't see how he even cracks top 10 in goal scorers. Perhaps his worst lulz statement.
- FLflames34

555 goals in 913 games (0.608 goals/game) which sits him behind only Bossy (0.762 goals/game), Lemieux (0.754 goals/game) and Bure (0.623 goals/game) among players that have played more than 500 games.

http://www.quanthockey.co...als-per-game-leaders.html

He has done this during a time when NHL scoring is well down and goalies are much better equipped than the majority of his competition around him (Hulls, Dionne, Ciccarelli, etc).

http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/stats.html

https://www.sportingchart...-per-game-in-the-nhl.aspx

Add to all that the fact that's still just 31 and has a number of years left to climb up the overall goals leaderboard. Sure, you can easily make the argument against him being the best (relative to era), but he's quantifiably one of the top-10 goal scorers to ever play the game.

- DeflatedPucks

Let's see....in 1 min I can think of:
Hull Br
Mario
Gretz
Dionne
Bossy
Hull Bo
Orr
Teemu
Gartner
Howe
Lafleur
Rocket
Kurri
Dino
Jagr
Shanahan

He fits in the group no doubt. But I'm not sure he is top 10. And if he is its the low end of top 10.

555 goals in 913 games (0.608 goals/game) which sits him behind only Bossy (0.762 goals/game), Lemieux (0.754 goals/game) and Bure (0.623 goals/game) among players that have played more than 500 games.

http://www.quanthockey.co...als-per-game-leaders.html

He has done this during a time when NHL scoring is well down and goalies are much better equipped than the majority of his competition around him (Hulls, Dionne, Ciccarelli, etc).

http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/stats.html

https://www.sportingchart...-per-game-in-the-nhl.aspx

Add to all that the fact that's still just 31 and has a number of years left to climb up the overall goals leaderboard. Sure, you can easily make the argument against him being the best (relative to era), but he's quantifiably one of the top-10 goal scorers to ever play the game.
- MaximumBone

All great points. Doesn't account for better equipment, better conditioning, better support staff, not having to work a summer job as the old timers sometimes had to...

Dude is great. Hall of Famer. Simple numbers don't account for why he is tops. And, let's be honest, he started after the 95-04 dead puck/clutch era. It isn't like he ever has played in a draconian decade.

That is a straw man argument and unrelated. Slashes happen dozens of time a game, the goal typically is to knock the stick or lift it to gain possession. Crosby's was inadvertant.

Hits to the head is completely different. Tkachuk just served 2 games (his team losing both) and it was certainly earned. I had no complaints over it.

Boarding? Thats the biggest grey area there is. It can be extremely dirty or unfortunate, if the player turns his back.

Slewfooting sucks, but its basically tripping. Do not see how it is suspense worthy.

If you two hand hack a limb it is egregious. Otherwise, slashes happen all the time and always will. Doing an NBA style Tech Foul count for suspension wont change it.
- FLflames34

straw man huh.... I've seen that a lot in responses on these boards. again... tell me what slashing adds to the game? Maybe after that I'll be able to see justification for not calling the penalties and punishing those that can't play the game by the rules.

All great points. Doesn't account for better equipment, better conditioning, better support staff, not having to work a summer job as the old timers sometimes had to...

Dude is great. Hall of Famer. Simple numbers don't account for why he is tops. And, let's be honest, he started after the 95-04 dead puck/clutch era. It isn't like he ever has played in a draconian decade.
- FLflames34

Better equipment and fitness training is accounted for as those changes are also true of his competition (forwards, Dmen and especially goalies). If you're going to dock him for having the same equipment the rest of his generation had, you also have to dock the old timers for playing against less fit competition and shooting on this:





It all balances out.

Oh forgot to mention the season that matters most playoffs Ovie true numbers show, but what would you expect from a leafs fan, playoffs what's that?

- DeflatedPucks

Better equipment and fitness training is accounted for as those changes are also true of his competition (forwards, Dmen and especially goalies). If you're going to dock him for having the same equipment the rest of his generation had, you also have to dock the old timers for playing against less fit competition and shooting on this:





It all balances out.
- MaximumBone

Not gonna lie. I LOL at these pics.

Cooper brown pads were the worst. Bruises after every game.

Selanne didn't get his 76 against those though. And the sticks today are so much better.

Let's see....in 1 min I can think of:
Hull Br
Mario
Gretz
Dionne
Bossy
Hull Bo
Orr
Teemu
Gartner
Howe
Lafleur
Rocket
Kurri
Dino
Jagr
Shanahan

He fits in the group no doubt. But I'm not sure he is top 10. And if he is its the low end of top 10.
- FLflames34

OV is great, but I don't see how he even cracks top 10 in goal scorers.
- FLflames34

You would put Howe, Dino, Jagr, Shanahan, Gartner, Orr, Hull Sr. as better goal scorers than ovechkin?

What are you going by, career goals?

You would put Howe, Dino, Jagr, Shanahan, Gartner, Orr, Hull Sr. as better goal scorers than ovechkin?

What are you going by, career goals?
- DeflatedPucks

Nope. All of them also know how to win.

And as for Hall Sr, don't forget he owes a tremendous debt to him.

Orr is sub 300 goals. I included him for a reason.

I listed a batch, didn't say all were better than him. I said he would be in the lower end of the group. Perhaps he will score more these playoffs.

Nope. All of them also know how to win.

And as for Hall Sr, don't forget he owes a tremendous debt to him.

Orr is sub 300 goals. I included him for a reason.

I listed a batch, didn't say all were better than him. I said he would be in the lower end of the group. Perhaps he will score more these playoffs.
- FLflames34

Some of those guys would not even sniff a top 10 "winners list." I won't even go into the rest of your argument.

Remember this is the same James Tanner that said the Hawks were going to miss the playoffs, and stood by this prediction about 20-30 games into the season even after the Hawks had established great positioning in the standings.

Funny, I haven't read a peep from him since then regarding the Hawks. Not one word. Even as they've gone on to be arguably the leagues hottest/best team since Feb 1st. Hmmmmmmmm i wonder why....
- SimpleJack

Don't know about the Hawks missing the Playoffs, but they do have the worst fans in hockey

- Ovechkin's scoring in the lowest scoring era makes him the greatest scorer ever. His career high in the year he did it is possibly the single greatest scoring season in NHL history.

- Donald Trump is not "my boy"

- I can't win a Pulitzer beacuse I'm Canadian.

- The Canadians win/loss record (no advanced stats) would likely make them a lottery team if we ignore their crazy October.

I choose to call bs on those gm's. Or at least a massive exaggeration on the medias part

Forgetting for a second that I only read that two gms (not named) stated they didn't know, I still find it rather hard to believe.
Who in the hockey world didn't know the oilers were desperate for a defencemen?
And who in the hockey world didn't know who the oilers most valuable assets were?
This has been pretty much common knowledge since mactavish was the gm. It's literally been the most discussed topic in the oilers thread for 3-4 years! And that's just armchair outsiders knowledge.

Not only that but there's been reports hall was offered for shattenkirk , hamonic and of course Larsson. There's 3 gms right there

If there's a gm out there that didn't actually consider the oilers Might be willing to deal any of nuge, hall or eberle, I'd say he's terrible at his job. And the words 'might be willing' are putting it lightly I think.

What I actually believe happened is chiarelli got mercilessly lowballed (sounds like nuge and ebs didn't have anywhere near the market value we hoped. Same for hall if it's true that snow actually refused hall straight up for hamonic ) and he went with a guy with a great contract that he felt was better than many of the pundits did

Did chiarelli deal his best asset for a guy he coulda found at a comparable level elsewhere for much cheaper ? (Free agency etc) maayybbee.
Did he not do his due diligence before making a deal? I don't believe that for a second
- HB77

Fair enough.

I don't have the energy to rehash it, but it's a crap trade.

Chiarelli not doing his due dillegance wouldn't surprise me, as he is terrible at his job and known to surround himself with Yes-Men.

In all honesty James, you're kind of a slave to the numbers. You've used Montreal's possession stats to destroy them in the past. Now they're 3rd overall in CF, first in the Atlantic and they still suck.

I'm realistic, I know exactly what the Habs are and aren't, and I know they're not on par with the best teams in the NHL. But your analysis comes off as partisan when you pick and choose when the data matters and when it doesn't.
- DoubleDown

Habs have pretty good advanced stats - they also did last year.

They just don't have the W/L record and I never said I was objective about anything.

Agreed. I wasn't alive when he played, but always admired the old footage of him carrying a crappy team for so many years in those gorgeous mustard jerseys.

If he spent his prime somewhere other than LA he would have gotten more due.

Just goes to show how asinine Tanner's statement was. OV is great, but I don't see how he even cracks top 10 in goal scorers. Perhaps his worst lulz statement.
- FLflames34

Except it isn't my original idea. It comes from Math. And it's true. Oh well.

The five people in your hockey pool ahead of you understand the game better than you do
- Justman1000

But four out of five of them are behind me in a different pool.

Let's see....in 1 min I can think of:
Hull Br
Mario
Gretz
Dionne
Bossy
Hull Bo
Orr
Teemu
Gartner
Howe
Lafleur
Rocket
Kurri
Dino
Jagr
Shanahan

He fits in the group no doubt. But I'm not sure he is top 10. And if he is its the low end of top 10.
- FLflames34

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah

Oh forgot to mention the season that matters most playoffs Ovie true numbers show, but what would you expect from a leafs fan, playoffs what's that?
- Leo_Union

Ovechkin has 41 goals and 82 points and is a 53% cf player over 84 career games.


HOCKEY IS A TEAM GAME

Its also worth pointing that in every two seasons post expansion scoring explodes and OV didn't play in an era when there was any expansion (yet).

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah
- James_Tanner

Eloquent.
Refute how he is better than all of those and I'll listen. And save me the hero charts.

Its also worth pointing that in every two seasons post expansion scoring explodes and OV didn't play in an era when there was any expansion (yet).
- James_Tanner

Brett Hull is the greatest pure goal scorer ever.

OV started in the post clutch era.

Nope. All of them also know how to win.


- FLflames34

How are Dionne, Ciccarelli, and Gartner winners? They have no rings. Dionne's teams never even made it out of the 2nd round.

Oh forgot to mention the season that matters most playoffs Ovie true numbers show, but what would you expect from a leafs fan, playoffs what's that?
- Leo_Union

Don't be a babcock...