December NHL Game Thread

cshea

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The Sabres are beating Columbus 6-0. Tage Thompson has 4 goals and an assist.

There’s 3 minutes remaining in the 1st period.
 

Ale Xander

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Alex O gets 2 in the first half of the first period vs Blackhawks

sitting at 799
 

Marciano490

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Isn’t greatness a joy? Of course he gets the milestone on a hat trick. Sometimes sports flicks aren’t so unrealistic.
 

FL4WL3SS

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I'm pretty convinced Ovi passes Gretzky. He'll finish the season around 820 and will need 60-75 goals to pass Gretzky. He'll do that in a couple seasons.

I actually think he has a reasonable chance to get to 1000 if he plays into his 40s. He's the greatest goal scorer in the history of hockey.
 
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Bread of Yaz

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I'm pretty convinced Ovi passes Gretzky. He'll finish the season around 820 and will need 60-75 goals to pass Gretzky. He'll do that in a couple seasons.

I actually think he has a reasonable chance to get to 1000 if he plays into his 40s. He's the greatest goal scorer in the history of hockey.
He is. Saw an online article about this awhile back, and it pointed out the great differences in offensive environments today as compared to the Gretzky era, plus the fact that Ovi lost a lot of games in his prmie to work stoppages.
 

OfTheCarmen

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Is he really though?

  • His career shooting percentage is the lowest of any of the top 10 G/60 players.
  • Taking into account the players before the G/60 was tracked, his shooting percentage is the lowest of the ~50 top G/GP players
    • This is generously discounting those for whom SH% wasnt tracked

He really just shoots a lot.
 

cshea

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Is he really though?

  • His career shooting percentage is the lowest of any of the top 10 G/60 players.
  • Taking into account the players before the G/60 was tracked, his shooting percentage is the lowest of the ~50 top G/GP players
    • This is generously discounting those for whom SH% wasnt tracked

He really just shoots a lot.
Part of shooting percentage is the goalies shooters face. Ovechkin has faced much better goaltending that what was in the league during Gretzky's era. League average save percentage during Gretzy's peak was in the .870's, the very best goaltending was barely at or above .900. Ovechkin faces .915 league averages (or thereabouts) in his career.
 

cshea

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Also, there's a difference between being a good shooter and being a good goal scorer. Part of being a goal scorer is getting shots and chances at a high rate and volume, but may lead to a low shooting percentage. Then there are guys that don't shoot unless they think they have a good chance at scoring and thus have a higher shooting percentage because they only pull the trigger in the prime areas. David Krejci is a good example of this. Nobody would ever call him a goal scorer but he had several years where he had a shooting percentage near and even above 15% (very high by today's standards) basically because he wouldn't shoot unless it was a high danger chance.
 

OfTheCarmen

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I'm just saying that calling him "the best goal scorer in the history of hockey" may have been an overstatement. You're arguing about goalie save %, but then you also need to factor in those "old timers" didnt have the stick technology, sports science, etc, that the modern players do either.
 

FL4WL3SS

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I'm just saying that calling him "the best goal scorer in the history of hockey" may have been an overstatement. You're arguing about goalie save %, but then you also need to factor in those "old timers" didnt have the stick technology, sports science, etc, that the modern players do either.
It's not at all. If you consider the era in which Ovi plays, it's incredible what he's done. He'll hit 1000 goals and it'll never be surpassed.

Is Gretzky your counterargument? Who do you think is the best of all time?
 

cshea

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I'm just saying that calling him "the best goal scorer in the history of hockey" may have been an overstatement. You're arguing about goalie save %, but then you also need to factor in those "old timers" didnt have the stick technology, sports science, etc, that the modern players do either.
That goes both ways. The modern goalies Ovechkin has faced also have better technology and sports science at their disposal. Even with rules restricting pad size, they wear far more padding today than in Gretzky's era. They are more flexible and athletic and in general better than their predecessors. It's harder to score now than it was back in the 80's or 90's. I don't think that's a particularly controversial take.

Ovechkin has also lost 116 games due to lockouts, otherwise he's probably within striking range of Gretzky right now.
 

FL4WL3SS

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I'll also add that there are only 2 contemporaries of Ovechkin in the top 50 (Crosby at 34 and Stamkos at 49). Both have a legit shot at 700 goals, but won't come close to what Ovi has done. At least half of the top 50 were contemporaries of Gretzky (and several played on the same team as him). It was a much different game.
 

RIFan

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I'd personally put Ovechkin 3rd, but the differences in rules, equipment, era, playing styles etc make it so difficult to fairly judge that I wouldn't argue with anyone who ranks him at the top. I think he is most comparable to Brett Hull. Both have career marks where they have more goals than assists and benefited from pass first centers. I actually would have put Hull ahead of Ovechkin at first, but the difference is that Ovechkin ranked in the top 5 goal scorers with only a couple of years where he dropped down the list a little. Hull dropped off the leader board most of the last several years of his career, so the drop off wasn't entirely due to overlapping with the clutch and grab era.
1. Lemieux 690 goals in 915 games (.75 goals/game)
2. Gretzky 894 Goals in 1487 games (.60 goals/game)
3. Ovechkin 800 goals in 1305 games (.61 goal/game
4. Hull 741 Goals in 1269 games (.58 goals/game)

Other guys to consider: Bossy, Richard, Lefleur, Esposito.
 

TFP

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I'll also add that there are only 2 contemporaries of Ovechkin in the top 50 (Crosby at 34 and Stamkos at 49). Both have a legit shot at 700 goals, but won't come close to what Ovi has done. At least half of the top 50 were contemporaries of Gretzky (and several played on the same team as him). It was a much different game.
This is an excellent point - he's scoring at an 80s pace in the modern game. It's pretty crazy.

Although technically half of Jagr's career was as a contemporary.
 

OfTheCarmen

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Yes, others I would consider better "goal scorers" are older players like Mike Bossy or Lemieux with a career shooting percantage of 21.2%/19% respectively and >0.75 G/GP each.
 

TFP

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Weird how all the better "goal scorers" all played in the same decade.
 

NYCSox

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Yes, others I would consider better "goal scorers" are older players like Mike Bossy or Lemieux with a career shooting percantage of 21.2%/19% respectively and >0.75 G/GP each.
It's somewhat fair to use GPG as an alternate but I disagree with the fixation on shooting percentage. Even then GPG doesn't account for era.

As an aside, I will always wonder if Lemieux could have taken a serious run at 2,857 points had he been able to play continuously for 20 years.
 

OfTheCarmen

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I dont understand why being dominant in the era you played somehow doesnt matter just because the era is different. And again, the specific terminology I was responding to was "best goal scorer in the history of hockey".

By what calculable measure other than total goals does that apply to him? By that logic, Pete Rose has the most Hits ever...does that make him the greatest hitter of all time?
 

TFP

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I dont understand why being dominant in the era you played somehow doesnt matter just because the era is different.
Also - Ovechkin has been by far the most dominant goal scorer of this era, it's not particularly close. Meanwhile you've listed 5 different "dominant" players from the same era as being more dominant. Which basically refutes the point.

There are interesting conversations to be had that others might qualify as the best goal scorer ever. Using shooting percentage isn't one of them though. Personally I'm on Team Ovechkin, even though I hated him for most of his career. He's unreal.
 

The B’s Knees

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Whether it’s factual or not, and whether it’s been posted on RMPS in the past I’m not sure - but this is one of my favorite “quotes. Apparently made by Pasta on a Czech TV interview…

David Pastrnak on Ovechkin:”He’s big, really big and heavy. The first time I stood next to him during puck drop I was like ‘for fucks sake he’s big’. I don’t even try to hit him, I just go to bench, I saw his hit on Jagr”

https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/kodapf/david_pastrnak_on_ovechkinhes_big_really_big_and/
 

FL4WL3SS

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I'd actually take Mario over Wayne, tbh. Mario was absolutely dominant when he was healthy in a way that Gretzky never was.

There's no refuting that Gretzky is arguably the best hockey player of all time (I'd personally take Orr), but from a pure goal scoring perspective, Ovechkin takes the crown.
 

OfTheCarmen

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Also - Ovechkin has been by far the most dominant goal scorer of this era, it's not particularly close. Meanwhile you've listed 5 different "dominant" players from the same era as being more dominant. Which basically refutes the point.

There are interesting conversations to be had that others might qualify as the best goal scorer ever. Using shooting percentage isn't one of them though. Personally I'm on Team Ovechkin, even though I hated him for most of his career. He's unreal.
I actually only mentioned 2 people, but that's OK. I also quoted Goals per Game as another stat, so wasnt only using shooting percentage, but again..cool..

As a reminder, this all started with a response to a comment about "...in all of hockey history", and I...y'know...looked at hockey history as a whole.

As there is no actual definition of "best goal scorer", I'm happy to accept that we can have different opinions as to what that means and who we think represents it. I'm not saying he isnt great and he isnt amazing. I just have a different idea of what "best ever" means.
 

FL4WL3SS

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Completely fair. However if you're using G/Gm then you're naturally going to ding guys that played longer. Mario gets a huge boost from retiring early, there's no doubt he would be closer to others if he played longer.
 

cshea

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I actually only mentioned 2 people, but that's OK. I also quoted Goals per Game as another stat, so wasnt only using shooting percentage, but again..cool..

As a reminder, this all started with a response to a comment about "...in all of hockey history", and I...y'know...looked at hockey history as a whole.

As there is no actual definition of "best goal scorer", I'm happy to accept that we can have different opinions as to what that means and who we think represents it. I'm not saying he isnt great and he isnt amazing. I just have a different idea of what "best ever" means.
What FL4WL3SS said
 

OfTheCarmen

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I'm looking at the adjusted thing and trying to wrap my head around it.

Edit - Even if you're just kind of agreeing that Mario is ahead of him...that in and of itself means he's not "the best". I didnt say that there were a ton of people ahead of him, just that he wasnt the zenith.
 

FL4WL3SS

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I'm looking at the adjusted thing and trying to wrap my head around it.

Edit - Even if you're just kind of agreeing that Mario is ahead of him...that in and of itself means he's not "the best". I didnt say that there were a ton of people ahead of him, just that he wasnt the zenith.
Mario is in front of Wayne, not Ovechkin.
 

Cotillion

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Looking at that list how is Jagr not in the Hockey Hall of Fame... oh that's right the dude is probably still out there somewhere playing...
 

Ale Xander

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Wasn’t bad as far as empty netters go. Would have liked to see 802 with a goalie but good to get it with the home fans
 

NYCSox

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How are the Kraken scoring all these goals with a bunch of middle to bottom six forwards? Beniers is legit but the rest of these guys?