Too bad since 2006-07, he has yet to surpass 109 Pts in a full season. Crosby is the new Forsberg. His PPG gets inflated because he plays less games and puts up a lot of meaningless points in those games. He topped off at 1.50 PPG and 120 Pts in a full season and outside of a few small stretches in his career (a notion that was completely overhyped since CzechYourMath already showed (in the By the Numbers section) that Crosby's half season in 2010-11 isn't even among the top 5 half seasons among non Gretzky players. Both Lemieux and Jagr have enjoyed much better half seasons than Crosby ever did.
If he scores more than 110 Pts in a full season, I would gladly eat my words. The jury is still out.
Crosby isn't as good as Lemieux or Jagr. Its foolish to think he's at their level.
But he certainly has the potential to be the best post-Jagr forward.
He has the best 18 year old season ever and the second best (after Gretzky) 19 year old season. The kid is good.
I agree with Eberle and Seguin, I'd put Crosby back in there over Malkin.
I've watched Seguin in Biel. This is the year he breaks out, and that wasn't last year. Playing in a weak league or not, you can just tell how much sharper he's gotten.
Not sure for defenseman. I think Subban will have a great season, I wouldn't disagree with Bogossian either. I think he'll become a much more common name.
I think Rask will definitely surprise a lot of people in goal, too. He's been ready for a long time, and he's playing for his long-term contract. How well he plays determines how much he'll get, and for how long. He's gotta be hungry after watching Thomas's legendary seasons.
Crosby isn't as good as Lemieux or Jagr. Its foolish to think he's at their level.
But he certainly has the potential to be the best post-Jagr forward.
He has the best 18 year old season ever and the second best (after Gretzky) 19 year old season. The kid is good.
The kid has also been injury prone since his 3rd season in the league.
BTW his 18 year old season was great but not necessarily the best, Lemieux says hello to that. He also won't be needed to do all the heavy lifting as he did in 2009-10 and 2010-11 before his injuries. Back then Malkin was playing on one leg. Now Malkin is completely healthy and better than ever. They will have to share the spotlight. In the past when both were healthy, it was Malkin that was the better player.
... but of course it's a young player's league right? There is possibly no way a 40 year old player who has outplayed everyone in Europe could dominate in a 48-52 game season is there?
I know I will most likely look foolish if he fails but yes I do think he will be an Art Ross contender.
This season barring any injuries will be the ideal situation for Jagr to challenge for the Art Ross even at his age.
Sure he is 40 years old but he's also 20 lbs lighter (there is a Facebook training video shot on his iPad in which he states he's 100 kg this year which means he's 220 lbs now as opposed to the 240 he was last season. This means he will be lighter and have less weight to push around on the ice meaning he has less chances of aggravating his groin. He's also looking impressively fast on his skates, something that hasn't happened really since he left Pittsburgh.
He looks really confident and his shot seems to be back to the level it was at in 2005-06 when he scored 54 goals. With just 48-52 games to play in the regular season, he doesn't have to pace himself and he can play all out every night. He won't have to worry about tiring himself out. Sure he's been playing a lot of minutes in the Czech league (22-26 minutes a game) but they only play about 2 games a week. His legs are fresh and he's pumped. He leaves the Czech League with 55 Pts in just 33 games to lead that league in PPG. Plus he completed outplayed Plekanec, Krejci and Hemsky in that league. Don't forget that before his injury last season in Philadelphia that he had 41 Pts in his first 40 games. This was despite taking a good 10 games to re-accustom himself to the NHL game after being away from it for 3 seasons and this after not playing the 20-23 minutes a game he usually saw in the past. He also wasn't given the chance to run a powerplay and play at his usual position on the right half boards during the man advantage. Nieuwendyk is the GM of the Stars and he got to see him score a hattrick earlier this year in the Czech Extraliga and believe me this, the Stars have already promised Jagr more icetime and a spot on the top line with the keys to the Stars' powerplay. He will have more chances to succeed than he did in Philly.
Just check out some of these goals he scored over there. He didn't exactly give it 100% in that league anyways in efforts to not injure himself. This is the healthiest and the best he's been since 2005-06, no joke.
Don't forget that this is a condensed schedule. That will probably be harder on the older players.
The kid has also been injury prone since his 3rd season in the league.
BTW his 18 year old season was great but not necessarily the best, Lemieux says hello to that. He also won't be needed to do all the heavy lifting as he did in 2009-10 and 2010-11 before his injuries. Back then Malkin was playing on one leg. Now Malkin is completely healthy and better than ever. They will have to share the spotlight. In the past when both were healthy, it was Malkin that was the better player.
Lemieux never played in the NHL at 18. His rookie season was 84-85. He's a February 1965 birth. Crosby is an August 1987 birth and his rookie season was 05-06.
Holy crap we agree. Never thought I'd see the day.
I expect greatness from this kid. Some may say he's not good enough to live up to that type of expectation, but I think he is. I just know he is. Some day, and some day soon, Tavares will lead us deep into the playoffs. And all of Long Island will celebrate. I'm tired of being negative, man. We can have hope just like everybody else. With the Barclays Center our new home in 2 years, I just know we have brighter days ahead. And that begins with a long run this year.
I think Karlsson is going to be one of those guys who was playing competitive hockey this whole time, and will come back and feast on the relatively out game shape guys in the NHL. He was beasting it up over in the Fin league;
30gp 9g 25a 34p
My guess is that he runs away with the lead on Dman scoring again.
Too bad since 2006-07, he has yet to surpass 109 Pts in a full season. Crosby is the new Forsberg. His PPG gets inflated because he plays less games and puts up a lot of meaningless points in those games. He topped off at 1.50 PPG and 120 Pts in a full season and outside of a few small stretches in his career (a notion that was completely overhyped since CzechYourMath already showed (in the By the Numbers section) that Crosby's half season in 2010-11 isn't even among the top 5 half seasons among non Gretzky players. Both Lemieux and Jagr have enjoyed much better half seasons than Crosby ever did.
If he scores more than 110 Pts in a full season, I would gladly eat my words. The jury is still out.
Not to mention Ovechkin at 42 GP in 09-10 had 68 pts.
On the other hand, the inactive players will be totally fresh without the nagging injuries that accumulate over the course of a season. The situations are so player-specific that I don't think we can make a generalized statement about all players from a category.
BTW, you don't seriously think Jagr is going to be an Art Ross contender do you?
Would it really surprise you. He raved about it last year too. I remember him being so pissed off when everyone was picking Selanne ahead of Jagr in points. After the season passed Jags6868 disappeared.
But, i have to admit. Jagr is looking seriously good this time. I expect him to do better than last season. Not Art Ross contender, but top-30/20 range maybe?
I think Karlsson is going to be one of those guys who was playing competitive hockey this whole time, and will come back and feast on the relatively out game shape guys in the NHL. He was beasting it up over in the Fin league;
30gp 9g 25a 34p
My guess is that he runs away with the lead on Dman scoring again.
I hope you're right because I took him in my fantasy draft!
He'll dominate. If he can rack up the points, even when he's rusty and nowhere near playing his best hockey, he'll set the league on fire, now that he's healthy and motivated to prove to everyone he's still the best player in the world.
Anyway, I think Giroux, Malkin, Seguin, Karlsson, and even Mr. Alexander Ovechkin are going to have monster seasons.
Is anyone of the school of thought that players who didn't play during the lockout but instead just rested and worked out might be more fresh and therefore have better energy and performance down the stretch?
Would it really surprise you. He raved about it last year too. I remember him being so pissed off when everyone was picking Selanne ahead of Jagr in points. After the season passed Jags6868 disappeared.
But, i have to admit. Jagr is looking seriously good this time. I expect him to do better than last season. Not Art Ross contender, but top-30/20 range maybe?
I can see where you're coming from but back in 2011-12, in the first 40 games, Jagr had 41 Pts., he was playing at a PPG pace, this was before his injury and this was despite taking a good 10 games to re-accustom himself to the faster paced game in the NHL after playing on the bigger ice for 3 seasons. He was in the top 10 in scoring for those first 40 games. If you believe he will be better this year, then don't you think he can have a better 48 game stretch than he did last year when he was PPG?
The Flyers didn't give him as much icetime and he didn't get the chance to play in position on the powerplay (on the right half boards). Look for Dallas to give him more icetime and more responsibilities to lead the offense. When Jagr is given more responsibilities, he does better.
Jagr's knock last year was that he no longer had the legs and was too slow to keep up with the faster pace of the new NHL.
He is now 220 lbs, (20 lbs lighter than last season) and looks much faster and quicker than he has at any point in the last 10 years. He never even looked close to being this fast in New York and he was often dominant then.
I see a Jagr closer to 2006-07 and 2007-08 playoffs than to 2010-11.
There was a study done a few years back that said that 74% of the points scored in the Czech Extraliga translated to NHL points while the KHL it was 73%.
This mean that Jagr's 1.67 PPG would translate to 1.24 PPG and over 48 games that's 60 Pts. I really don't see 10 players scoring more than 60 points in 48 games, a handful if that many (BTW Jagr's team got blanked last game and before that game, Jagr was averaging 1.72 PPG).
The reason why the Czech scoring translate to more points than the KHL scoring is because the Czech Extraliga game is played on NHL size rinks while the KHL game is played on larger European sized rinks.
If we were to go by this 74% Czech scoring translation and 73% KHL scoring translation then you would have this;
Malkin had 1.72 PPG which is 1.26 PPG and 61 Pts over 48 games. Jagr would finish with 60 Pts or 61 Pts.
That looks like Jagr could challenge for the Art Ross if you ask me since many think Malkin will be the favorite to repeat as scoring Champion.
Last edited by livewell68: 01-06-2013 at 04:02 PM.
Is anyone of the school of thought that players who didn't play during the lockout but instead just rested and worked out might be more fresh and therefore have better energy and performance down the stretch?
Nope. Resting does not do anything after certain point and I think that playing will keep you better conditioned than just working out which you can do while playing.
