Head to Head Comparison: Iginla vs. Sakic

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by カナダ人です

Iginla is/was a great great player, but to compare him to Sakic, or - *shudder* - Bossy, is going a bit overboard.

And frankly I find the "player X had better team-mates" reasoning a tad disrespectful.

Just my 2cents. Like I said, Iginla is a great player and a sure fire hall-of-famer!

Lol. I agree that Sakic is better, and I also agree that some have gone overboard in their comparisons, but to suggest that a casual discussion on the internet is disrespectful because of the suggestion that that "player X had better teammates" is beyond ridiculous. Especially when it's completely valid.

It's the weirdest thing in these comparisons, you always find people that just simply do not want to entertain the idea that certain players, while still being amazing players, did have help in their career accomplishments.

You remove Yzerman or Sakic from the Av's and Wings when they were winning cups and place them on the young gun Flames and see if they're still "leading teams to cups because they're amazing leaders"? **** no, they'd be just like Iginla; Superstar players, and great leaders who play on a crappy team.

..and I'm not suggesting they aren't better than Iginla, just that playing on a star studded team like the Wings or Av's was absolutely a factor in those players accomplishments. And it's the comments like "Sakic and Yzerman are true leaders and that's why they have Stanley cups, while Iginla wasn't on that level because he didn't lead a team to a cup" that's such BS, imo.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

That's the point behind all of this. Is Joe Sakic even a "Joe Sakic," or is he just the product of being surrounded by Hall of Fame teammates his entire career?

Sakic's top five teammates averaged 60 more points per season that Iginla's. When you consider Iginla averaged only 13 less points per season than Sakic did, is it not plausible to also consider he might have had a shot at those 13 points, if opponents had to defend against another 60 points coming from his teammates each season?

This notion that Sakic played on stacked teams his whole career has got to die. His first 3-4 seasons in the NHL, the Nordiques were brutal - the worst team in the NHL. And Sakic was still winning the Calder and putting up 100 point seasons. His last 3-4 seasons in the league, the Avalanche were terrible. And Sakic remained among NHL scoring leaders, still played an elite two-way game.

Sakic spent almost half of his career playing on lousy, lousy teams. And he was still an elite player. So we don't have to pose the question What would Sakic have played like on a team as bad as the Flames? We already know the answer - he shone.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Bossy was not even considered the best hockey player on his line. He would have been the 3rd most important player on his team behind Trottier and Potvin.

...on a dynasty team widely regarded as one of the best of all time. You would never see a team with Trottier, Bossy, and Potvin together today because it wouldn't fit under the cap.

Bossy is the all-time leader in goals scored per game. In NHL history. Gretzky has called him the best right-winger to ever play the game..

The guy had 573 goals and 553 assists in 752 NHL games. He retired in his prime - at age 30. I know a lot of folks on this board didn't start watching hockey until 1998, but you can still do some research about this stuff.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PlayfulGenius

Wow... I can't imagine there are many people, Flames fans or no, that will agree with you on this one.

In their prime, Iginla has a moderate edge in goalscoring, while Niewendyk has a big edge in two-way play. Tied game, 3rd period, game 7 of the Cup Final: I put Niewendyk out there.

[Lanny_McDonald]

I always thought Iginla was a poorman's Phil Esposito, except without some of the hardware and success. Phil was a tough physical player who could dominate in so many different ways. He was a great leader and elevated his teams. Phil was also a very good interview and a charismatic guy. Iginla was very much the same way, just never to the same extent of Esposito. Iginla was great, but not on the same level of some of the legends of the game. Sakic, Yzerman and Esposito are legends. Down the road, Iginla will be recognized as a great player in his day, not unlike a Dennis Maruk or Dino Ciccarelli in their day.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

...on a dynasty team widely regarded as one of the best of all time. You would never see a team with Trottier, Bossy, and Potvin together today because it wouldn't fit under the cap.

Bossy is the all-time leader in goals scored per game. In NHL history. Gretzky has called him the best right-winger to ever play the game..

The guy had 573 goals and 553 assists in 752 NHL games. He retired in his prime - at age 30. I know a lot of folks on this board didn't start watching hockey until 1998, but you can still do some research about this stuff.

Bossy also played in the highest scoring era in the NHL.

In Mike Bossy's best season he scored 69 goals. Average Goals per game that year was 7. In Iggys best year he scored 52 goals when the average scoring was 5.2 Multiplying Iggy's 52 goals by 1.34 (the increased scoring rate) gives Iggy an adjusted goal total of 70.

The comparison is valid if you do a little research about this stuff.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You would never see a team with Trottier, Bossy, and Potvin together today because it wouldn't fit under the cap.

Malkin, Crosby, Letang? Not saying Letang is a Potvin yet, but it could be argued that Sid and Gino will be ranked above Trottier and with/above Bossy when all is said and done...


Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith? Albeit ELCs and they were young players, but these 4 are not far below those 3...the cap just means all teams are more competitive and the Isles, Oilers, etc. can't steamroll the rest of the league...

[Northendzone]

Who has the hotter wife?

[trackercowe]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Who has the hotter wife?

Hmm...

Here's Sakic's wife at his retirement conference.




Then here's Jarome's



It's very close, but considering Sakic's is probably 10-15 years older I think he has the advantage in the wife department (it's close though). Plus she stood by him when he mangled his hand in the snow blower; most wives would leave their man for doing something that stupid.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by GGG

Bossy also played in the highest scoring era in the NHL.

In Mike Bossy's best season he scored 69 goals. Average Goals per game that year was 7. In Iggys best year he scored 52 goals when the average scoring was 5.2 Multiplying Iggy's 52 goals by 1.34 (the increased scoring rate) gives Iggy an adjusted goal total of 70.

The comparison is valid if you do a little research about this stuff.

Well that was some math

[FanIn80]

# of 30 goal seasons (consecutive)
Iginla: 11
Sakic: 3

# of 30 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 11 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 9 in 20 seasons

# of 40 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 4 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 5 in 20 seasons

# of 50 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 2 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 2 in 20 seasons

[カナダ人です]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

# of 30 goal seasons (consecutive)
Iginla: 11
Sakic: 3

# of 30 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 11 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 9 in 20 seasons

# of 40 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 4 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 5 in 20 seasons

# of 50 goal seasons (total)
Iginla: 2 in 16 seasons
Sakic: 2 in 20 seasons

Now you're just trolling...

[Igottago]

Iginla will never get the credit he deserves, a) because of his lack of championships, and b) because he spent most of his career with the Flames.

Even if he wins the cup with Pittsburgh the argument will be that he just rode the coattails of the Pens superstars.

There was a period of time Iginla was the best player in the world. I'm not sure when the next Calgary Flames player will be able to hold that title, could be a very very long time before we see it again.

I still feel there is an inferiority complex in Calgary that keeps people second guessing how good things were with Iginla, but there will come a time that people will reminisce about #12 and how amazing he was for this team.

But I guess when you're a fan of an organization that, let's face it, has been a losing organization since 1989, you tend to let the dark cloud of failure taint your entire perspective on the organization and the players in it.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Iginla will never get the credit he deserves, a) because of his lack of championships, and b) because he spent most of his career with the Flames.

Even if he wins the cup with Pittsburgh the argument will be that he just rode the coattails of the Pens superstars.

There was a period of time Iginla was the best player in the world. I'm not sure when the next Calgary Flames player will be able to hold that title, could be a very very long time before we see it again.

I still feel there is an inferiority complex in Calgary that keeps people second guessing how good things were with Iginla, but there will come a time that people will reminisce about #12 and how amazing he was for this team.

But I guess when you're a fan of an organization that, let's face it, has been a losing organization since 1989, you tend to let the dark cloud of failure taint your entire perspective on the organization and the players in it.

And it extends back to the Flames SC team..... No Flames seem to ever have been that good compared to the other teams players.



And take out the goals.....and point stats. Not many players have ever carried a team like Iginla did in 2004.

There is no one in the last 10 years that has been totally counted on to carry their team as we expected from Iginla.

Link to here there Iginla thread on CP

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Iginla will never get the credit he deserves, a) because of his lack of championships, and b) because he spent most of his career with the Flames.

Even if he wins the cup with Pittsburgh the argument will be that he just rode the coattails of the Pens superstars.

There was a period of time Iginla was the best player in the world. I'm not sure when the next Calgary Flames player will be able to hold that title, could be a very very long time before we see it again.

I still feel there is an inferiority complex in Calgary that keeps people second guessing how good things were with Iginla, but there will come a time that people will reminisce about #12 and how amazing he was for this team.

But I guess when you're a fan of an organization that, let's face it, has been a losing organization since 1989, you tend to let the dark cloud of failure taint your entire perspective on the organization and the players in it.

There is no inferiority complex in Calgary. A franchise that iced one of the all-time greatest teams in the history of the NHL with the 1989 Calgary Flames that was incredibly talented and overshadowed by only the Oilers. We went from being spoiled to being envious of the rest of the league but I don't think anyone here is slighting Iginla. We all know that he was amongst the best NHL players of the last decade but we are talking about a player that never topped 100 points, 90 points only twice, and has way too many 60 point seasons in his prime for me to consider him against the best players ever. I still think Fleury was the most talented Flames player ever and put Iginla more in line with a guy like Brendan Shanahan who was a great player but will never be in my mind one of the truly greats. What can I say. I watched the team throughout the 80's so I am spoiled by some of the great players this franchise and I can assure you I have absolutely no inferiority complex that is for sure.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

There is no inferiority complex in Calgary. A franchise that iced one of the all-time greatest teams in the history of the NHL with the 1989 Calgary Flames that was incredibly talented and overshadowed by only the Oilers. We went from being spoiled to being envious of the rest of the league but I don't think anyone here is slighting Iginla. We all know that he was amongst the best NHL players of the last decade but we are talking about a player that never topped 100 points, 90 points only twice, and has way too many 60 point seasons in his prime for me to consider him against the best players ever. I still think Fleury was the most talented Flames player ever and put Iginla more in line with a guy like Brendan Shanahan who was a great player but will never be in my mind one of the truly greats. What can I say. I watched the team throughout the 80's so I am spoiled by some of the great players this franchise and I can assure you I have absolutely no inferiority complex that is for sure.

By pure stats the only thing that makes Gordie Howe stand out was years played.

100+ pts once in the NHL and that year he finished 3rd in scoring and 5th in goal scoring..... only more than 90 pts in 3 seasons out of 26 NHL seasons.

40+ goals 5 times.

Iginla scored 40+ goals 4 times against players that he was not 3 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier. The guys checking Iginla did not have a smoke in between periods.


And no I am not arguing that Gordie Howe is not the best RW ever and in the top 5 of all time. Just he brought more to the game than numbers , just as Iginla has.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

Well that was some math

What is invalid about it? If you want to compare players across different eras in any realistic fashion the least we can do is normalize goal scoring totals based on the average goals per game of that era.

http://www.quanthockey.com/TS/TS_GoalsPerGame.php

It is perfectly valid to assume that if you moved Bossy into an era that had 5.2 goals per game instead of 7 goals per game that his scoring would drop by a corresponding amount.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by カナダ人です

Now you're just trolling...

Not at all. The point of this thread is to open some eyes to what Iginla was able to accomplish in Calgary with less-than-star teammates. I'm doing that by comparing his accomplishments against those of a well-regarded, superstar, Hall of Famer who played his entire career with other superstar Hall of Fame teammates (yes, even in Quebec he still played with Hall of Famers).

Sakic was more of a sniper than a playmaker. The guy's wristshot was absolutely feared all across the League. Yet, Iginla still scored goals at a much more consistent rate, and did it without anywhere near the same quality of help. Is that not interesting?

I realize this is a thread comparing two players, but it's not really about Iginla vs. Sakic. It's about Iginla vs. Perception. What he was able to accomplish with the teams he was given was absolutely phenomenal. Sadly, we'll never get to see him playing in his prime with the kinds of teams Sakic did, but the least we can do is look at his career with a perspective other than a couple of numbers on an all-time points list.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by flameswin

You remove Yzerman or Sakic from the Av's and Wings when they were winning cups and place them on the young gun Flames and see if they're still "leading teams to cups because they're amazing leaders"? **** no, they'd be just like Iginla; Superstar players, and great leaders who play on a crappy team.

..and I'm not suggesting they aren't better than Iginla, just that playing on a star studded team like the Wings or Av's was absolutely a factor in those players accomplishments. And it's the comments like "Sakic and Yzerman are true leaders and that's why they have Stanley cups, while Iginla wasn't on that level because he didn't lead a team to a cup" that's such BS, imo.

That's true to an extent. Bernie Federko, Dale Hawerchuk, and Dave Babych don't get the individual recognition they deserve because they played on weak teams.

However, as I've already noted, Sakic played on bad teams for half of his career. For Yzerman's his first eight seasons the Wings fluctuated between mediocre and terrible. Both of those guys proved they could be superstars on lousy teams, long before they were surrounded by other elite players.

And being a superstar player on a mediocre team isn't all down-side. The whole offence of the team will be structured to run through you. You will have all the ice time, especially on the powerplay, your body can handle. You probably won't be expected to back check.

Stars on stacked teams often have to share ice time, adapt their game to other players and systems, and in general don't get everything their way the way individual superstars do. Yzerman is an perfect example. His most productive seasons were on a lousy Wings teams. In Yzerman's three most productive seasons, the Wings lost in the first round twice and did not qualify once. Once management got him the supporting players and coaches to build a true contender, he had to pick up his defensive game, share quality ice time and linemates, and consequently his stats suffered.

Lots of players of Iginla's calibre played on mediocre teams for most of their career - Sundin, Alfredson, Gartner, Bure. Iginla's situation isn't unique, or even remarkable.

So it's not at all obvious to me that Iginla would have seen more personal success playing on stacked teams.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That's true to an extent. Bernie Federko, Dale Hawerchuk, and Dave Babych don't get the individual recognition they deserve because they played on weak teams.

However, as I've already noted, Sakic played on bad teams for half of his career. For Yzerman's his first eight seasons the Wings fluctuated between mediocre and terrible. Both of those guys proved they could be superstars on lousy teams, long before they were surrounded by other elite players.

And being a superstar player on a mediocre team isn't all down-side. The whole offence of the team will be structured to run through you. You will have all the ice time, especially on the powerplay, your body can handle. You probably won't be expected to back check.

Stars on stacked teams often have to share ice time, adapt their game to other players and systems, and in general don't get everything their way the way individual superstars do. Yzerman is an perfect example. His most productive seasons were on a lousy Wings teams. In Yzerman's three most productive seasons, the Wings lost in the first round twice and did not qualify once. Once management got him the supporting players and coaches to build a true contender, he had to pick up his defensive game, share quality ice time and linemates, and consequently his stats suffered.

Lots of players of Iginla's calibre played on mediocre teams for most of their career - Sundin, Alfredson, Gartner, Bure. Iginla's situation isn't unique, or even remarkable.

So it's not at all obvious to me that Iginla would have seen more personal success playing on stacked teams.

All true, however I was just reffering directly to the Stanley Cup portion of people's arguments. People always point to guys like Yzerman and Sakic and their cups as proof that they're better leaders than guys that haven't won cups. That comparison is made all the time in regards to Iginla. And my point was simply that you remove Sakic and Yzerman from their cup winning years and replace them with Iginla and there's a pretty damn good chance those teams still win the cup that year with a superstar cast and Iginla. You put those two players on the Flames, and there's no chance in hell those young gun teams win a cup.

My point is just that Stanley Cups are more of a team accomplishment than an individual accomplishment when the teams are stacked, which the Wings and Av's definitly were when they won their cups, and therefore when measuring the success of guys like Sakic and Yzerman, or lack of success of guys like Iginla, using cups as measurement, it has to factored in that two played on teams where the Stanley Cup was, for all intents and purposes "bought" by team salaries that made the small market teams look like they purchased their roster with pocket change.