Nik the Trik said:
Heroic Shrimp said:
I'm the last guy in the world to try to knock Sundin down a peg, but I really think that it's self-evident 1 Hart and 3 first team all-stars is better than 0 Hart and 2 second team all-stars.
I don't. Or, at the very least, that's ascribing a heck of a lot of weight to the opinions of the people who think Alex Ovechkin was both of the best wingers in the League a few years back.
Yes, we all know that's the standard pat reply to any mention of all-star voting. It still has value, regardless of that mess-up:
Nik the Trik said:
Remember when Doug Gilmour had 127 points and won the Selke? Wasn't a 1st or 2nd team All-Star. Steve Yzerman's 155 point season? Ditto. The nature of the end of year All-Star teams being what they are you can be the 3rd best player in the league and nowhere to be found.
Well, where they were to be found was 3rd in voting. In Gilmour's case, it was behind fellow centers Lemieux and Lafontaine with 160 and 148 points, both of whom were co-finalists for Hart along with Gilmour. In Yzerman's case it was also behind fellow centers Lemieux and Gretzky with their 199 and 168 points, and, once again, all three were Hart finalists. The voting clearly correlates with the judgment of who the three top centres in the NHL were in those seasons.
So,
given that, if you want to look at how Sundin and Forsberg fared overall in all-star voting in their careers, here's their descending rank in the various years they got votes:
Sundin: 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7
Forsberg: 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 15
And, likewise, their top Hart voting, in descending order:
Sundin: 8, 12, 16, 18, 18
Forsberg: 1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17
And since you mentioned the Selke, here's their Selke voting record:
Sundin: 32, 37
Forsberg: 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 28, 34
I mean, it shouldn't really need to be mentioned that Forsberg was an elite defensive center, but if it does, there you go.
I also failed to mention earlier that Forsberg also won an Art Ross. I think Sundin's top rank was 4th, which overall I feel was also his most dominant season. It should also be noted, career-wise, that Forsberg came over to North America when he was 21 and was immediately 2nd in team scoring and was already getting Hart and all-star votes in follow-up 2nd season at the age of 22. Sundin came over at 19 and didn't register any Hart or all-star voting until he was 25.
Nik the Trik said:
When you factor in the reality of the competition at that position at the time with Lemieux, Gretzky, Messier, Yzerman...that sort of measurement seems designed to favour the guy who was younger and spent fewer of his prime years in that group.
Sure, okay. Regardless, Sundin and Forsberg were relative age peers with Sundin 2 years older, and their records can be compared pretty directly one to the other.
Nik the Trik said:
That's without even getting into things like those awards not taking things like linemates into account. What would Sundin's numbers look like if he were the guy on Colorado and playing the other team's #2 defense pairings every night? How many trophies/accolades might he have won as a result of those numbers? If you're trying to look at these guys in a context neutral setting I don't think awards are super helpful.
Well, not only is that a fair argument, but it's also an argument I've made on this site in the past. But consider this: you're discrediting Forsberg for having played with Sakic. Why aren't you discrediting Sakic for having played with Forsberg? Joe Sakic entered the league at the age of 19. He registered in Hart voting
once and all-star voting
twice before the age of 26 (5 years of which he played with Sundin, I might add). After that, he was pretty much a perennial Hart and all-star vote recipient. Forsberg joined the team when Sakic was 25 in the shortened 94-95 season. Sakic's career blossomed after Forsberg joined the team.
Nik the Trik said:
I mean, this has problems too but look at their international numbers. On the same teams in the same settings...Sundin was Sweden's guy.
Sure. I mean, they were only on the same two Olympic teams twice, in 1998 and 2006, and in those games Sundin had 6G/5A/11P and Forsberg had 1G/10A/11P, but credit for more goals scored for Sundin. Sundin also had a dominant 2002 Olympics that Forsberg missed because of injury (site note: after sitting out that entire 2001-02 regular season that cut into those 2002 Olympics, Forsberg led the NHL in playoff scoring in 2002). Of course, Forsberg is on a Swedish Olympic stamp, so it's not like he's a forgotten man here.
Nik the Trik said:
Heroic Shrimp said:
You don't really need to try to persuade me of this, as I already pretty much indicated I'd take Lindros first of the lot of them, but I did want to observe the unfairness of ultimately punishing Forsberg for his injuries as compared to, say, Sundin's longevity and health.
Again, I'm not really. I'm saying that durability is something that has value too. Forsberg isn't really like Lindros in that a catastrophic injury more or less ended his career, he was just a good bet to miss 10-15 games a year. If you think the gap between them at their peak is small/nonexistent(or even favours Sundin) then I don't see how you could not give any credit for a guy being in the lineup every night. I think that factors into how valuable a guy is.
No doubt Forsberg's injury history is different than Lindros'. I'll give full credit to the career that Lindros should have had. But Forsberg missed the entire regular season at the age of 28 and played only 167 games after that (Sakic won his first and only Hart at the age of
31). Forsberg was admittedly able to achieve and play in his prime where arguably Lindros either never did or only briefly did.
As to "If you think the gap between them at their peak is small/nonexistent (or even favours Sundin)", I don't even remotely think that. If you're referring to the two seasons you highlighted, there's surely very few people who think that those were the best two seasons of either player in the context of their careers and when compared to their peers at the time. I think Sundin's 80 point 2001-02 season was a far more dominant season than his 114 point season.
No doubt, there's great value in durability. If I had to pick Sundin or Forsberg at age 19 knowing how many games I'm going to get from them in their careers, I'm taking Sundin without question. If I'm picking either player in their prime going into the playoffs, I'm taking Forsberg without question. And frankly, I remain comfortable taking Forsberg over Sakic, but whatever, I'll take either happily.