Crosby's 2006 Team Canada Jersey

[Shrek 0]

Vapor,

Ask Mr Bergen Bulldog, your uncle, if Gretzky or Orr(both whom he saw play and loves Orr) would score more today. Let me know his answer. I already asked guys around the rink last night, guys who saw Gretzky play in the 80s, sorry, unlike you, and they agreed with what I thought before I gave them my opinion: today's NHL Gretzky would light it up. Equipment is better for 99 and his teammates. Imagine all the Oilers shooting with OPS!! Red light, red light, red light! New rules this season: watch an old 80s game and see all the holding, hooking, grabbing, and more that Gretzky's linemates had to fight through before they got to the net or caught a pass. 99 with open players passing from behind the net would be deadly today. You may hate him since he's a Devil but as one guy said last night: Brian Gionta can now stand in front of the net and score 47 goals!! Let 99 pass to Cheecho and 56 = 86. BTW, this is all happening at even strength. Now 99 goes to work on the power play. With more penalties being called , just multiply all the PP points he is going to score by 10. It is lights out for any team. The Oilers scored so often on PP that it was a given goal. And this occurred when the refs let everything go!! Now, there would be even more PP points for 99. Next there are more teams to destroy. Put 99 in Detroit's division and there are more 6, 7 point nights x 24 games. His 80s division was tough too with Calgary and Vancouver so he will produce points in any division anyway. The goalies of today are not all equal. Some goalies suck: see St. Louis, Chicago, and the rest of the teams at the bottom of the NHL. Why do they suck? Because there defensive systems and defencemen suck, too. 99 would take total advantage of the dogs of the NHL. The NHL has become what 99 and 66 could only dream about: a more open game without the "garage league" bs that those two guys had to play through every night of their careers. I only wish you could have seen 99 play in the 80s and then you would understand just how great the Great One was.

Also the Oilers were just as deadly on the PK as well as the PP.

[Gongshow11 1]

Dude you gotta relax with the Crosby hating. It's not like he asked all the media people to hype him up. I honestly dont know what else he can do to not be called overhyped. He's the youngest player to hit 100 points and he did it on an AHL calibur team. With the lack of depth pittsburgh has, Crosby always faced the top D so it's not like he sneaked in those 100 points either. Nobody's saying he's better than Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky... but he definately has the potential to be.

The NHL hyped him so much as being the next big thing when the NHL resumed. Did you even watch the draft lottery? it was unreal. However a russian, ovechkin steps in and takes the cake. Washington has who jeff halpern and brent clark? id say both were in the same position and AO won.

Plus im from canada and to see every NHL netwrok commercial with crosby, and everything with hockey analysis with pierre mcguire with him basically getting on his knees for crosby, he was way overhyped, and thats why im rattled.

[NuggyBuggy 0]

NHLer's were the best of the best in the whole gene pool.

NHLers are STILL the best of the best in the whole gene pool. What makes comparisons harder here, though, is that the gene pool is now very much larger than it was in the days when Orr and even Gretzky played. So yes, there is dilution of talent, but there is now a LOT more talent to select from.

When Orr played there were very, very few Europeans in the league (was Salming around then ? Can't remember), and very, very few Americans. When Gretzky hit the NHL there were more of both, but still not more than a few handfuls of either at "star" level. At both times, hockey was a game dominated by Canadians.

Now of course there are far more Europeans and Americans in the league, which reflects a larger global talent pool. 3 out of the top 5 point getters this past season were Europeans.

It is always hard to know how players of different eras would stack up. Would Gordie Howe be the same player in today's NHL ? Would Gretzky have had the same stats if he played when the Rocket did ? Would he have put up the same stats playing on the 2005-2006 Capitals instead of the steamroller Oilers of the 80's ? Would Tretiak be the world's greatest goalie if he played now ? Would Babe Ruth have hit as many homers facing todays pitchers ? What kind of stats could Crosby/Ovechkin have put up had eitherplayed with the Gretzky Oilers, especially when coincidental minors were served instead of offsetting ? It's all fun to bat around and BS about, but really, how could anybody presume to know ?

What I find amusing, though, are people who argue so adamantly about how great Orr/Gretzky/whomever was, when they are likely too young to ever have seen them play except on highlight reels and retrospectives which may not be representative.

[gavin 0]

If anything, this league is perfect for dominate players. And also, you make it seem like teams didn't have defence, the goalies weren't as good. Not a chance. When are all the records for total minutes of shutouts made? Here's a hint: not in the NewNHL. Trust me, there where good goalies, good defence back in the day. The point is Vapor, maybe Ovechkin is the next great one. Maybe Crosby. But maybe neither and it's still WAY too early to say. Because Gretzky did more than put up a tonne of points when he was 18 years old.

[DarkStar50 679]

My NHL hockey history goes back to 1968. I watched the Canadiens beat the Blues 4-0 in the Finals but Glenn Hall stood on his head and made every game competitive. I agree with you Nuggy about the younger generation and their perceptions of certain players. If I was to back to when I was a kid, I would never have said that Mickey Mantle was a lot better than Joe Dimaggio in centerfield for the Yankees since I had never seen Joe D play.

It is extremely hard to say how players would do in a given era. The elite players, though, would shine no matter when they played or against whomever they played.

[lando_8 0]

My NHL hockey history goes back to 1968. I watched the Canadiens beat the Blues 4-0 in the Finals but Glenn Hall stood on his head and made every game competitive. I agree with you Nuggy about the younger generation and their perceptions of certain players. If I was to back to when I was a kid, I would never have said that Mickey Mantle was a lot better than Joe Dimaggio in centerfield for the Yankees since I had never seen Joe D play.

It is extremely hard to say how players would do in a given era. The elite players, though, would shine no matter when they played or against whomever they played.

yes, that was a hell of a series from the highlights that I have seen...not too many players that I'm aware of who have lost 4 straight in the finals and won the Conn Smyth.

[Vapor 0]

When I say todays game I mean the past 5 or 6 years. If you look at the middle and the end of the season, there were not nearly the amount of penalties there were at the begining of the playoffs and the regular season. I believe that goalies have improved tremendously in style and form over the past 10 years and that most teams play defensive systems which cuts down on scoring. Im not saying any of these guys werent great. I am just saying I dont think if gretz started his carear in 2000 he would have racked up all the numbers he did back in the 80's

[gavin 0]

Maybe he wouldn't have gotten the exact same numbers. But the point is, if he started his career in 2000, he would still have gotten twice as many points (or more) than the next best tally man of the era. Which, if you look at some of the Tally men right now (Gomez, St. Louis, Thorton) would still be a LOT of points. Twice as much as any high scorer in any league in any era is still a big number.

[NuggyBuggy 0]

But the point is, if he started his career in 2000, he would still have gotten twice as many points (or more) than the next best tally man of the era.

Assuming by "Tally man" you mean point scorer, this claim is absurd. If I didn't miss anything in my quick check of two minutes ago, Gretzky only recorded more than twice as many points as the next best PLAYER ON HIS TEAM twice. Not that this is anything to sneeze at, but given that fact, the proposition that he is going to outscore every other player IN THE LEAGUE by twice would not hold any water.

I think people who never actually followed the Oilers during their heyday do not realize what incredible teams they fielded during this time. Of course Gretzky made them all better players, but they did win another Cup after he left them.

[gavin 0]

No I apologize as I probably used the wrong word. I meant "points getter" as is most total points. And he scored about twice as many points as Francis, Lemieux, Messier and the others who had their careers about the same time as he did. I'm just saying that cumulative points is a pretty telling statistic. Also, keep in mind that the next in line, Messier, played almost three hundred more games than Gretzky. My point: for someone to claim to be as great as Gretzky today, they would have to dominate among the "point getters" of the NewNHL in the approximate range of twice as many points as anyone else in the league, cumulative.

[stickfixchaska 0]

Let's just simplify this...

Orr - Changed the game.

Gretzky - The Great One.

Crosby/Ovechkin - 2 rookies that put up 100pts in their FIRST season in the new NHL.

Selanne put up how many pts his rookie year? 132!

GP G A Pts PIM

84 76 56 132 45

Where will he be in the history of the game? He may hold onto the rookie scoring record for a while longer. (I'm thinking Malkin may challenge it) Teemu may get his name on the Cup (this year), but he is not going to be talked about in the same breath as Gretz or Orr. Crosby and Ovy are great players, no doubt, but they have a hell of a long way to go before EITHER deserves to be though of as THE "NEXT" ONE.

So, to steer this back on track...How much is that Jersey going for?

[gavin 0]

Very well put stickfix.

And the jersey is

C $9,287.87

(Approximately US $8,286.08) with 4 days to go.

I'm thinking it could still go a LOT higher. But honestly, I don't want to take anything away from Sid the Kid, but isn't the hype over some of these new stars kinda like when parents started naming their babies Ginobli last year? And he didn't even win the NBA finals? Seriously that would suck, in 20 years all their friends are going to be like "Ginobli, how did you get such a weird name?"

[McCabe24 0]

Two things, the goalies are way better now than they were in the 80s. You think Lafleur would have scored that goal against Boston in today's NHL? Sure there are still goals scored from a distance but most are flukes or screened. That goal Marc Denis let in at the World Championships last weekend would have been considered normal in the Gretz days.

Also, why aren't guys like Thornton racking up these huge numbers from behind the net like Wayne did? Their is only so much you can do with a stick and puck in that area, teams now are better able to defend a player in Gretzky's office. Wayne would never be able to stand back there for a while and then proceed to bounce the puck off the side of the net to Sundstrom against the penalty killing of the current Oilers.

Obviously, I will be subject to the you can't comment because you never saw him play in person but that's just my two cents. Can't wait until I am defending Crosby and Ovechkin 30 years from now.

[gavin 0]

Yeah, cause really hot goalies nowadays, when they are playing their best they will NEVER let in a chip shot from the blue line. *right* :rollseyes:

Anyways, me and a thousand other hab fans are in deep depression because of a goal that DIDN'T in fact go in because today's goalies just don't let long shots go in any more.

No, the goalies really aren't THAT much better than they were a long time ago, just different.

[DarkStar50 679]

Less than three hours left.....$13,000 US.

This is nuts. I hope HockeyCanada puts the $ to good use like getting some more Cheechoos into the game from way up north.

[stickfixchaska 0]

Less than three hours left.....$13,000 US.

This is nuts. I hope HockeyCanada puts the $ to good use like getting some more Cheechoos into the game from way up north.

So it should be closed by now...Where did it end? $13k is a lot for some fabric.

[DarkStar50 679]

$13, 502. I would like some DNA testing done with the purchase, please.

[bhill12 0]

ya thats a ton of money for a game worn jersey. id rather get a new car for that much then a jersey no one would want to wear because of the fact its game worn

[DarkStar50 679]

I buy game worn jerseys to do just that: wear them in games.

[bhill12 0]

would you wear one that you paid 13k for?

[DarkStar50 679]

If I had $13k to blow on Sid's shirt, sure, why not!!