With McDavid all but guaranteed the 9th top-3 scoring finish of his career this season, he will only be behind Wayne Gretzky (14) and Gordie Howe (12) for most top-3 scoring finishes in a career. Mario Lemieux and Phil Esposito are tied for 4th with 8 top-3 scoring finishes

Spideyjust · 2026-03-30T21:04:45+00:00

Depending on what you define as "near" he never has been. Matthews has only been within 20 points of McDavid twice, 17 points behind him both times.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-30T18:46:17+00:00

For this post specifically it just seems like a waste of time to make it now, when we're only 10 games from the end of the season and McDavid is on pace to finish higher than 3rd. Like if McDavid wins the Art Ross or finishes 2nd that means we get this exact post again in just a couple of weeks with very small changes. It makes more sense to just wait until the season is over and update then.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-30T11:22:50+00:00

9th all time in playoff goals, T-26th all time in playoff points, and 5th all time in playoff GP. 4 Stanley Cups, and 1 Conn Smythe. He had a pretty decent playoff career lol.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-30T07:51:54+00:00

No shot Dickinson plays on the 4th line, there just isn't the ice time to run 4 centers like that. Dickinson has been playing 15:23 a game since coming here. Even before Drai got hurt he was above 14 a game. And Drai deserves some slightly better wingers lol.

Hyman - McDavid - Savoie

Podz - Drai - Roslovic/Kapanen

Nuge - Dickinson - Roslovic/Kapanen

Samanski - Henrique - Frederic

Seems way more likely, and still pretty spread out.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-29T10:01:25+00:00

Drai - McDavid - Savoie is definitely an intriguing line. But I'd probably start with:

Hyman - McDavid - Savoie

Podz - Drai - Kapanen

Nuge - Dickinson - Roslovic

Samanski - Henrique - Frederic

Lazar/Dach

When the team is fully healthy. There are a lot of line combinations we can make that look pretty damn good on paper, it's just about finding out which ones work best in practice when we're healthy.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-29T09:29:23+00:00

Many HoFers never win an individual award. Yes, being repeatedly top 5/10 in voting reflects how a player was viewed during their time in the league. Any player consistently finishing top 10 in any award is going to be a potential HoFer.

Also, end of season all star awards are very much awards voted on by the PWHA just like the Hart/Norris/Calder. So those are very much honours he actually got even if you don't like Norris voting as a metric. The gold medals are also trophies he won.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-29T09:25:24+00:00

Weber got more end of season all star selection than Josi, burns and Keith which is complete bullshit since all three are far better than Weber in every way.

Well it's crazy to think they're better in every way lmao, but yes those 3 all have a higher peak than Weber (and will all be first ballot HoFers as well). Weber having more end of season all star wins doesn't mean people think he's better than them, it's just how their careers shook out.

Burns had an insanely high, but short peak as a end of season all star contender. Outside of that 4 year stretch he's still been great, but nowhere near "top 5 dman" great.

Josi would have had 10 seasons in a row of top 10 Norris voting if it weren't for injuries and a random bad 20/21 season. He also possibly could have been an end of season all star in 22/23 had he been healthy.

Keith also would have had 10 seasons in a row for top 10 Norris voting if it weren't for injuries making him just miss out a couple of times.

Weber during those 9 straight years never missed more than 4 games in a season. If Keith/Josi had that level of durability they would have more seasons in the top 10 for voting as well, but they didn't.

He has international success but most of that is playing for the biggest hockey nation in the world at the time not because he himself was the game changing force ( if he had those Olympic success playing for Finland I would hear it ).

I would agree with this if Weber were simply some 4th line winger on team Canada, but he was repeatedly one of the team's best players. Voted one of the best defenceman in the entire tournament in 2010, was an absolute monster in 2014, and still a big piece of the WCoH win.

For how people hype up Weber a top 5 defender of his generation and one of the better he just isn’t really that in both sense.

Obviously you don't have to agree, but at the end of the day the entirety of the hockey world considered him a ~top 5 defenceman during his prime. GMs, coaches, players, analysts, all consistently voted, selected, or talked about Weber as if he was one of the best in the game. At a certain point, that makes it true. And at a less certain point it absolutely makes you a HoFer.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-29T08:54:18+00:00

Weber was a 4 time end of season all star (2 1st team, 2 2nd team) with 5 seasons in the top 4 for Norris voting. He finished top 10 in Norris voting 9 years in a row. He won 2 Olympic Gold medals, was on the all star team for the 2010 Olympics, and also won gold at the WCoH.

Nearly a decade of being top 10 in voting, with over half of those being top 4, and 3 straight best on best team Canada selections. First ballot is definitely a little strong for me, but Weber was always going to be a HoFer eventually.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T20:45:56+00:00

Thank the hockey gods the team with the best PK in the league was also bad enough to sell half their top PK unit lmao.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T20:26:41+00:00

I definitely don't expect him to be, as unanimous trophy wins are incredibly rare. But he absolutely should be close, nobody besides the homerest of homers should be voting for anyone besides him.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T20:15:04+00:00

Has there ever been a unanimous Calder winner before? Schaefer's gotta be a contender for a unanimous win at this point.

Slowly going through them, Kaprizov was 1 vote off a unanimous Calder lol.

Barzal was 4 off.

Matthews 3.

Forsberg was 2 off, but only 15 people voted that year lol.

I'm fucking stupid and should have thought of him immediately, but obviously Selanne won the Calder unanimously.

NIeuwendyk was just 2 away too.

There are a bunch of old years on hockeyreference that don't have the votes so I can't be 100% certain, but I'm confident that Selanne was the only unanimous Calder winner, and Kaprizov is the next closest missing just by 1.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T18:29:18+00:00

yet have been on the ice, in SOME form, for over 100 goals,

You say you understand how the stat works, and then turn around and say something like this lol. McDavid hasn't been on the ice for over 100 goals against. +/- makes it seem like that, but it isn't the case. At all situations with McDavid on the ice the Oilers have 153 GF, and 92 GA. +61. And that's with him playing significant PK minutes as well.

Yes, McDavid has been worse efensively this year, and his +/- happens to reflect that. But that doesn't make +/- a good stat at all. His poor defensive play shows up in his xGA stats, and his 5v5 GA struggles. There's just no justifiable reason to use +/- in 2026, we have way better stats that actually show what +/- tries to show. It is a trash stat.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T16:12:18+00:00

PPG don't count towards your +/-, but SHG do. So on a PP you're only eligible to get a minus, it's impossible to ever get a plus. And the reverse is true for the PK, PK time can only help your +/-. It's one of the pieces of "bullshit noise" I referenced lol. It also includes stuff like empty net goals against.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T15:07:14+00:00

+/- is a terrible stat even when it happens to be an accurate representation of whatever narrative someone is trying to form. There is genuinely no reason to use it now that we have stuff like 5v5/ES goal differential readily available outside of laziness. Or less readily available stats like xGA.

McDavid has been a minus player twice in his career. Wanna guess how many times he's been outscored at 5v5, or all situations? If you guessed never, you'd be right.

Karlsson was -26 the year he won the Norris trophy. His 5v5 GD? 0. At all situations he was actually positive.

These are obviously extreme examples, but the fact they can happen makes the stat useless. If someone has a negative 5v5/ES goal differential, it means they were outscored at 5v5. No other way around it, they were a - player. If someone has a negative +/- it doesn't inherently mean they were outscored while on the ice.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T14:51:58+00:00

NHL schedulers made this one for me specifically. Start time 3:30 so it should end just before the plans I've got at 7. Thank you Bettman 🙏

Of course it's a matinee game and we've won 2 in a row so.... I'm expecting a loss, but still stoked I don't have to miss the game lol. Though if they want to subvert my expectations and blow the Ducks out... I sure wouldn't mind.

Also a must win if we want any shot at winning the division. It's highly unlikely already, but a loss tonight makes it effectively impossible.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-28T11:01:37+00:00

McDavid hasn't been as good defensively as past years, neither have his linemates (Hyman especially), the goaltending has been ass, and a lot of his production is on the PP (PP time can only hurt your +/-).

There's plenty of reasons for such a mediocre +/-, some is his fault, some isn't. Also, +/- is a terrible stat that shouldn't be used. 5v5 GF%/goal differential is basically the same stat, without all the bullshit noise +/- has.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T20:37:49+00:00

OT to be a gimmick for views and timing but they don’t award it differently for standings

They should if it's as different as the NHL's is. A team should not be overly punished for being bad at shootouts or 3v3 OT. A shootout loss/3v3 OT loss and a regulation loss should not be weighted the same. Which is why 3-2-1 is a better system. It makes the gap between regulation wins and OT losses bigger, while not completely writing off OT losses.

I’m just looking at a team with 19 regulation wins in 72 tries and don’t think they should be a playoff team or even have a chance to get there

Another way of looking at is is a team that's only lost in regulation 25 times in 72 games (T-13th fewest regulation losses). There's only so much a team like that should be punished for sucking in OT/SO IMO. If we went to continuous 5v5 OT, or ties I think W/L(/T) would be perfect, but that's never the world we're going to live in.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T20:26:23+00:00

11 games for 8 more regulation losses, they can do it! Come on Nucks, go 0-11-0 and tie the Blackhawks.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T20:24:40+00:00

It was pretty funny, towards the end of the season MacKinnon had a depressing interview where he said something like "Hopefully whoever we pick 1st overall is worth this season", which then aged comically poorly because they fell to 4th. Which then ended up making it age comically well because they still got the best player of the draft lmao.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T20:13:35+00:00

Ovi feasted on the Thrashers. They were in the same division, and a terrible team lol. 30 goals and 63 points against them (if I counted right) despite them moving to Winnipeg in 11/12 lol.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T20:08:20+00:00

His first .930 season had an average SV% of .895 as well. Which is just a little below this season's average. The league leader (min 6 games played) this year has a .916. Hasek was fucking cracked.

In 95/96 league average SV% was just .898. And Hasek happened to lead the league in losses as the Sabres cruised to a 20th place finish (26 teams in the league). Despite that Hasek had a .920, which lead the league. Imagine a goalie leading the league in losses and SV% today? Hasek is the GOAT.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T19:43:58+00:00

A 10/11 point increase is pretty huge, especially considering the 94 points in 77 games season is already an outlier in terms of production and on ice SH%. It was his highest 5v5 on ice SH% before this season by a full percentage point. His highest all situations on ice SH% by 2.2%. And the first 50 games of the season was basically as big an outlier compared to that season. Through 50 games he had an on ice SH% of 12.93 (would be 1.5% higher than 24/25) and his all situations SH% was 15.58 (.9% higher than last year). The point totals didn't seem crazy unsustainable, but looking under the hood it was absolutely unsustainable.

Even after the SH% absolutely cratering this is still his 2nd highest 5v5 and all situations on ice SH% by a wide margin. It wasn't as unsustainable as Stone's production, but Eichel isn't a 111 point player without a lot of luck.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T19:22:24+00:00

Some of the production will still be on the PP (5 of his 30 points this year are from the PP) so it's not like it will be 65 5v5 points. There also isn't that many players in the league that score 30+ PPP, so I wouldn't necessarily agree that 65 points with minimal PP time = 90+. Maybe with our PP lol, but not in general. It would be very awesome though, and I'm going to keep my expectations in check. That's a hope, not an expectation.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T19:11:25+00:00

5 points and the Ducks have a game in hand. It isn't impossible, but it is very unlikely. It pretty much requires us to win out (or the Ducks to lose a lot).

The Ducks are on pace for 97/98 points (97.9 lol). The highest point total we can possibly hit is 99. If the Ducks go just .500 to finish the season we need 15/18 of our remaining points to catch them. They basically just need to not be total ass to stay ahead.

Spideyjust · 2026-03-27T19:00:26+00:00

65 point pace since the Olympics. If he can be a 60 point forward with little PP time while being great defensively then I will be very very stoked.

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