James MacPherson

@TheMugNHL What if Mario stayed healthy. Led the NHL in points per game in every season he played from 23 years old until 37 years old.

Who is the biggest “what if” player in NHL history? For example, What if Carey Price never got injured?

@J_Swish24 Holy recency bias narrative twitter verse garbage. McDavid has 6 art ross trophies.

Might be time to revisit the 2015 NHL Entry Draft and realize Jack Eichel might be the best overall player in that draft. After this year is over he could have 2 cups and 1 Olympic Gold. What does the #1 pick have to show for? Don’t shoot the messenger but Eich’s is that good. -People’s

@MarkLazerus @jtbourne It all comes to money. The more money, the better the athletes, the greater the competition, the better the bottom players become. BTW; Phil Esposito chose hockey because he could make the same wage as a steel worker.

@jtbourne I don't know if I'd go that far, but I firmly believe that the very worst fourth-liner in the NHL today would be the best player on the planet if he could suddenly time-travel back into the 1950s or 1960s.

Hockey is oddly kinda the opposite where a certain type of fan of the game today doesn’t believe Gretzky would play above their fave team’s third line

@JFreshHockey @JhanHky It comes down to money. How many players can make a good income today vs the past. Phil Esposito chose hockey because he could make the same wage as a steel worker. It is the number of athletes the game can support. It is at least 10x higher today.

@microstatsrule @JhanHky there are also 8 times as many teams now

I think the way to unpack this conversation is to think about software. A mediocre programmer (esp if using AI) can do far more than the best programmer in 1980. But only if you ignore that they're standing on the shoulders of generations of people who've elevated the industry

@JFreshHockey @JhanHky The talent pool is immensely larger today. Stated differently, the base-line skill is much higher, with competition pushing extremely good athletes into bottom 6 roles. That competition did not exist in the 1960s.

@JhanHky you think the shift in training and nutrition in hockey is anywhere near the shift in technology (not to mention AI) in the past 45 years?

@ChrisGloninger Today’s “destroyed by facts victim”: Bjorn Lomborg.

You're measuring adaptation, not hazard. Climate deaths fell because we built early warning systems, evacuation networks, and emergency medicine, not because storms got weaker. CRED, whose data you use, has explicitly warned against this framing. Polar bears recovered from the 1973 international hunting ban, not from a friendly Arctic. The 1960s baseline you cite wasn't a census; it was a guess. IUCN still lists them Vulnerable, and ice-dependent subpopulations are declining. Global burned area fell because African savannas were converted to cropland. Forest burned area, the climate-relevant metric, has risen sharply. Canada 2023 set the all-time record. Each of those numbers is a story about human capacity to cope with a worsening climate. Not evidence the climate isn't worsening. Complacency is a worse policy adviser than panic.

@JhanHky It comes down to the talent pool. Since the talent pool is vastly larger - the money is attracting more top athletes- it is very likely that bottom 6 players would excel if you could time travel them back to the 1960s.

My argument above if assuming you really want to know whether a fringer NHLer now is a more "inherently talented" athlete than a GOAT from 50 yrs ago. And my answer is no, not even close. "Magic time travel" where nothing else changes is another conversation.

@TopDownHockey The talent pool today is way larger. (10 fold?) The talent pool played 100 games/yr of minor hockey games vs 8-10. The modern talent pool has been coached to skate with proper stride mechanics and edge control.

For people who believe this: What is this based on? If training/nutrition: How do you reconcile that the all-time leading goal scorer still eats Mamma Lucia before every game?

@LeafsfanEst1991 What league’s playoff?

Goalies that Marner has faced in VGK. Wedgewood. Vemeljka Dostal Goalies with the Leafs. Swayman Rask Vasy Bobrovsky Price Yeah it's not close.

@hockeypsych_ Hmm. Interesting that you never mentioned the poor “rush chance” results that the Leafs put up.

But it is validating for both player & the fans to know that pressure (for the most part) played a big component as to who Mitch Marner could be as a player.

I think what everyone should understand is that this version (Playoff Conn Smythe Candidate) of Marner was never available in Toronto for a few reasons.  🧵 1. Toronto never truly built a quality team around Marner & it put immense pressure on him (and the core 4) to be the guy

@TalkeyHockey The Oil is going to play “dump and chase”?

Carle to Colorado Bednar to Toronto Berube to Edmonton Malhotra to Vancouver That's my guess for the coaching changes

@AzorcanGlobal There will be someone who says Bednar does not check off all the boxes. Easy block.

If Bednar loses his job with the #Avs, where would he be on the #Oilers list of potential head coaches?

@disintti My feed is full of stupid narratives today.

How it feels knowing we’re about to draft a small winger with no defensive capabilities when we could’ve drafted Schaefer a year ago and DuPont next year

@PGHfan_66 Correct. 198 points with just one other HOFer on the roster. Ascended to the pinnacle of the sport by clobbering Wayne Gretzky the scoring race.

The point I was trying to make was that Mario Lemieux was the most gifted and talented player to ever play in the NHL. It has nothing to do with overall point totals or that Wayne Gretzky stayed healthy his whole career and Mario didn't. Some people just aren't getting it.

@mattlabelle Vegas scores off-the-rush. Keefe’s teams entered the zone with the intent to set up the cycle (which every playoff team was/is ready to defend). Bérubé was worse.

@willynylly The Leafs entered the zone with the intent of setting up the cycle. By doing so they limited their rush chances. It is a safe way to play. But in the playoffs every team has a plan to defend the cycle. Rush chances are much more dangerous. Keefe limited his high skilled core.

my thoughts on Marner are I don’t care, he WAS a massive part of the problem in Toronto and anyone saying otherwise is saying it in bad faith, he was never going to figure it out in Toronto cause it’s harder, it always will be, and he’s soft, but good for him

@chrishorvat_ Show us some hi-lights of the Leafs scoring off-the-rush goals from the playoffs. Maybe the 💡 will go on for you.

It is pointless to engage with the ‘Marner wasn’t the problem in Toronto’ crowd because they’re all bad faith actors. It’s a pure ruse of intellectual dishonesty masquerading as ‘analysis’. Had nine years here to get it done and he didn’t. Nothing he does with VGK changes that

@landonice_ I want Canada to do well in the Olympics, so it is great to see Bouchard out there playing well (as usual). Is ball hockey league starting up soon for you?

@microstatsrule Lmao it is a consolation tournament. Performing there doesn’t mean shit. If you’re suggesting him getting points at this tourney is worth more than Makar at the Olympics that’s an interesting stance to take. Which is essentially what OP is saying…

@landonice_ Your statement makes it sound like this is the first time EB has ever played well.

@Cheeko905 Narrative. Which game 7 did Cheeko play in?

Screamed at his teammates and told them to “wake the fuck up” while not having a drop of sweat on him down 3-0 in a game 7 last season btw

@landonice_ Give me a break. OP is pointing out further evidence that Bouchard can flat out play. You have made a condescending post disparaging the tournament as a consolation - as if his play there does not count. What league did you play in?

@microstatsrule In what sense? OP is talking about Bouchard’s success with Canada. My comment reflected that only, and only that. No one was ever talking about team play. So I don’t see the relevance of your comment