spader wrote: wprager wrote: spader wrote: wprager wrote:Crosby is not a goal scorer, he's more of a set-up man. How many assists does Hoffman have?
Look, I'm not trying to push this guy down, but we have a former #2 overall in Ryan who has scored 30+ four times, another former #2 overall in Turris, a former 35-goal scorer in Michalek and Hoffman is leading the team in goals. That's a sad state of affairs. Kudos to Mike, but not so good for the team that had playoff aspirations.
6 seasons of 30+ goals. Come on.
Means nothing. Gretzky scored 92 one year just to show he could, but his game was always more about passing. Add up Hoffman's goals and assists and then compare to Crosby. Take primary assists only, if you want.
This makes no sense to me. My point (which I feel was fairly clear) is that Hoffman is scoring at a better pace than a lot of superstars.
He's in the top-40 for goals scored. That's impressive. It's not ideal that we don't have more goal scoring, but unless you're saying that Hoff's dramatically overachieving, I don't understand you.
EDIT: It just occurred to me that if I follow your argument, you're basically saying that Gretzky (the all time leading goal scorer in the NHL) wasn't a goal scorer. Does the word "goal scorer" mean something different to you than "score a lot of goals"?
But it's not just the scoring that makes them superstars. They also set up their linemates for goals and, in many cases, that is *primary* contribution.
In an ideal world every goal has two assists and for every goal scored a player would have two assists. Hoffman has roughly half as many assists as he has goals -- you can't say that about Crosby. You also have to take into consideration the injuries the Pens have had and the new linemates he's had to adjust to.
Again, I'm not slamming Hoffman. He's having a terrific season. If he follows that up with another similar performance I'll stand and applaud. But no matter how you slice it, the very fact that a 25-year-old AHL call up is leading the team in goals is troubling.
Now, the *good* parts of all this, we have a guy on a 30-goal pace who is playing third-line minutes. And we haven't even tapped into his PP production (playing the point -- that's where he will pick up some assists). Even if he drops off to 15-20 goals (and pulls up his assists) that's still great secondary scoring. We *know* Turris and MacArthur can be better. This was an adjustment year in many ways (new Captain, new coach, no Spezza). We have Mark Stone developing into a Selke nominee who will put up 20/50 (he's almost at that pace now, in his first full year). We have Ryan who does everything and Karlsson who is on of the most dynamic players in this league.
P.S. Gretzky leads every category -- goals, assists, points. Likely leads primary assists and secondary assists. I don't know if you were around when he was in his prime -- I was. That year it's like he took it upon himself to prove that he could score goals if he wanted to, so he scored 92. Sure, it was a different league (a rookie scoring 76???!) but it was still quite an accomplishment. And he led the league by a wide margin in goals *and* points. If you look at his lifetime totals he's got more than twice as many assists as goals (894 to 1963). But that year he scored 92 goals he (only) had 120 assists. Compare that to a Brett Hull who scored 741 goals and added 650 assists. Do you see the difference now?
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