So How Do Crosby, Ovechkin stack up?

There's been no end of talk about today's generation of superstars, and how they compare with superstars of the past. The talk usually focuses around two players - Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.

With a little help from Hockey-Reference.com, let's see how they compare to the Wayne Gretzkys and Mario Lemieuxs of the past:

Here's the top producers in terms of points per game by players in their first three seasons of NHL play. The eliminate early era oddities and injuries, and to make up for various lengths of schedules and the 1994-95 lockout half-season, I've set the games played minimum at 170.

RK  Player         GP  G  A Pts Pts/G
1   Wayne Gretzky 239 198 315 513 2.15
2   Mario Lemieux 215 145 203 348 1.62
3   Peter Stastny 232 132 240 372 1.60
4   Eric Lindros  172 114 128 242 1.41
5   Kent Nilsson  201 115 164 279 1.39
6   Sidney Crosby 213  99 195 294 1.38
7   Mike Bossy    228 173 136 309 1.36
8   Denis Savard  234  95 220 315 1.35
9   Peter Forsberg194  73 179 252 1.30
10  Mike Rogers   240 122 191 313 1.30
11  Teemu Selanne 180 123 111 234 1.30
12  Alex Ovechkin 245 163 147 310 1.27

Both Crosby and Ovechkin fare very well in this category. If you look at the top goals per game leaders using the same criteria, Ovechkin does even better, while Crosby falls off significantly.

RK   Player         GP  G  G/GP
1    Wayne Gretzky   239 198 0.83
2    Mike Bossy      228 173 0.76
3    Pavel Bure      224 154 0.69
4    Teemu Selanne   180 123 0.68
5    Mario Lemieux   215 145 0.67
6    Alex Ovechkin   245 163 0.67
7    Eric Lindros    172 114 0.66
8    Luc Robitaille  237 144 0.61
9    Dino Ciccarelli 185 110 0.59
10   Jimmy Carson    240 141 0.59
40   Sidney Crosby   213  96 0.46

Of course we can do a similar list for assists, and see Crosby in the top 6, Ovechkin at #53 and Wayne Gretzky blowing the competition away yet again.

Crosby and Oveckin are well behind The Great One when it comes to being the best scorers among NHLers in their first three years. Chalk that up to the high scoring 1980s? After all, the list is dominated from players from that era. It doesn't matter. High scoring or not, Gretzky still dominated.

In his first three years of play, no veteran player came close to Gretzky. Marcel Dionne had the second best Pts/GP totals in that time frame, but he was more than half a point behind #99 per game. That half point adds up to 124 total points differential. And Gretzky's dominance factor would increase significantly as his career progressed!

Crosby, on the other hand, had 0.01 lead over veteran Joe Thornton. Mr. Ovechkin tied with Jason Spezza for third place in the past 3 seasons, 0.10 Pts/GP behind Crosby.

No modern player can compare to Gretzky's dominance factor of +0.52 points per game, thanks largely to the fact that Gretzky controlled the scoring lead for virtually an entire decade, not giving any other newcomer a chance.

Crosby and Ovechkin are great, great players, but they've got a long ways to go to besting #99.