daver
Registered User
Just to clarify something, I'm not arguing that power-play points are less important. All points are equal, of course, and I've already pointed out myself that a player like Mario drew a lot of penalties, which is to his credit.
Rather, I'm using my own subjective impression (which some of you might disagree with -- that's fine) to suggest that dominating scoring by having more power-play opportunities than one's peers is somewhat less impressive than dominating scoring by having the same power-play opportunities as one's peers.
I'm not biased towards, or even arguing for, Gordie Howe, as someone foolishly accused me of being. I generally consider Lemieux to have had the higher peak. I stated that we won't know about the point I raise until we have the numbers available, if we ever do.
For the record, and assuming Wayne and Steve Y were Mario's biggest scoring 'competitors' from 1987 to 1990, here is the number of PP opportunities each player's teams had during those seasons:
1987-88 / 1988-89 / 1989-90
Mario
500 / 491 / 403
Total: 1394
Wayne
402 / 395 / 343
Total: 1140
Steve Y
383 / 352 / 354
Total: 1089
In other words, Mario's teams had 300+ more power plays over the three seasons than Yzerman's. And we saw how, in 1988-89, Yzerman nearly matched Lemieux's greatest season in ES scoring. For me, this raises the possibility that Lemieux's scoring dominance in these three seasons is somewhat less "dominant" (subjectively speaking) than it first appears.
Now, if we run the numbers on Howe c.1951 to 1955, it may turn out that the Red Wings had more PP opportunities than every other team (that's certainly possible), and the point I'm raising will be irrelevant. It would be interesting to find out.
If you want to open this can of worms, would you be open to the possibility that Mario could have been put up a peak season that was higher in points than Wayne's (say 220 to 230 over an 82 game season) if there were even more PPs called or the Pens drew even more PPs themselves?
I disagree that it's as simple as a "less PPs = less points for Mario" scenario. Less PPs means more ES time, less PPs means the Pens were scoring less and relying even more on Mario to score.
And you and others seem to be completely ignoring 92/93 seemingly as it contradicts this ES > PP impression.