I think plenty of people don't consider Gretzky the greatest goal scorer, simply because in their tiny little brains, they can't comprehend that someone can be BOTH a playmaker and a goal scorer. They think you HAVE to fit into a tiny little box.
Gretzky didn't have an insanely hard shot, and almost none of his goals came from one-timing a pass. (But he probably had the best backhand in NHL history till this day).
When I saw him live, what you would see is Gretzky looking left, then wide, and shooting top corner on his off-foot.
Or Gretzky looking across, then faking like a running back a few times to get the defender to collapse, then firing it in short side.
The direction he looked was so insanely deceptive. He just winded up to throw everyone off, then passed to where nobody was looking. Or shot where the puck wasn't supposed to go.
Here's a breakdown of a typical Gretzky move in 2017 by a coach. It's a typical shoulder drop cut to the middle that a running back would do (but with a shot fake on the correct foot to sell it):
It's a lot of smaller things you don't really notice in old 320 x 240i CTR footage recorded on SLP speed on a 2-head VCR.
Don't pay attention to the goals, just look at his fake-outs. NOBODY Else did this. Everytime he looped around, the defender thought he would pass, or cut. Everytime he cut, the defender thought he would pass.
So when Gretzky scored such a crazy volume of goals, a lot of them don't look like traditional snipes. His shot was usually a total surprise. Even with the windup. You had to have seen him in person to see how f***ed up this all was to watch.
Whenever he winds up and snipes it in, what you didn't see was the 3-4 other times that game he faked a shot, and passed it to the player parked at the side of the goal. OF COURSE the goalie went to that side, Gretzky was faking shots the entire game, and feeding a winger. The One time he winds up and slapped it in, the goalie was thinking he would pass.
The closest thing I can think of, was how it somehow resembled Michael Jordan's head-faking.
I know this is basketball, but this is the most Gretzky-esque pass I've seen since we got High-Def.
Imagine a hockey player who could just routinely fakeout everyone, get the entire defense and teams going the wrong way, and scoring on what looks to be a fakeout or an accident, on a no-looker.
Because that's what Gretzky did.
His goals.. might not look great on old footage, but it's him basically trolling the league with fake outs, off foot button hooks, faked shots, fake cuts, cutting when you think he's faking, shooting when you think he's passing.
It's not "parked in the slot like Hull waiting for a one-timer". It's not end to end Lemieux/McDavid/Bure.
All I can say, is if you saw him live, you'd know why everyone in Edmonton believed he was the greatest goal scorer. It just doesn't fit into a traditional "box" of what you envision a pure goal scorer to look like.
