How many points would a prime Mario Lemieux put up in today’s NHL?

[BraveCanadian]

Not many penalties were called back then cause Refs allows alot more to happen on the ice tjat today would be considered obstruction.

I think you need to check on the number of powerplays the Penguins tended to get back in Mario's day (spoiler, it was a lot). In some cases the refs called more PPs AND allowed more hooking, holding, obstruction at the same time. It was certainly a much more physical league.

Also, most goalies haven't been looking so good the past couple of years.

 

[TheStatican]

True. Peak Mario would’ve been capable of 224/82GP in his best stretch of over 70% of season GP (1988-89/169 PTS in 62 GP). You could also take the 1993 160 in 60 game sample for him. With over 70% of season GP you’d take Mario’s 157 in 58 in 1993 which is a 222/82GP pace. Peak Gretzky had 171 in 57GP in 1983-84. Which is 246/82GP. His second best was 1984-85 where he had 167 in 60 for a 228/82GP pace.

223 average for peak Mario combining 89 and 93
237 average for peak Gretzky combining 84 and 85.

If we use hockey reference’s adjustments (flawed and all but to satiate the desires of many) that comes out to a 182 per 82 average for 89 and 93 Mario and a 190 per 82 average for 84 and 85 Gretzky.

I assume your using Gretzky's 57-game sample there since many of us extrapolate Mario's 60 game season 92-93. The thing about that is Gretzky as great as he was, never showed that he could sustain that elevated scoring level over a full season and he had many opportunities to do so having nearly six completely healthy years in the middle of his peak but maxed out at 215 - It'd agree that it likely he beats that total in 83-84, but only by a small margin. For Mario he proved that he could maintain the same level of scoring he achieved in 92-93 over the course of a longer season in 88-89(I'd also argue 146 in 62 in the notably lower scoring season of 95-96 demonstrates he more or less reached the same level of scoring prowess a third time) i.e. - 92-93 is not an outliner for him like Gretzky scoring at 3 ppg in that single time span was.

Further evidence of the sustainability of Lemieux's scoring rate in '93 can be found by the way he was going about scoring his points.

Game with "x" number of points:

Likelihood of "x" number of points:

Cumulative totals:

Cumulative percentages:

92-93 Lemieux he had the highest rate of 2 and 3 point games in history, essentially he accumulated his expected number of points per game at the steadiest pace of the top seasons by the two of them. On top of that the variance of his scoring rates over the course of the season was the lowest.

Here's a look at their rolling averages:

Again Mario's 1992-93 is the most stable. The more 'spikes' a player has the more variable their scoring is, he only had two noticeable dips/slumps that season and as we know there was a really good reason for the second one - It includes a game he played one period in and then the first two games after coming off a series of radiation treatments. Without that his chart looks like this:

Lemieux's 1992-93 season is clearly the most stable scoring wise game-in, game-out. Every other season had a general upwards or downwards progression in scoring throughout the season(save for arguably Gretz 82-83, though that was the weakest of his peak seasons). It was also the best in terms of being able to score multiple points per game regularly. In contrast, Gretzky, and Lemieux during his 88-89 season, accumulated huge point totals in short spans thanks to explosive big single game out bursts and hot streaks. Take note though that I'm not saying scoring at a steadier rate is better than having more big single game offensive explosions, my point is solely about which is more likely to be sustainable.

 

[WalterLundy]

I assume your using Gretzky's 57-game sample there since many of us extrapolate Mario's 60 game season 92-93. The thing about that is Gretzky as great as he was, never showed that he could sustain that elevated scoring level over a full season and he had many opportunities to do so having nearly six completely healthy years in the middle of his peak but maxed out at 215 - It'd agree that it likely he beats that total in 83-84, but only by a small margin. For Mario he proved that he could maintain the same level of scoring he achieved in 92-93 over the course of a longer season in 88-89(I'd also argue 146 in 62 in the notably lower scoring season of 95-96 demonstrates he more or less reached the same level of scoring prowess a third time) i.e. - 92-93 is not an outliner for him like Gretzky scoring at 3 ppg in that single time span was.

Further evidence of the sustainability of Lemieux's scoring rate in '93 can be found by the way he was going about scoring his points.

92-93 Lemieux he had the highest rate of 2 and 3 point games in history, essentially he accumulated his expected number of points per game at the steadiest pace of the top seasons by the two of them. On top of that the variance of his scoring rates over the course of the season was the lowest.

Here's a look at their rolling averages:


Lemieux's 1992-93 season is clearly the most stable scoring wise game-in, game-out. Every other season had a general upwards or downwards progression in scoring throughout the season(save for arguably Gretz 82-83, though that was the weakest of his peak seasons). It was also the best in terms of being able to score multiple points per game regularly. In contrast, Gretzky, and Lemieux during his 88-89 season, accumulated huge point totals in short spans thanks to explosive big single game out bursts and hot streaks. Take note though that I'm not saying scoring at a steadier rate is better than having more big single game offensive explosions, my point is solely about which is more likely to be sustainable.

Really cool insight and added perspective I didn’t have prior. You’re exactly right that was the method to the madness there. I wanted to use a method that had everyone playing 70% of games so that we could see the highest level a player reached while playing a large enough season sample regardless of whether or not the ability to extrapolate is there. I never made it for the pure intention of pacing to a full season (it’s just easier to see a fully prorated figure for comparison sake) but I am thankful for your post as that is interesting. As far as I’m concerned paces from smaller samples are never 100% sustainable even if some appear to have a statistical merit for being more likely than others. It’s all what if talk anyway but we all love it and it’s fun. I actually have a top 100 list for this criteria that I made if anyone wanted to see that.

You are right about the 1996 Mario season. When that stretch is adjusted it actually comes in at number 2 to the ‘84 Gretzky year but I think any fan (and especially penguin fan) will admit that ‘89 and ‘93 are clearly superior. There are major limits to adjustments and this is a prime example but you are right that this year he again reached a very high level. The 3rd highest in his career.

If we consider that Gretzky had his injury in 1984 that took his 151 in 53 3 ppg streak to go to 52 in 23 GP for 2.26 to end the year that comes to my mind immediately as something that needs mentioned. HOWEVER Mario in ‘93 obviously was dealing with the well known stuff he dealt with so it wouldn’t make sense to do that. You may disagree (you do to my knowledge as ‘93 is the year in your opinion is ML’s best and I’ve read your post on that) but I think Lemieux ‘89 is the best year he had. From the eye test seeing it first hand that is my pick. Even if I disagree with you on who has a better peak season I literally can’t blame you for choosing Mario. Peak is the one area that Orr and Lemieux have an argument in my opinion. Just so we are clear and that you know I see where you come from.

The most impressive thing to me is the 2.63 PPG maintenance for 394 games for WG from 1981-82 to 1985-86. If we remove the weakest of the 5 (1982-83) (which is funny when a 201 in 82 GP pace season is considered “weak”) it becomes 314 games played at 2.68 PPG. That is 4 seasons worth of play at a PPG that eclipses any non WG official NHL regular season average. I know that has no bearing on in season stability and such but that’s mind blowing to me and always has been. I don’t think that 240 in 80 was going to happen for WG in 1984 but I do think that high 220s-230s was there for sure in 80 GP. 2.68 for 4 years as a 220/82 pace in my mind (even if unrelated and non specific) shows me that in his best year there was still more on the table ideal or not.

 

[Craig Button]

Prime Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, and McDavid would all well surpass 150 points if they played in the 80s.

Not Ovie.

He would have a wooden stick .

He would be the weakest of the modern bunch

 

[TheStatican]

but I think Lemieux ‘89 is the best year he had. From the eye test seeing it first hand that is my pick. Even if I disagree with you on who has a better peak season I literally can’t blame you for choosing Mario. Peak is the one area that Orr and Lemieux have an argument in my opinion. Just so we are clear and that you know I see where you come from.

Truly wish I could have seen him play live that year but unfortunately I didn't start watching hockey until shortly thereafter.

I understand and respect the merits of the eye test, but sometimes I think we can be 'fooled' by it as well. Players may look stronger or appear faster, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were actually more effectual at producing results. On top of that we are discussing seasons that happened 30 and 40 years ago, time as we know is not kind to us and our memories. Not that I'm suggesting you have a bad memory, but personally I have a hard time looking back and differentiating between how Crosby played in 2018-19 verses how he played in say, 2014-15 and those are far more recent seasons. Though to be fair Lemieux top seasons stand out a lot more from his 'down' seasons. Still I'm sure you understand what im getting at. Its a shame video recording technologies were so poor at the time... would have been something else to be able to see them play in HD.

Anywyas, I had long since always thought of Lemieux's 92-93 season as being his best because of his slightly higher scoring rate, higher ES scoring and the lower overall scoring level of the season. It's only more recently that I considered arguments to the alternative.

Firstly his ES scoring was lower because a greater % of his ice time was played during special teams. His ES per 60 rate may have even been the highest of all time in 88-89, but ofc we'll never know. I also just more recently found out that he really missed around 2 additional games worth of ice time. Meaning his 87-112-199 stat line was actually done in 74 games not 76. Here's the details of what transpired with links to the press releases:

On Oct 30th 1988 in a game against the Rangers he left the game after his first shift of the third period after being slashed in the chest. He loses 16 minutes of game time there. Next his wrist was injured in first period of a game against Quebec on Nov 3rd, that cost him somewhere between 40 to 52 minutes of game time We know this because he was out on the ice for at least one of the two goals Quebec scored in the first by his -1 rating, the earliest of which came at 7:59. He misses the next two games entirely due to that injury and then things get complicated. In his first game back he only played on the powerplay, losing out on 60 minutes of game time but only at even strength and on the PK(ES & SH pts accounted for 60% of his point production that season). In his second game back again he played only on the powerplay in the first period, then "a little more than that in the second period, and a little more still in the third." So that's somewhere around 30, possibly 40 minutes of game time at even strength and the PK. All in all he loses about a games worth of powerplay time and somewhere between 145 to 170ish minutes of even strength and PK game time, with a verified minimum of 135 minutes. In total that evens out to around 2 games worth of ice time, in addition to the 4 full games he missed.

Some people might say oh that's just hypothetical stuff. No its not, it's actually what happened. That's just being more accurate than the NHL considering a player who stepped out on the ice for say, 10 seconds as being a 'game played'. As far as I know Gretzky didn't miss out on any available ice time due to injury until 87-88 when he lost almost an entire games worth of ice time ironically in a game against Lemieux, who also lost 2 periods of ice time that same game, lol WTH? As for Gretzky's injury in 83-84, it appears he didn't leave his last game before the injury early, least theres no reports of such. Some people might now bring up how he was playing hurt and that may very well have been the case, but that's an entirely different argument. Furthermore Lemieux has just as good of a case of suggesting injuries/illness(cancer treatments) effected his performance in both 88-89 and 92-93, but that is NOT the basis for my arguement.

74 vs 76 games is only an improvement of 3% but even that small change matters because I have always seen the difference between Lemieux and Gretzky(at their peaks) as being a matter of a few percentage points. Those numbers are just slightly better than Gretzky's ppg in 81-82. Also Gretzky's numbers after 74 games that years? 74 87-110-197. But ofc he also has 83-84 where he improved upon that with a statline of 74 87-118-205.

The last fact to consider is the claim that the 92-93 season is an outliner when it comes to superstar scoring, with some even suggesting that it was the easiest season ever for star players to accumulate points, largely on the basis of the record number of players hitting 50 goals(14) and 100 points(21!) that season. I still disagree with that for a couple reasons. One, if you simply eliminate the 4 extra games that all teams had that year which is entirely fair, that alone drops the number of 50 and 100 point scorers to 12 and 15 each respectively. Both still two of the highest totals ever but no longer a shocking outliner.

Another factor that should be considered is that by 1992 the NHL essentially had all of the best available talent in the world playing in it, that wasn't the case in the 80's which was missing the contributions of the second largest hockey talent pool at that time - the Soviet Union. Additionally while I think the (non-Russian)European talent was more or less even, the American talent pool wasn't as developed in the 80's compared to '93. Eliminating the Russian talent alone - only 2 players but two very notable ones and now your down to 10 50 goal scorers and 13 100 point players, with just two 60 goal scorers not 5:

-

Thirdly there's adjusted scoring, but I recognize that it does have it's flaws. According to Hockey Reference Lemieux's 95-96 season has the highest adjusted per game pace of all time. While I think it's a top 10 all time season, I agree that it's not even his best. Making adjustments for ES, PP & SH scoring levels separately appropriately drops that season down a bit, it's now number 3 behind Lemieux's '93 and Gretzky's '84. But that placement doesn't quite feel right either, Mario's '89 and Gretzky's '82 which I more or less view as equals, should be ahead of it as well. So that tells me there is something more going on here.

There's two distinct possibilities the first being that the methodology isn't actually flawed and it really does adjust as high as number three(per game) BUT Lemieux got a added bonus by resting intermittently. Still is this really the case? There was a notable immediate positive affect as he put up 37pts in the 12 games a 3.08ppg, after skipping a game which is 9 more than expected. But then again that number drops to 51 in 23 when including the second game back which is equal to his seasonal rate. Seems strange that the 'rest benefit' would fade away so quickly. There's season long fatigue to consider as well but yet here again there's contrasting information because his totals declined as the season went on, though imo part of that has to do with the loss of one of the teams core PP players Thomas Sandstrom. The powerplay scoring took a dramatic hit without Sandstrom due to the lack of a suitible replacement for his postion on the powerplay. Then there was also an apparent flare up of back problems arou d the time his pace slowed, though that appeared to thankfully only be a brief issue for him that year. To be sure I also agree his early 200-point season pace was not going to be sustainable either. All factors taken together the net benefit of resting extra games doesn't seem to be all that large. Which leads me to acknowledged that the alternative factor is the more likely one - that further adjustments need to be made beyond just powerplay scoring levels in regards to the % of points that superstar players account for. While I strongly believe that powerplay scoring levels are the biggest factor effecting the distribution of points throughout a line up, ice time distribution at even strength is definitely another factor to consider which varies due to the overall depth of quality players league wide. Unfortunately there's no conclusive way to make adjustments for that, though the argument is that expansion reduces the overall quality of players in the league.

I would agree that 92-93 was one of the most optimal seasons for star players to score points, just not the idea that it was somehow the most optimal season of all time. I recognize that expansion effects and extended TV timeouts would have benifited star players and allowed them to play more ice time than expected. And yet, even with all that 'extra ice time' star players received, overall scoring was still off by close to 10% from the top years of 80's. That doesn't add up to me. I know, more bad players proliferating the bottom lines, but then again the NHL of the early 80's was awash with lesser players from the expasion WHA teams many of whom scored big totals, only to soon find themselves out of the league not that many years later. Just how good were those star players really.

However there are factors specific to Lemieux which mitigated the net benefit of these effects relative to the league as a whole. For one he only played in 5 games against the expansion teams, the smallest number of games and benefit any of the top scorers had:

Secondly there's the Bowman playing to the lead factor, which I already discussed previously in regards to the late game 3rd period points for Lemieux & Gretzky. The Penguins where absolutely destroying teams that season but once games were essentially 'won' they let off the pedal and went into a defensive shell. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that Bowman has always been noted as being more of a defensively orientated coach. Here's the by the period scoring numbers of the top teams in 92-93:

Outscoring the opposition 267 to 166 in the first two periods and then being outscored 97 to 102 in the third? Of the top 15 teams only the 11th ranked Kings were also outscored in the third. I acknowledge that its possible that's just how things played out, but on the balance of probabilities thats incredibly unlikely. To show just how much of an anomaly this was - no other team in NHL history that had at least 115 points has ever been outscored in the 3rd period, none of them had even come close to it.

The Oilers meanwhile played run and gun all game long for almost the entirety of their dynasty:

It's not until 86-87 when we see a bit of a 'letting off of the gas pedal' effect. Imo that's no coincidence, by then they had won 2 cups and were a more mature champion roster. I think the team realized there was no point in running up the score at least not to the same degree and that it was better to conserve themselves for the playoffs, especially after the devastating loss they had the season prior. Gretzky's numbers took a bit of a hit but it ended up paying dividends for them, not that this was the only reason for their success or that small drop in Gretzky's numbers, but I think one can safely come to the conclusion that was at least a part of it.

Those Pens of 92-93 were in the exact same boat; a mature two time defending champion team and they actually dominated teams through 2 periods of games by an even greater margin than the very best Oiler teams of the 80 did:

​ Oilers​	GF​	GA​	​	ratio​
81-82​	258​	197​	+61​	1.31​
82-83​	273​	216​	+57​	1.26​
83-84​	303​	228​	+75​	1.33​
84-85​	262​	200​	+62​	1.31​
85-86​	282​	188​	+94​	1.50​
86-87​	252​	178​	+74​	1.42​
87-88​	248​	200​	+48​	1.24​
Pens​	​	​	​	​
92-93​	267​	166​	+101​	1.61​

Furthermore it's not like the Pens didn't normally score in the 3rd. In 17 years, the entire Lemieux era only 3 times did they score less goals in the 3rd than in any other period.

There's 90-91, a season where Mario played 26 games. 03-04 a season in which he only played 10 games and 1992-93. I outlined 97-98, but that was a mistake - Lemieux didn't play that season.

All of that taken together is why I rank him as being ever so slightly better in 92-93 verse 88-89.

The most impressive thing to me is the 2.63 PPG maintenance for 394 games for WG from 1981-82 to 1985-86. If we remove the weakest of the 5 (1982-83) (which is funny when a 201 in 82 GP pace season is considered “weak”) it becomes 314 games played at 2.68 PPG. That is 4 seasons worth of play at a PPG that eclipses any non WG official NHL regular season average. I know that has no bearing on in season stability and such but that’s mind blowing to me and always has been. I don’t think that 240 in 80 was going to happen for WG in 1984 but I do think that high 220s-230s was there for sure in 80 GP. 2.68 for 4 years as a 220/82 pace in my mind (even if unrelated and non specific) shows me that in his best year there was still more on the table ideal or not.

Absolutely, that is pretty crazy and exactly why I recognize him as being #1 all time. I can only think of 3 other players who were able to match that length of operating at absolute peak play year in year out for about as long: Orr, Lafleur and Bossy. But of course Gretzky was as far ahead of Bossy as Bossy was ahead of the average top player on all the other 19 teams(212pts vs 147pts vs 96pts in 81-82) and I have Lafleur only slightly ahead of the boss man.

Gretzky vs Orr is more of an Apples to Oranges comparison but aside from that I cannot possibly rank Orr ahead of Gretzky all time since Gretzky still put up massive numbers after his peak and unfortunately Orr's career was all but over after his. Additionally Gretzky has a notable edge before their peaks - Imo Orr's rookie and sophomore years combined are basically equal to Gretzky's rookie WHA season and Orr's 68-69 year is about as impressive as 99's first NHL season. But then Gretz has that first record setting intermediary season, which would be like a 95-100 point year from Orr which isn't there. It sure would've been interesting to see how Orr would've aged... as much as I am a Lemieux fan, I recognize that as being an equivalent level of loss.

I don’t think that 240 in 80 was going to happen for WG in 1984 but I do think that high 220s-230s was there for sure in 80 GP. 2.68 for 4 years as a 220/82 pace in my mind (even if unrelated and non specific) shows me that in his best year there was still more on the table ideal or not.

But he was pacing for 221 in 80. To get to 230 he would've needed to score 25 points in 6 games. Not impossible for him to be sure, but highly improbable - he notched 25 points in 6 games 2 times out of 68 six game stretches. Unless you are indicating that you believe the injury hamper him. Have to warn you now... you are now entering into hypothetical territory here - the same realm that the pro-Lemieux camp is often accused of entering into, lol

 

[WalterLundy]

Truly wish I could have seen him play live that year but unfortunately I didn't start watching hockey until shortly thereafter.

I understand and respect the merits of the eye test, but sometimes I think we can be 'fooled' by it as well. Players may look stronger or appear faster, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were actually more effectual at producing results. On top of that we are discussing seasons that happened 30 and 40 years ago, time as we know is not kind to us and our memories. Not that I'm suggesting you have a bad memory, but personally I have a hard time looking back and differentiating between how Crosby played in 2018-19 verses how he played in say, 2014-15 and those are far more recent seasons. Though to be fair Lemieux top seasons stand out a lot more from his 'down' seasons. Still I'm sure you understand what im getting at. Its a shame video recording technologies were so poor at the time... would have been something else to be able to see them play in HD.

Anywyas, I had long since always thought of Lemieux's 92-93 season as being his best because of his slightly higher scoring rate, higher ES scoring and the lower overall scoring level of the season. It's only more recently that I considered arguments to the alternative.

Firstly his ES scoring was lower because a greater % of his ice time was played during special teams. His ES per 60 rate may have even been the highest of all time in 88-89, but ofc we'll never know. I also just more recently found out that he really missed around 2 additional games worth of ice time. Meaning his 87-112-199 stat line was actually done in 74 games not 76. Here's the details of what transpired with links to the press releases:

Some people might say oh that's just hypothetical stuff. No its not, it's actually what happened. That's just being more accurate than the NHL considering a player who stepped out on the ice for say, 10 seconds as being a 'game played'. As far as I know Gretzky didn't miss out on any available ice time due to injury until 87-88 when he lost almost an entire games worth of ice time ironically in a game against Lemieux, who also lost 2 periods of ice time that same game, lol WTH? As for Gretzky's injury in 83-84, it appears he didn't leave his last game before the injury early, least theres no reports of such. Some people might now bring up how he was playing hurt and that may very well have been the case, but that's an entirely different argument. Furthermore Lemieux has just as good of a case of suggesting injuries/illness(cancer treatments) effected his performance in both 88-89 and 92-93, but that is NOT the basis for my arguement.

74 vs 76 games is only an improvement of 3% but even that small change matters because I have always seen the difference between Lemieux and Gretzky(at their peaks) as being a matter of a few percentage points. Those numbers are just slightly better than Gretzky's ppg in 81-82. Also Gretzky's numbers after 74 games that years? 74 87-110-197. But ofc he also has 83-84 where he improved upon that with a statline of 74 87-118-205.

The last fact to consider is the claim that the 92-93 season is an outliner when it comes to superstar scoring, with some even suggesting that it was the easiest season ever for star players to accumulate points, largely on the basis of the record number of players hitting 50 goals(14) and 100 points(21!) that season. I still disagree with that for a couple reasons. One, if you simply eliminate the 4 extra games that all teams had that year which is entirely fair, that alone drops the number of 50 and 100 point scorers to 12 and 15 each respectively. Both still two of the highest totals ever but no longer a shocking outliner.

Another factor that should be considered is that by 1992 the NHL essentially had all of the best available talent in the world playing in it, that wasn't the case in the 80's which was missing the contributions of the second largest hockey talent pool at that time - the Soviet Union. Additionally while I think the (non-Russian)European talent was more or less even, the American talent pool wasn't as developed in the 80's compared to '93. Eliminating the Russian talent alone - only 2 players but two very notable ones and now your down to 10 50 goal scorers and 13 100 point players, with just two 60 goal scorers not 5:


Thirdly there's adjusted scoring, but I recognize that it does have it's flaws. According to Hockey Reference Lemieux's 95-96 season has the highest adjusted per game pace of all time. While I think it's a top 10 all time season, I agree that it's not even his best. Making adjustments for ES, PP & SH scoring levels separately appropriately drops that season down a bit, it's now number 3 behind Lemieux's '93 and Gretzky's '84. But that placement doesn't quite feel right either, Mario's '89 and Gretzky's '82 which I more or less view as equals, should be ahead of it as well. So that tells me there is something more going on here.

There's two distinct possibilities the first being that the methodology isn't actually flawed and it really does adjust as high as number three(per game) BUT Lemieux got a added bonus by resting intermittently. Still is this really the case? There was a notable immediate positive affect as he put up 37pts in the 12 games a 3.08ppg, after skipping a game which is 9 more than expected. But then again that number drops to 51 in 23 when including the second game back which is equal to his seasonal rate. Seems strange that the 'rest benefit' would fade away so quickly. There's season long fatigue to consider as well but yet here again there's contrasting information because his totals declined as the season went on, though imo part of that has to do with the loss of one of the teams core PP players Thomas Sandstrom. The powerplay scoring took a dramatic hit without Sandstrom due to the lack of a suitible replacement for his postion on the powerplay. Then there was also an apparent flare up of back problems arou d the time his pace slowed, though that appeared to thankfully only be a brief issue for him that year. To be sure I also agree his early 200-point season pace was not going to be sustainable either. All factors taken together the net benefit of resting extra games doesn't seem to be all that large. Which leads me to acknowledged that the alternative factor is the more likely one - that further adjustments need to be made beyond just powerplay scoring levels in regards to the % of points that superstar players account for. While I strongly believe that powerplay scoring levels are the biggest factor effecting the distribution of points throughout a line up, ice time distribution at even strength is definitely another factor to consider which varies due to the overall depth of quality players league wide. Unfortunately there's no conclusive way to make adjustments for that, though the argument is that expansion reduces the overall quality of players in the league.

I would agree that 92-93 was one of the most optimal seasons for star players to score points, just not the idea that it was somehow the most optimal season of all time. I recognize that expansion effects and extended TV timeouts would have benifited star players and allowed them to play more ice time than expected. And yet, even with all that 'extra ice time' star players received, overall scoring was still off by close to 10% from the top years of 80's. That doesn't add up to me. I know, more bad players proliferating the bottom lines, but then again the NHL of the early 80's was awash with lesser players from the expasion WHA teams many of whom scored big totals, only to soon find themselves out of the league not that many years later. Just how good were those star players really.

However there are factors specific to Lemieux which mitigated the net benefit of these effects relative to the league as a whole. For one he only played in 5 games against the expansion teams, the smallest number of games and benefit any of the top scorers had:

Secondly there's the Bowman playing to the lead factor, which I already discussed previiusly in regards to the late game 3rd period points. The Penguins where absolutely destroying teams that season but once games were essentially 'won' they let off the pedal and went into a defensive shell. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that Bowmen has always been noted as being more of a defensively orientated coach

View attachment 768514
Outscoring the opposition 267 to 166 in the first two periods and then being outscored 97 to 102 in the third? Of the top 15 teams only the 11th ranked Kings were also outscored in the third. I acknowledge that its possible that's just how things played out, but on the balance of probabilities thats incredibly unliekly. To show just how much of an anomaly this was, no other team in NHL history that had as many points as the Pens did(119) has ever been outscored in the 3rd period - none of them have even come close to it.

The Oilers meanwhile played run and gun all game long for almost the entirety of their dynasty:
View attachment 768530

It's not until 86-87 when we see a bit of a 'letting off of the gas pedal' effect. Imo that's no coincidence, by then they had won 2 cups and were a more mature champion roster. I think the team realized there was no point in running up the score at least not to the same degree and that it was better to conserve themselves for the playoffs, especially after the devastating loss they had the season prior. In the end Gretzky's numbers took a bit of a hit but it ended up paying dividends for them, not that this was the only reason for their success or that samll drop in Gretzky's numbers, but I think one can safely come to the conclusion that's a part of it.

Those Pens of 92-93 were in the exact same boat; a mature two time defending champion team any they actually dominated teams through 2 periods of games by an even greater margin than the very best Oiler teams of the 80 did:

​ Oilers​	GF​	GA​	​	ratio​
81-82​	258​	197​	+61​	1.31​
82-83​	273​	216​	+57​	1.26​
83-84​	303​	228​	+75​	1.33​
84-85​	262​	200​	+62​	1.31​
85-86​	282​	188​	+94​	1.50​
86-87​	252​	178​	+74​	1.42​
87-88​	248​	200​	+48​	1.24​
Pens​	​	​	​	​
92-93​	267​	166​	+101​	1.61​

Furthermore it's not like the Pens didn't normally score in the 3rd. In 17 years, the entire Lemieux era only 3 times did they score less goals in the 3rd than in any other period.

There's 90-91, a season where Mario played 26 games. 03-04 a season in which he only played 10 games and 1992-93. I outlined 97-98, but that was a mistake - Lemieux didn't play that season.
View attachment 768532

All of that taken together is why I rank him as being ever so slightly better in 92-93 verse 88-89.


Absolutely, that is pretty crazy and exactly why I recognize him as being #1 all time. I can only think of 3 other players who were able to match that length of operating at absolute peak play year in year out for about as long: Orr, Lafleur and Bossy. But of course Gretzky was as far ahead of Bossy as Bossy was ahead of the average top player on all the other 19 teams(212pts vs 147pts vs 96pts in 81-82) and I have Lafleur only slightly ahead of the boss man.

Gretzky vs Orr is more of an Apples to Oranges comparison but aside from that I cannot possibly rank Orr ahead of Gretzky all time since Gretzky still put up massive numbers after his peak and unfortunately Orr's career was all but over after his. Additionally Gretzky has a notable edge before their peaks - Imo Orr's rookie and sophomore years combined are basically equal to Gretzky's rookie WHA season and Orr's 68-69 year is about as impressive as 99's first NHL season. But then Gretz has that first record setting intermediary season, which would be like a 95-100 point year from Orr which isn't there. It sure would've been interesting to see how Orr would've aged... as much as I am a Lemieux fan, I recognize that as being an equivalent level of loss.


But he was pacing for 221 in 80. To get to 230 he would've needed to score 25 points in 6 games. Not impossible for him to be sure, but highly improbable - he notched 25 points in 6 games 2 times out of 68 six game stretches. Unless you are indicating that you believe the injury hamper him. Have to warn you now... you are now entering into hypothetical territory here - the same realm that the pro-Lemieux camp is often accused of entering into, lol

Awesome post and I don’t want to keep you waiting. The more you write the more I find that I agree with the majority of what you say. I’ll cover all the points of interest here I have.

I absolutely know what you are getting at
and I understand the difference between eye test and pure production. For me the difference between 89 and 93 is so marginal that I have to go with what looked more impressive. Gretzky had his best year (per game) at 23 and Lemieux was 23 this year having his best per game and had his highest ppg through 70% of season GP that I’ve posted before. Can’t blame you for picking ‘93 but I already know you understand why I pick ‘89. You really can’t go wrong. Picking a Gretzky season is similar.
I was aware of the virtual 2 missing games and I also believe that Gretzky ‘82 and Lemieux ‘89 are virtually identical years only Gretzky was slightly younger.

I also saw your post about how McDavid’s year compares to other all time seasons by doing even strength/powerplay/shorthanded adjustments and much prefer that. That’s pretty much as good as you are going to get. Adjustments are just so tricky and cannot be perfected but I am glad we both acknowledge that ‘96 Mario just isn’t his best (not that it wasn’t sickening in general).

As for the Bobby Orr stuff I also agree. I can’t really add any more to your assessment. His peak is also arguably the best (alongside Gretzky and Lemieux as the only other candidates). His best stretch of 82 games was March 15 of 1970 to March 21 1971. He had 156 points and was a +128. We’d both be foolish to think that peak Orr is not in this conversation. Mario’s best 82 games in a row was 218 in 82 with 94 goals and a +47 from March 20 1988 to March 30 1989. Wayne’s was from February 4 1983 to February 22 1984 which was 235 in 82 with 100 goals and a +108. The only time you can debate against Gretzky at all is peak play (particularly peak season). I obviously am convinced it is Gretzky as is most of the hockey world but to say it isn’t close is crazy and I’d never say that. That’s what makes these conversations so fun. I know one of these candidates personally so that makes it even cooler for me! Pretty special actually.

And yeah I was thinking of the 230s in 80 GP from the 51 game played mark if the injury never happened. And believe me I’m fine with people thinking that Mario could have done more than he was pacing for if no injuries or obstacles. Even though I am in the pro Gretzky camp I am pro Lemieux as well lol. That’s part of why I took the best stretches of play and where their ppg peaked after playing what would be considered a “full season”. That way we don’t have to pace it out or do what ifs. We can just look at the highest level they reached and compare.

 

[TheStatican]

Awesome post and I don’t want to keep you waiting. The more you write the more I find that I agree with the majority of what you say. I’ll cover all the points of interest here I have.

I absolutely know what you are getting at
and I understand the difference between eye test and pure production. For me the difference between 89 and 93 is so marginal that I have to go with what looked more impressive. Gretzky had his best year (per game) at 23 and Lemieux was 23 this year having his best per game and had his highest ppg through 70% of season GP that I’ve posted before. Can’t blame you for picking ‘93 but I already know you understand why I pick ‘89. You really can’t go wrong. Picking a Gretzky season is similar.
I was aware of the virtual 2 missing games and I also believe that Gretzky ‘82 and Lemieux ‘89 are virtually identical years only Gretzky was slightly younger.

I also saw your post about how McDavid’s year compares to other all time seasons by doing even strength/powerplay/shorthanded adjustments and much prefer that. That’s pretty much as good as you are going to get. Adjustments are just so tricky and cannot be perfected but I am glad we both acknowledge that ‘96 Mario just isn’t his best (not that it wasn’t sickening in general).

As for the Bobby Orr stuff I also agree. I can’t really add any more to your assessment. His peak is also arguably the best (alongside Gretzky and Lemieux as the only other candidates). His best stretch of 82 games was March 15 of 1970 to March 21 1971. He had 156 points and was a +128. We’d both be foolish to think that peak Orr is not in this conversation. Mario’s best 82 games in a row was 218 in 82 with 94 goals and a +47 from March 20 1988 to March 30 1989. Wayne’s was from February 4 1983 to February 22 1984 which was 235 in 82 with 100 goals and a +108. The only time you can debate against Gretzky at all is peak play (particularly peak season). I obviously am convinced it is Gretzky as is most of the hockey world but to say it isn’t close is crazy and I’d never say that. That’s what makes these conversations so fun. I know one of these candidates personally so that makes it even cooler for me! Pretty special actually.

Thank you, I appreciate that you understand my position and I respect yours as well. I fully recognize that there is far less added context that needs to be given to come to the conclusion that Gretzky had the highest peak.

It's nice to be able to have a constructive and informative dialog on the matter. Wish I had more of these kinds of in-depth conversation with those who have opposing views last year, but I do recognize that my posting style and more forceful approach(previously) was part of the problem. Ofc it does help a lot that were in agreement with many things already and are both Pens fans

And yeah I was thinking of the 230s in 80 GP from the 51 game played mark if the injury never happened. And believe me I’m fine with people thinking that Mario could have done more than he was pacing for if no injuries or obstacles.

Ok fair enough, that I can get behind and wouldn't even disagree with. I'm not entirely confident that Lemieux could have bested that in perfect health(in 80). Possibly in 92-93's longer season but then that would give it a bit of an asterisk and I'm sure there would still probably be forever discussions about who was best, at their best! -Which aren't so bad when they're like this

 

[WalterLundy]

Thank you, I appreciate that you understand my position and I respect yours as well. I fully recognize that there is far less added context that needs to be given to come to the conclusion that Gretzky had the highest peak.

It's nice to be able to have a constructive and informative dialog on the matter. Wish I had more of these kinds of in-depth conversation with those who have opposing views last year, but I do recognize that my posting style and more forceful approach(previously) was part of the problem. Ofc it does help a lot that were in agreement with many things already and are both Pens fans


Ok fair enough, that I can get behind and wouldn't even disagree with. I'm not entirely confident that Lemieux could have bested that in perfect health(in 80). Possibly in 92-93's longer season but then that would give it a bit of an asterisk and I'm sure there would still probably be forever discussions about who was best, at their best! -Which aren't so bad when they're like this

Absolutely. I think these types of conversations are great. You’ve taught me a lot that I’m appreciative of. Even if people don’t agree with 100% of your posts I don’t know how it can cause others to be upset and devolve into tribalism in essence. I’ve said it more than once but your posts are the most comprehensive and (obviously subjective here) best I’ve seen on the site. These are the types of conversations that I joined for.

I’m sure people have been perhaps thrown off by a pens fan who has been pro Gretzky and (to a lesser extent) McDavid but that’s just me being a hockey fan wanting to like the greats. I know how passionate our fanbase is and my only thing has been for our fans just to appreciate what I consider to be the most modern success and generational talent without tearing others down/appreciating all. I haven’t accused you or honestly any other user (and never would you clearly aren’t) on here but I’m a product of my environment and city. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere and if I were in Edmonton (or Washington or Philly for example) I’d become a rabid pens defender haha. Just felt the need to explain this for you and really everyone. I thought it would be good if I cleared that up.

 

[TheStatican]

Absolutely. I think these types of conversations are great. You’ve taught me a lot that I’m appreciative of. Even if people don’t agree with 100% of your posts I don’t know how it can cause others to be upset and devolve into tribalism in essence. I’ve said it more than once but your posts are the most comprehensive and (obviously subjective here) best I’ve seen on the site. These are the types of conversations that I joined for.

I’m sure people have been perhaps thrown off by a pens fan who has been pro Gretzky and (to a lesser extent) McDavid but that’s just me being a hockey fan wanting to like the greats. I know how passionate our fanbase is and my only thing has been for our fans just to appreciate what I consider to be the most modern success and generational talent without tearing others down/appreciating all. I haven’t accused you or honestly any other user (and never would you clearly aren’t) on here but I’m a product of my environment and city. I’m sure it’s the same everywhere and if I were in Edmonton (or Washington or Philly for example) I’d become a rabid pens defender haha. Just felt the need to explain this for you and really everyone. I thought it would be good if I cleared that up.

I'll admit it was a little bit strange to see that at first since most of the user base on here is very tribalistic. But honestly, good on you. That's probably the best kind of fan one could be, your able to appreciate all of the talent in the league. While I can't exactly say I'm a big fan of McDavid - when it comes to non-Penguins I'm more partial to Matthews and McKinnon, I recognize his place as the game's undisputed best player and also the extraordinary level of play he achieved last season. It's a shame that he hasn't been his usual self this year. Some might doubt my sincerity in regards to that, but I was very curious to see if he could sustain the same level of play over two consecutive seasons. Seems like the answer to that is inconclusive, as it's entirely obvious he is simply not healthy at the moment. This whole situation is far too reminiscent of Lemieux in 89-90. Having just come off the biggest year of his career with so much optimism coming into a new season, only to have to suffer through a miserable team start and an injury plagued year that ultimately ends in disappointment. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and he's able to play through it. If so I have no doubt he'll have a very strong chance at winning the Ross. But if he truly is hurting and it's some kind of chronic condition akin to Lemieux's back issues, he needs to rest, even if that means throwing in the towel for this season. The future is far more important, rest him properly and then retool for next year.

On that note, where would you actually rank McDavid's 22-23 season all time? I know you rate it quite highly, as do I. I have it as a top 10 season all time for forwards, ahead of everyone but Gretzky and Lemieux. And what would your top 10 look like as well - by level of play achieved, not overall value.

1) '93 Lemieux
2) '84 Gretzky
3-5 tied) '89 Lemieux / '82 Gretzky / '85 Gretzky
6) '86 Gretzky
7) '96 Lemieux
8) '23 McDavid
9-10 tied) '83 Gretzky '87 Gretzky

This is for forwards only, it really just complicates things too much adding Orr, y'kno? But a few seasons of his would be in there too.

 

[bobholly39]

I'll admit it was a little bit strange to see that at first since most of the user base on here is very tribalistic. But honestly, good on you. That's probably the best kind of fan one could be, your able to appreciate all of the talent in the league. While I can't exactly say I'm a big fan of McDavid - when it comes to non-Penguins I'm more partial to Matthews and McKinnon, I recognize his place as the game's undisputed best player and also the extraordinary level of play he achieved last season. It's a shame that he hasn't been his usual self this year. Some might doubt my sincerity in regards to that, but I was very curious to see if he could sustain the same level of play over two consecutive seasons. Seems like the answer to that is inconclusive, as it's entirely obvious he is simply not healthy at the moment. This whole situation is far too reminiscent of Lemieux in 89-90. Having just come off the biggest year of his career with so much optimism coming into a new season, only to have to suffer through a miserable team start and an injury plagued year that ultimately ends in disappointment. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and he's able to play through it. If so I have no doubt he'll have a very strong chance at winning the Ross. But if he truly is hurting and it's some kind of chronic condition akin to Lemieux's back issues, he needs to rest, even if that means throwing in the towel for this season. The future is far more important, rest him properly and then retool for next year.

On that note, where would you actually rank McDavid's 22-23 season all time? I know you rate it quite highly, as do I. I have it as a top 10 season all time for forwards, ahead of everyone but Gretzky and Lemieux. And what would your top 10 look like as well - by level of play achieved, not overall value.

1) '93 Lemieux
2) '84 Gretzky
3-5 tied) '89 Lemieux / '82 Gretzky / '85 Gretzky
6) '86 Gretzky
7) '96 Lemieux
8) '23 McDavid
9-10 tied) '83 Gretzky '87 Gretzky

This is for forwards only, it really just complicates things too much adding Orr, y'kno? But a few seasons of his would be in there too.

I think 93 Lemieux might be the greatest season ever - but a lot of that is due to narrative. Lemieux came back from cancer to win the scoring championship. Looking at pure results - the problem is if he had missed 0 time he may not have hit as high numbers, as he was on a mission after his return and his pace went up...which also means it's not a full season. So - greatest season based on narrative has a case, but I probably don't have it #1 as best season - Gretzky wins out.

But mostly....there's absolutely no way McDavid is ahead of Gretzky 83, nor even 87.

I also think Howe in 53 is up there....i'd have it at approx same level as McDavid in 23.

So i'd probably go something like:

Gretzky 84
Gretzky 82/85/86 Lemieux 89/93
Gretzky 83
Lemieux 96/Gretzky 87
Howe 53/McDavid 23/McDavid 21

I think you're way too hard on Gretzky 83 and 86. 86 is fantastic - he called out in the off-season he'd get 2 assists per game, and gets it. I love that. And 83 was maybe ever so slightly less scoring than others, but no way it's all the way at #9.

 

[WalterLundy]

I'll admit it was a little bit strange to see that at first since most of the user base on here is very tribalistic. But honestly, good on you. That's probably the best kind of fan one could be, your able to appreciate all of the talent in the league. While I can't exactly say I'm a big fan of McDavid - when it comes to non-Penguins I'm more partial to Matthews and McKinnon, I recognize his place as the game's undisputed best player and also the extraordinary level of play he achieved last season. It's a shame that he hasn't been his usual self this year. Some might doubt my sincerity in regards to that, but I was very curious to see if he could sustain the same level of play over two consecutive seasons. Seems like the answer to that is inconclusive, as it's entirely obvious he is simply not healthy at the moment. This whole situation is far too reminiscent of Lemieux in 89-90. Having just come off the biggest year of his career with so much optimism coming into a new season, only to have to suffer through a miserable team start and an injury plagued year that ultimately ends in disappointment. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and he's able to play through it. If so I have no doubt he'll have a very strong chance at winning the Ross. But if he truly is hurting and it's some kind of chronic condition akin to Lemieux's back issues, he needs to rest, even if that means throwing in the towel for this season. The future is far more important, rest him properly and then retool for next year.

On that note, where would you actually rank McDavid's 22-23 season all time? I know you rate it quite highly, as do I. I have it as a top 10 season all time for forwards, ahead of everyone but Gretzky and Lemieux. And what would your top 10 look like as well - by level of play achieved, not overall value.

1) '93 Lemieux
2) '84 Gretzky
3-5 tied) '89 Lemieux / '82 Gretzky / '85 Gretzky
6) '86 Gretzky
7) '96 Lemieux
8) '23 McDavid
9-10 tied) '83 Gretzky '87 Gretzky

This is for forwards only, it really just complicates things too much adding Orr, y'kno? But a few seasons of his would be in there too.

Thanks for that. I just enjoy seeing great players no matter what team they play for. Having Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby and Malkin in my town for the majority of my life is amazing and I realize how blessed I am to have seen all of it. That’s just forward talent too lol. I agree with how the Oilers should handle McDavid. They need to be very careful and I agree with your assessment on that. I wanted to see if McDavid could rattle off a few 130-140+ seasons after his monster year last year but it’s just unheard of outside of Gretzky. Things happen and derail a player’s trajectory. That’s what made WG’s 82-86 so ridiculous his consistency is something
truly special.

As for ranking the top 10 forward seasons (I’ll exclude anything pre 1980 here even though I understand the Howe warrant if that is expanded to all time) here is how I’d rank it for regular seasons only: (2-5 are
more or less tied/same level for me)

1)’84 Gretzky
2-5) ‘82/‘85/‘86 Gretzky and ‘89 Lemieux
6)’93 Lemieux
7)’87 Gretzky
8)’83 Gretzky
9)’96 Lemieux
10)’23 McDavid

If playoffs are factored in then ‘85 Gretzky has a legit argument as best and the Gretzky seasons get more separation but that’s not how we are ranking. ‘93 Mario for me is also at that 2-5 season level for the level a player achieved. I go back and forth on McDavid ‘23 and Lemieux ‘96. From a pure statistical standpoint you have to go Mario but the reason I sometimes can think McDavid ‘23 was better is just eye test. To me he looked just that dominant that I’d have to go back to ‘93 to see a player eclipse that. Maybe it’s because it was done nearly 30 years later and hitting numbers that were thought as modern Gretzky or Lemieux territory by many on here from threads within the last few years. He definitely wasn’t ‘89 or ‘93 Mario and certainly not ‘82-‘86 Gretzky level. Definitely the closest however. ‘83 and ‘87 Gretzky get the nod over ‘96 Mario due to peer dominance over the top 10 but I wouldn’t vehemently disagree if people had that year over those two. I think ‘99 Jagr was another special season as could have been Crosby ‘11. Neither of those are on ‘23 McDavid level though. Those two seasons are in the ‘88 Lemieux and ‘89/‘91 Gretzky tier in my opinion.

I do think McDavid’s peak is 3rd behind Gretzky and then Mario for post 1980 guys. It was just exciting to see what he did in ‘21 and ‘23 as a hockey fan who appreciates someone being able to separate themselves.

 

[TheStatican]

I did some more digging on Lemieux's 92-93 season, specifically focusing on the 6 games he was held scoreless in and it turns out he missed even more game time than I thought.

There's his first game back from the cancer treatments in which he saw some reduction of minutes specifically in the first:
"Coach Scotty Bowman only used him for four even-strength shifts in the first period (the first one lasted 12 seconds)."

That ofc is not a huge deal, but the next one is - In his second game back against the Rangers he had less than 6 minutes of ice time, total:

NHL ROUNDUP : Lemieux Struggles in 3-1 Loss

Friday night in New York, Mario Lemieux struggled.

www.latimes.com

The article is annoyingly blocked behind a paywall but if one is quick it's possible to get around that by quickly taking a screenshot

That adds a lot more context as to how he only scored 2 points in 3 games, his worst stretch of the season. It wasn't a slump in the traditional sense, I figured it was due to fatigue from cancer treatments but he also only had about half his usual ice time there.

There was also an earlier game against Detroit where he missed the third period:


And ofc game 1 against the Islanders when he left just 2 1/2 minutes into the game:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1993/05/03/islanders-surprise-penguins/b25cb5f3-4f6b-460d-b51b-0bbab96cb051/

And for all we know their could be several more. It's very unlikely there's anything more than a lost period beyond those, but good chances there's more in the range of 5 minutes. It also becomes even more apparent that while it wasn't as huge of an issue compared to some of his other seasons, the back issues were still there

All of that taken together means he actually scored 69-91-160 in 58 games of game time, at most
-misses 1 period against the Wings on Nov 13th (-20mins)
-leaves early against the Rangers on Jan 2nd (-5 mins)
-missed out on 2 periods of play vs the Bruins on Jan 2nd (-40 mins)
-in his first game back against the Flyers on Apr 2nd his ice time is limited in the first
-and lastly he only plays 6 minutes against the Rangers on Apr 5th

And essentially 18 in 10 for the playoffs
-game 1 vs Islanders (-57.5 mins)


Two games might not seem like much but it raises his per game rates by 3.5% and with him missing about 2 games worth in 88-89 as well, that moves his big two seasons up from 3rd & 5th to 2nd and 3rd per game if were being honest here:

Top 10​	​	Gm​	PPG​	Pts​
Gretzky​	1983-84​	74​	2.77​	205​
Lemieux​	1992-93​	58​	2.76​	160​
Lemieux​	1988-89​	74​	2.689​	199​
Gretzky​	1985-86​	80​	2.688​	215​
Gretzky​	1981-82​	80​	2.65​	212​
Gretzky​	1984-85​	80​	2.60​	208​
Gretzky​	1982-83​	80​	2.45​	196​
Gretzky​	1987-88​	64​	2.33​	149​
Gretzky​	1986-87​	79​	2.32​	183​
Lemieux​	1995-96​	70​	2.30​	161​

Naturally there is the response that we should considered the other seasons in the same light - up to game 58. No problem, here are all the seasons that averaged at least 2PPG up to that point:

​	Year​	G​	A​	Pts​	PPG​
Gretzky​	83-84​	73​	98​	171​	2.95​
Lemieux*​	88-89​	64​	98​	162​	2.79 (2.70)​
Lemieux*​	92-93​	69​	91​	160​	2.76 (2.67)​
Gretzky​	84-85​	56​	103​	159​	2.74​
Gretzky​	85-86​	38​	118​	156​	2.69​
Gretzky​	81-82​	69​	83​	152​	2.62​
Gretzky​	86-87​	52​	90​	142​	2.45​
Gretzky​	82-83​	48​	94​	142​	2.45​
Lemieux​	95-96​	56​	79​	135​	2.33​
Gretzky*​	87-88​	37​	97​	134​	2.31 (2.27)​
Gretzky​	88-89​	44​	87​	131​	2.26​
Lemieux*​	87-88​	54​	70​	124​	2.14 (2.07)​
Lemieux*​	89-90​	45​	78​	123​	2.11 (2.08)​
Nicholls​	88-89​	56​	64​	120​	2.07​
Yzerman​	88-89​	52​	66​	118​	2.03​

*indicate seasons with lost gm time, in the interest of transparency I also posted the PPG rates with and without the lost gm time

By the raw unadulterated totals Gretzky's 83-84 lead drops from 15 to 11. If you eliminate the late game blowout points the two seasons are exactly even 151 vs 151 Without doing that but instead taking into account scoring levels, including making adjustments for differing rates at ES and on the PP, Lemieux's '93 ranks first.

 

[TheStatican]

As for ranking the top 10 forward seasons (I’ll exclude anything pre 1980 here even though I understand the Howe warrant if that is expanded to all time) here is how I’d rank it for regular seasons only: (2-5 are
more or less tied/same level for me)

1)’84 Gretzky
2-5) ‘82/‘85/‘86 Gretzky and ‘89 Lemieux
6)’93 Lemieux
7)’87 Gretzky
8)’83 Gretzky
9)’96 Lemieux
10)’23 McDavid

I can understand the reasons for your positioning of Gretzky's '84 on top but I'm still taken aback by your rating of Lemieux's '93 as being only 6th best season, especially if your not considering playoffs. Without making any adjustments '85/'86 Gretzky and '93 Lemieux are all very close. If your we looking at it with the first 60 perspective, which I agree is fair, then '85 Gretzky had a small edge(167) while '86 Gretzky(162) and '93 Lemieux(160) are basically even. But A) that's only in points, Lemieux has the edge in goals 69 vs 60 & 41 and as we see from the information I posted above using 60 games wasn't a fair comparison anyways, we really should be looking at Gretzky's numbers by the 58th game, which were 159 & 156 - imo there's no way that's not at least on the same tier, especially with his advantage in goals. I know your basing a lot of this on the eye test, but this is where I'm going to have to press you a little - Exactly how many games of Gretzky's did you watch in those seasons? I assume it was just when the Oilers played the Pens since as far as I know NHL games weren't broadcast nationally at that time, outside of the finals and maybe some other playoff games. Surely you must admit that is a very limited sample size overall.

If playoffs are factored in then ‘85 Gretzky has a legit argument as best and the Gretzky seasons get more separation but that’s not how we are ranking. ‘93 Mario for me is also at that 2-5 season level for the level a player achieved. I go back and forth on McDavid ‘23 and Lemieux ‘96. From a pure statistical standpoint you have to go Mario but the reason I sometimes can think McDavid ‘23 was better is just eye test. To me he looked just that dominant that I’d have to go back to ‘93 to see a player eclipse that. Maybe it’s because it was done nearly 30 years later and hitting numbers that were thought as modern Gretzky or Lemieux territory by many on here from threads within the last few years. He definitely wasn’t ‘89 or ‘93 Mario and certainly not ‘82-‘86 Gretzky level. Definitely the closest however. ‘83 and ‘87 Gretzky get the nod over ‘96 Mario due to peer dominance over the top 10 but I wouldn’t vehemently disagree if people had that year over those two. I think ‘99 Jagr was another special season as could have been Crosby ‘11. Neither of those are on ‘23 McDavid level though. Those two seasons are in the ‘88 Lemieux and ‘89/‘91 Gretzky tier in my opinion.

I do think McDavid’s peak is 3rd behind Gretzky and then Mario for post 1980 guys. It was just exciting to see what he did in ‘21 and ‘23 as a hockey fan who appreciates someone being able to separate themselves.

Including playoffs I agree with placing Gretzky's '85 season ahead of his '84 season. His per game RS+PO scoring rate is actually slightly higher, though '84 has a big edge in goals... However, more importantly Gretz scored against the weak and strong teams equally as well in '85, he beat up on the weaker one a lot more in '82 & '84. That was also the one year he didn't rack up many late game blowout points.

Agreed with the rest you said as well including having McDavid ‘23 and Lemieux ‘96 being very close, especially considering the way they went about getting their points. Those are without a doubt in my mind the two greatest single season powerplay performances of all time. I still have Lemieux's season ahead but it's not a huge point of contention for me if others rank it otherwise.

I think 93 Lemieux might be the greatest season ever - but a lot of that is due to narrative. Lemieux came back from cancer to win the scoring championship.

Honestly, from a narrative perspective it really is the most legendry season of all time. Guy finds out he has cancer in the middle of a year, misses 30% of it and still easily walks off the scoring race? Just Insane.

Looking at pure results - the problem is if he had missed 0 time he may not have hit as high numbers, as he was on a mission after his return and his pace went up...which also means it's not a full season. So - greatest season based on narrative has a case, but I probably don't have it #1 as best season - Gretzky wins out.

I agree but only partially - Lemieux was a man on a mission when he came back. The first two games back was him doing 'stretches' - I mean he played 6 mins in that Rags game. But after that he averages 3 points a game. That was him playing to 100% The first half of the season, was him playing at 90-something percent and he still puts up 104 points in 39 games(2.67ppg) - that's 214 in 80, he was already pacing to put up near record-setting totals even without the end-of-season surge. You don't think that if he was healthy and had say 175-180 in 70(2.5-2.6 ppg), that he wouldn't try to step it up and take it to 11 for the final stretch with the record in sight? He had a big surge at the end of 88-89 as well

But mostly....there's absolutely no way McDavid is ahead of Gretzky 83, nor even 87.

Perhaps I shouldn't have ranked it above, but I disagree with not placing them in the same tier. When you adjust those Gretzky years for 22-23's scoring levels, including accounting for differing powerplay and even strength rates, heres what you get:

	Season	Gm	G	A	PT	GPG	PPG
Gretzky	1982-83	80	58	101	159	0.72	1.98
Gretzky	1986-87	79	53	103	156	0.67	1.97
McDavid	2022-23	82	64	89	153	0.78	1.87

Gretzky with a edge in pts, McDavid goals. I know Gretzky dominated his peers a lot more but that was a much weaker league, zero players from the second strongest hockey nation were playing in the NHL at the time and the US talent pool was a shadow of what it would become even just a few years later. The Canadian talent pool may have dropped since then but doesn't make up for either of those factors. I think a metric like VsX can be very useful when comparing near seasons, but is about as useful and misleading as plus/minus is when looking at seasons decades apart.

If we include playoffs, I would move '83 Gretzky up a bit, but that reaffirms my choice to knock '87 Gretzky down. Yup he won the cup, but that was by far the weakest of his long playoff runs. Nearly half of his points came from beating up on a weak Kings team. I would rank many playoff runs from players other than Lemieux or himself ahead of that one, heck even that year Messier or Anderson wins the Smythe over him. It's not materially any better than McDavid's 22-23 run, just a longer sample size.

I also think Howe in 53 is up there....i'd have it at approx same level as McDavid in 23.

That one was a bit of an oversight on my part. I have it a little below Lemieux's 96, so ranking more or less in line with McDavid's '23 works for me.

I think you're way too hard on Gretzky 83 and 86. 86 is fantastic - he called out in the off-season he'd get 2 assists per game, and gets it. I love that. And 83 was maybe ever so slightly less scoring than others, but no way it's all the way at #9.

That claim has never been proven. Gretzky says that in his autobiography, which was only released many years after the fact. There's no documented evidence of him actually specifically saying that prior to the '86 season. What he said was that he would focus more on playmaking.

As to my ranking of it below his other 200 point years, take these two seasons for example:
A) 29-83-112
B) 51-58-109

What's the more impressive season there?

Yes "A" season there won the Hart in that example, but narratives beyond those totals had everything to do with that. With no narratives involved no one(almost) would take season A over season B and recent polls have shown just that. Gretzky's 85-86 season verse the other great years is exactly like that comparison - but on steroids lol. 163 assists is absurd and that probably actually added more to his legacy than just another 85-70 goal 120-135 assist season would have. But it's not actually materially better than it.

 

[WalterLundy]

I can understand the reasons for your positioning of Gretzky's '84 on top but I'm still taken aback by your rating of Lemieux's '93 as being only 6th best season, especially if your not considering playoffs. Without making any adjustments '85/'86 Gretzky and '93 Lemieux are all very close. If your we looking at it with the first 60 perspective, which I agree is fair, then '85 Gretzky had a small edge(167) while '86 Gretzky(162) and '93 Lemieux(160) are basically even. But A) that's only in points, Lemieux has the edge in goals 69 vs 60 & 41 and as we see from the information I posted above using 60 games wasn't a fair comparison anyways, we really should be looking at Gretzky's numbers by the 58th game, which were 159 & 156 - imo there's no way that's not at least on the same tier, especially with his advantage in goals. I know your basing a lot of this on the eye test, but this is where I'm going to have to press you a little - Exactly how many games of Gretzky's did you watch in those seasons? I assume it was just when the Oilers played the Pens since as far as I know NHL games weren't broadcast nationally at that time, outside of the finals and maybe some other playoff games. Surely you must admit that is a very limited sample size overall.


Including playoffs I agree with placing Gretzky's '85 season ahead of his '84 season. His per game RS+PO scoring rate is actually higher, though notably less goals... But more importantly, Gretz beat up on the weaker teams in '82 & '84 - he didn't in '85. He scored just as well against the strong teams as the weak ones that year and that was also the one year he didn't rack up a lot of those late 3rd period blowout points.

Agreed with the rest you said as well including having McDavid ‘23 and Lemieux ‘96 being very close, especially considering the way they went about getting their points. Those are without a doubt in my mind the two greatest single season powerplay performances of all time. I still have Lemieux's season ahead but it's not a huge point of contention for me if others rank it otherwise.


Honestly, from a narrative perspective it really is the most legendry season of all time. Guy finds out he has cancer in the middle of a year, misses 30% of it and still easily walks off the scoring race? Just Insane.

I agree but only partially - Lemieux was a man on a mission when he came back. The first two games back was him doing 'stretches' - I mean he played 6 mins in that Rags game. But after that he averages 3 points a game. That was him playing to 100% The first half of the season, was him playing at 90-something percent and he still puts up 104 points in 39 games(2.67ppg) - that's 214 in 80, he was already pacing to put up near record-setting totals even without the end-of-season surge. You don't think that if he was healthy and had say 175 in 70(2.5ppg), that he wouldn't try to step it up and take it to 11 in the final stretch? He had a huge surge at the end of 88-89 as well


Perhaps I shouldn't have ranked it above, but I disagree with not placing them in the same teir. When you adjust those Gretzky years for 22-23's scoring levels, including accounting for differing powerplay and even strength rates, heres what you get:

	Season	Gm	G	A	PT	GPG	PPG
Gretzky	1982-83	80	58	101	159	0.72	1.98
Gretzky	1986-87	79	53	103	156	0.67	1.97
McDavid	2022-23	82	64	89	153	0.78	1.87

Gretzky with a edge in pts, McDavid goals. I know Gretzky dominated his peers a lot more but that was a much weaker league, zero players from the second strongest hockey nation were playing in the NHL at the time and the US talent pool vs very weak. The Canadian talent pool may have dropped since then, but doesn't make up for either of those factors. I think a matric like VsX can be very useful when comparing near seasons, but is about as useful and misleading as plus/minus is when looking at seasons decades apart.


That one was a bit of an oversight on my part. I have it a little below Lemieux's 96, so ranking more or less in line with McDavid's '23 works for me.


That claim has never been proven. Gretzky stats that in his autobiography, which was only released many years after the fact. There's no documented evidence of him actually specifically saying that prior to the '86 season. What he said was that he would focus more on playmaking.

As to my ranking of it below his other 200 point years, take these two seasons for example:
A) 29-83-112
B) 51-58-109

What's the more impressive season here?
Yes "A" season there won the Hart in that example, but narratives beyond those totals had everything to do with that. With no narratives involved (almost) no one would take season A over season B and recent polls have shown just that. Gretzky's 85-86 season verse the other great years is exactly like that comparison - but on steroids lol. 163 assists is absurd and that probably actually added more to his legacy than just another 85-70 goal 120-135 assist season would have. But it's not actually materially better than it.

Yeah so I should have went back and edited that and just put that in the (now) 2-6 grouping tie. Having it at 6 is just bad from an aesthetic perspective but I did say that I view ‘93 Lemieux in the 2-5 range level as well along with ‘82, ‘85 and ‘86 Gretzky as well as ‘89 Mario. I think these seasons are all pretty interchangeable at least in my mind for just regular seasons and/or the best level they reached in given season. A fairer way to put it is that number 2 is a flat out tie with all of these seasons. When you combine that with the fact that I think ‘84 Gretzky being better than those years is a marginal difference they are more or less in the same tier. We don’t really have a massive difference of view here I just was giving a quick reply before work that was lazy. Sorry for the near panic attack lol.

With that being said I feel like I got to see Gretzky play live (and on TV when we could) more than most people. I watched every opportunity I could. It is a much smaller sample size than what I saw with Lemieux obviously but it was more than enough to come to the conclusion I have. I WISH I got to see Gretzky more. If there was a year that Lemieux for me matched Gretzky in the eye test department it was ‘89 which is partially why I view it (some days lol) above ‘93.

When I look at the 2-6 in my mind it is reflected by the highest level they reached with a satisfactory sample of GP here:

Wayne Gretzky ‘83-‘84: 57 GP: 73 G, 98 A, 171 PTS (3.0 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘84-‘85: 60 GP: 60 G, 107 A, 167 PTS (2.78 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘81-‘82: 64 GP: 79 G, 97 A, 176 PTS (2.75 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘85-‘86: 68 GP: 48 G, 139 A, 187 PTS (2.75 PPG)
Mario Lemieux ‘88-‘89: 62 GP: 65 G, 104 A, 169 PTS (2.73 PPG)
Mario Lemieux ‘92-‘93: 58 GP: 67 G, 90 A, 157 PTS (2.71 PPG)

I’m not as crazy on adjustments as some here (nothing wrong with it) so this more than suffices but if you adjust ‘84 stays on top (whether H/R adjustment, basic G/GP, top 20 elite ppg yearly or even strength/powerplay/shorthanded rates ‘84 Gretzky’s 57 games is the best not that it matters) and ‘96 comes into the equation but we have already agreed it doesn’t belong in the top 3-5 conversation. When you look at 2-6 here you see that the disparity is marginal which is why I view them as a virtual tie. Even with adjusting I think that. They are all live puck era seasons and these two would have managed these numbers in these given forms in any of them so maybe that’s why I feel the way I do. If anyone doubts that they probably don’t understand just how good they are. League wide scoring rates that fluctuate but still ultra high won’t impact these two behemoths in a way that is too meaningful. That’s why over-adjusting is a slippery slope. As I mentioned if you take the environment for each year for the top 20 ppg leaders it’s more of the same story. All this to say I view 2-6 as a tie. I will say though that ‘86 Gretzky did something no other player could ever do. Over 2 assists per game is unfathomable. In his best goal scoring years he shows he’s a 90s range goal guy and then shows that he could have the non Gretzky or Lemieux single season point record on assists alone. Utterly absurd.

And absolutely I agree with the McDavid ‘23 and ‘96 Mario. It reminded me of that year a lot witnessing it. McDavid just looked more dominant because Mario wasn’t at his peak anymore but that’s a testament to how great he was.

 

[TheStatican]

Yeah so I should have went back and edited that and just put that in the (now) 2-6 grouping tie. Having it at 6 is just bad from an aesthetic perspective but I did say that I view ‘93 Lemieux in the 2-5 range level as well along with ‘82, ‘85 and ‘86 Gretzky as well as ‘89 Mario. I think these seasons are all pretty interchangeable at least in my mind for just regular seasons and/or the best level they reached in given season. A fairer way to put it is that number 2 is a flat out tie with all of these seasons. When you combine that with the fact that I think ‘84 Gretzky being better than those years is a marginal difference they are more or less in the same tier. We don’t really have a massive difference of view here I just was giving a quick reply before work that was lazy. Sorry for the near panic attack lol.

Right on, that definitely makes more sense to me. Feels like we're being somewhat indecisive by placing several seasons at the same ranking doesn't it? But it truly just goes to show how incredibly close they were at the top. Full credit to Gretzky though for having so many of those top seasons, it's clear as the years go by that's something we'll probably never see again. If someone somehow ever manages to reach those heights it'll probably only be for one or two seasons at most.

With that being said I feel like I got to see Gretzky play live (and on TV when we could) more than most people. I watched every opportunity I could. It is a much smaller sample size than what I saw with Lemieux obviously but it was more than enough to come to the conclusion I have. I WISH I got to see Gretzky more. If there was a year that Lemieux for me matched Gretzky in the eye test department it was ‘89 which is partially why I view it (some days lol) above ‘93.

Fair enough. In terms of Lemieux 89 vs 93, do you think that maybe it's a just matter of him looking more vitalized/appearing to play with more energy in '89 to you? He is 4 years younger there and Lemieux was not known as someone who worked out - except for his golf game lol, so I can see how maybe his conditioning got little worse there. Though he didn't really play a huge amount of games in between those seasons, just 187 so I think it would be hard to argue that a significant amount of fatigue was building up for him already by his age 27 season - like many say was happening to Gretzky at that age. I think maybe what you picked up on was him appearing to play with slightly less energy. But he could simply have been playing a smarter game at that point - knowing when to expend his energy better and when to conserve it rather than going all-out, all the time. And not every hockey skill is an ingrained ability, even the greats can make improvements while already in their peak. Sort of like how McDavid only became an elite-level goal scorer (in league-best range) at his 8th/age 26 season despite already having hit his peak level of play 2 seasons prior.

When I look at the 2-6 in my mind it is reflected by the highest level they reached with a satisfactory sample of GP here:

Wayne Gretzky ‘83-‘84: 57 GP: 73 G, 98 A, 171 PTS (3.0 PPG)
Mario Lemieux ‘88-‘89: 60 GP: 65 G, 104 A, 169 PTS (2.82 PPG)
Mario Lemieux ‘92-‘93: 56 GP: 67 G, 90 A, 157 PTS (2.80 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘84-‘85: 60 GP: 60 G, 107 A, 167 PTS (2.78 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘81-‘82: 64 GP: 79 G, 97 A, 176 PTS (2.75 PPG)
Wayne Gretzky ‘85-‘86: 68 GP: 48 G, 139 A, 187 PTS (2.75 PPG)

The only point of contention I have with that comparison is that numbers should really look as such ^^^
Adjustments in scoring are one thing, that's always going to be an imperfect science but the lost game time actually happened. It doesn't involve giving him hypothetical credit for things that didn't happen. Nor does it involved adjustments for scoring levels, add or subtract any points based on a given game time situation and isn't about injuries hampering him. Just an honest and more accurate accounting of game time.

Yes technically 6 minutes of a game played is, and will always be a game played - sort of like how with classical computers you can only have a 0 or a 1. But clearly that's not being fair in this kind of comparison is it. If it's possible to provide a more accurate measure of something - much as how quantum computing is far more advanced than classical computers - and the corroborative evidence to prove it exists, why wouldn't we apply it?

 

[WalterLundy]

Right on, that definitely makes more sense to me. Feels like we're being somewhat indecisive by placing several seasons at the same ranking doesn't it? But it truly just goes to show how incredibly close they were at the top. Full credit to Gretzky though for having so many of those top seasons, it's clear as the years go by that's something we'll probably never see again. If someone somehow ever manages to reach those heights it'll probably only be for one or two seasons at most.


Fair enough. In terms of Lemieux 89 vs 93, do you think that maybe it's a just matter of him looking more vitalized/appearing to play with more energy in '89 to you? He is 4 years younger there and Lemieux was not known as someone who worked out - except for his golf game lol, so I can see how maybe his conditioning got little worse there. Though he didn't really play a huge amount of games in between those seasons, just 187 so I think it would be hard to argue that a significant amount of fatigue was building up for him already by his age 27 season - like many say was happening to Gretzky at that age. I think maybe what you picked up on was him appearing to play with slightly less energy. But he could simply have been playing a smarter game at that point - knowing when to expend his energy better and when to conserve it rather than going all-out, all the time. And not every hockey skill is an ingrained ability, even the greats can make improvements while already in their peak. Sort of like how McDavid only became an elite-level goal scorer (in league-best range) at his 8th/age 26 season despite already having hit his peak level of play 2 seasons prior.


The only point of contention I have with that comparison is that numbers should really look as such ^^^
Adjustments in scoring are one thing, that's always going to be an imperfect science but the lost game time actually happened. It doesn't involve giving him hypothetical credit for things that didn't happen. Nor does it involved adjustments for scoring levels, add or subtract any points based on a given game time situation and isn't about injuries hampering him. Just an honest and more accurate accounting of game time.

Yes technically 6 minutes of a game played is, and will always be a game played - sort of like how with classical computers you can only have a 0 or a 1. But clearly that's not being fair in this kind of comparison is it. If it's possible to provide a more accurate measure of something - much as how quantum computing is far more advanced than classical computers - and the corroborative evidence to prove it exists, why wouldn't we apply it?

Absolutely. You are honestly splitting hairs and we may seem indecisive but with those seasons it’s very understandable.

I agree I think that is fair. I was actually factoring that in for my earlier reply anyway after I was made aware of it (for the regular and adjusted numbers at the methods I listed) when I said that after ‘84 Gretzky at 1 you could have (and would have) ‘89 and ‘93 ML as the next best two. Obviously if we take the revised numbers you posted at face value we are still looking at years (2-6) that are just so close. It’s really a matter of preference for that range.

 

[TheStatican]

Absolutely. You are honestly splitting hairs and we may seem indecisive but with those seasons it’s very understandable.

I agree I think that is fair. I was actually factoring that in for my earlier reply anyway after I was made aware of it (for the regular and adjusted numbers at the methods I listed) when I said that after ‘84 Gretzky at 1 you could have (and would have) ‘89 and ‘93 ML as the next best two. Obviously if we take the revised numbers you posted at face value we are still looking at years (2-6) that are just so close. It’s really a matter of preference for that range.

Ture enough, it's very close either way and even with those two games considered there's probably stretches with less games where Gretzky's pace in '81 or '85 is slightly ahead as well

On a different note I've been watching some old time footage and came across a game between the two in '87. In it Lemieux admits to one of the broadcasters that he get's nervous playing against Gretzky which might go some ways to explain why his performance in those games wasn't up to par, at least in the first few years of his career where as we know he was facing a huge amount of pressure to live up to the expectations of being the heir apparent.

 

[WalterLundy]

Ture enough, it's very close either way and even with those two games considered there's probably stretches with less games where Gretzky's pace in '81 or '85 is slightly ahead as well

On a different note I've been watching some old time footage and came across a game between the two in '87. In it Lemieux admits to one of the broadcasters that he get's nervous playing against Gretzky which might go some ways to explain why his performance in those games wasn't up to par, at least in the first few years of his career where as we know he was facing a huge amount of pressure to live up to the expectations of being the heir apparent.

Agreed. As for the clip from the game it makes a lot of sense. You could actually tell when watching their matchups throughout the years. To me when you combine that with Gretzky just being an ultra competitive gamer you get the head to head results that we did.

 

[bobholly39]

Honestly, from a narrative perspective it really is the most legendry season of all time. Guy finds out he has cancer in the middle of a year, misses 30% of it and still easily walks off the scoring race? Just Insane.

I agree but only partially - Lemieux was a man on a mission when he came back. The first two games back was him doing 'stretches' - I mean he played 6 mins in that Rags game. But after that he averages 3 points a game. That was him playing to 100% The first half of the season, was him playing at 90-something percent and he still puts up 104 points in 39 games(2.67ppg) - that's 214 in 80, he was already pacing to put up near record-setting totals even without the end-of-season surge. You don't think that if he was healthy and had say 175-180 in 70(2.5-2.6 ppg), that he wouldn't try to step it up and take it to 11 for the final stretch with the record in sight? He had a big surge at the end of 88-89 as well


Perhaps I shouldn't have ranked it above, but I disagree with not placing them in the same tier. When you adjust those Gretzky years for 22-23's scoring levels, including accounting for differing powerplay and even strength rates, heres what you get:

	Season	Gm	G	A	PT	GPG	PPG
Gretzky	1982-83	80	58	101	159	0.72	1.98
Gretzky	1986-87	79	53	103	156	0.67	1.97
McDavid	2022-23	82	64	89	153	0.78	1.87

Gretzky with a edge in pts, McDavid goals. I know Gretzky dominated his peers a lot more but that was a much weaker league, zero players from the second strongest hockey nation were playing in the NHL at the time and the US talent pool was a shadow of what it would become even just a few years later. The Canadian talent pool may have dropped since then but doesn't make up for either of those factors. I think a metric like VsX can be very useful when comparing near seasons, but is about as useful and misleading as plus/minus is when looking at seasons decades apart.

If we include playoffs, I would move '83 Gretzky up a bit, but that reaffirms my choice to knock '87 Gretzky down. Yup he won the cup, but that was by far the weakest of his long playoff runs. Nearly half of his points came from beating up on a weak Kings team. I would rank many playoff runs from players other than Lemieux or himself ahead of that one, heck even that year Messier or Anderson wins the Smythe over him. It's not materially any better than McDavid's 22-23 run, just a longer sample size.


That one was a bit of an oversight on my part. I have it a little below Lemieux's 96, so ranking more or less in line with McDavid's '23 works for me.


That claim has never been proven. Gretzky says that in his autobiography, which was only released many years after the fact. There's no documented evidence of him actually specifically saying that prior to the '86 season. What he said was that he would focus more on playmaking.

As to my ranking of it below his other 200 point years, take these two seasons for example:
A) 29-83-112
B) 51-58-109

What's the more impressive season there?

Yes "A" season there won the Hart in that example, but narratives beyond those totals had everything to do with that. With no narratives involved no one(almost) would take season A over season B and recent polls have shown just that. Gretzky's 85-86 season verse the other great years is exactly like that comparison - but on steroids lol. 163 assists is absurd and that probably actually added more to his legacy than just another 85-70 goal 120-135 assist season would have. But it's not actually materially better than it.

Bolded #1. Maybe he would have, yes. I've always said I think in 1993 he had a great shot at beating not just 215 points, but also 92 goals. But, his pace after his return was even higher. With no games missed, it's possible he actually has a bit of a slump and passes neither 215 nor 92 goals.

Bolded #1 - v 2.0. And this is where I think Gretzky shines. If Gretzky was the one at ~175-180 points towards end of the year with a record in sight (assume roles were reversed, and Mario owned the record of 92/215 that Gretzky was gunning for), I feel 99% confident Gretzky would have found a way. I think he just wanted more.

Bolded #2 - I thought it was proven he made the claim. Surprising to me - thanks for correcting. My point still stands that 85-86 season is tier 1, among the absolute best ever. You can't really "adjust" 215 points or 160+ assists down in too many ways, it's insane actual raw numbers.

As for 87 and 83. I agree that 87 playoffs is Gretzky's "worst" cup winning playoff, but he still deserved the smythe in my opinion. 6 points more than his closest teammeate, and he had 8 game winning assists. Maybe 34 points in 21 playoff games doesn't hold up as tier 1 for a Gretzky playoff run, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't have beaten out eveyrone else in 1987 for the smythe.

Personally, I'd have given Gretzky the smythe in 84, 85, 87 and 88. And probably 1983 as well, though, I could understand the hesitation in 1983 since they got swept in final and he "only" had 4 points in 4 games.

I definitely place 1983 season a tier above anything from McDavid or Howe, though it's probably Gretzky's worst season at his peak.

Gretzky in 82, 83, 84, 85, 86 (5 years) and Lemieux in 89 and 93 are absolutely unmatched by anyone else in history (outside of Orr, but I mean for forwards).

Maybe when you start looking at Gretzky in 87 or 89, or Lemieux in 96, you can say a few others are closer (Howe, McDavid), though I'd probably still have Lemieux and Gretzky ahead in those 3 years.

 

[WalterLundy]

Ture enough, it's very close either way and even with those two games considered there's probably stretches with less games where Gretzky's pace in '81 or '85 is slightly ahead as well

On a different note I've been watching some old time footage and came across a game between the two in '87. In it Lemieux admits to one of the broadcasters that he get's nervous playing against Gretzky which might go some ways to explain why his performance in those games wasn't up to par, at least in the first few years of his career where as we know he was facing a huge amount of pressure to live up to the expectations of being the heir apparent.

Even at the end (96-97) Gretzky was shockingly dominant statistically in their matchups when there should have been no reason for it. 9 to 1 in points in their 4 matchups (+5 to -6 as well). It was always a deer in the headlights thing and Gretzky being the competitor he was would want to step on the throat of his opponent. I think people seriously don’t understand how competitive he was.

 

[TheStatican]

Bolded #1. Maybe he would have, yes. I've always said I think in 1993 he had a great shot at beating not just 215 points, but also 92 goals. But, his pace after his return was even higher. With no games missed, it's possible he actually has a bit of a slump and passes neither 215 nor 92 goals.

Absolutely, there's definitely no guarantee he would have beaten Gretzky's records. But I do think that it's incredibly unlikely he would have fallen off the pace by any huge amount for a couple reasons(beyond the consistency argument I already made above). When you split his season in two his scoring only went up from 78 to 82 in the second half of 92-93 Of his 7 best seasons he only saw a big drop in the second half of just one of them;

​	1st half​	2nd half​
1985-86​	67​	74​
1987-88​	83​	85​
1988-89​	104​	95​
1989-90​	56​	67​
1991-92​	60​	71​
1992-93	78​	82​
1995-96​	93​	68​
​	541​	542​

95-96 featured an older, out of his peak Lemieux who lost his best linemate and a key powerplay cog in Sandstrom for the last third of the season, leaving him with less than ideal wingman to finish the year. But too much of his scoring was derived from the powerplay to begin with - over 50% Halfway through that year he was averaging 1.40 powerplay points a game with the team operating at 30%, in a year where the average percentage was just 18. Simply put it was impossible for anyone to sustain that rate, even Lemieux.

Meanwhile in 92-93 only a little over a third of his points came from the powerplay. And even if he did slump a little say the same degree that he did in 88-89's, a decline of 9%, that would still have given him 212 points in 83 games. 104 in his first 39 2.67ppg -9% of that is 2.45 times 44 gms = 108 pts.

But it's far less likely that he would have experienced a non-injury related decline in 92-93 compared to 88-89 because of the quality of his line mates and the team as a whole. In fact I think the only reason why his scoring was slightly lower in the first half of that season is because Kevin Stevens got injured and missed nearly 10 games. Including the game Stevens was hurt in - he was injured in the first minute of that one - Lemieux had 21 points. Averaging 2.10ppg could hardly be called a slump for anyone, but for Lemieux in that season it kinda was. Stevens missed a 3 more games at the end of the season, here's Mario's totals with and without him that year:

​	Gm​	G​	A​	PT​	PPG​
Without Stevens​	13​	9​	21​	30​	2.31​
With Stevens​	47​	60​	70​	130​	2.77​
accounting for lost ice time​	45​	60​	70​	130​	2.89​

Here's another way of looking at it, gp using official totals

​	Gm​	G​	A​	PT​	PPG​
Games Without Stevens​	13​	9​	21​	30​	2.31​
With Stevens before cancer leave​	30​	32​	51​	83​	2.767​
With Stevens after cancer leave​	17​	28​	19​	47​	2.765​

His scoring rates when he played together with Stevens were identical in the first and second half. Keep in mind Lemieux would've had Stevens by his side in all the games he missed, at 2.77 that's 64 points in 23 which would be a total of 224 in 83! Again, I agree there's no guarantee he maintains that pace, but he's got a lot of 'room for error' so to speak. Even if he maintains a lower scoring rate of 2.31 a rate equal to that in his games without Stevens, a degradation of -20% from his performance when the two actually did play together, that still gives him 53 in 23 which comes out to 213 incredibly close to the record.

Bolded #1 - v 2.0. And this is where I think Gretzky shines. If Gretzky was the one at ~175-180 points towards end of the year with a record in sight (assume roles were reversed, and Mario owned the record of 92/215 that Gretzky was gunning for), I feel 99% confident Gretzky would have found a way. I think he just wanted more.

I can understand that perspective. Gretzky did seem to rise up to meet challenges more often throughout his career as a whole. If we're talking about an earlier 80's Lemieux or post peak I'd agree. But I think early 90's Lemieux was exactly on the same level as Gretzky career-wise when it came to forcing things to go his way - his performances in the two Stanley Cup runs and how he quickly chased down LaFontaine in the scoring race, something which he specifically set out to do prior to his return, strongly corroborates that imo.

As for 87 and 83. I agree that 87 playoffs is Gretzky's "worst" cup winning playoff, but he still deserved the smythe in my opinion. 6 points more than his closest eammeate, and he had 8 game winning assists. Maybe 34 points in 21 playoff games doesn't hold up as tier 1 for a Gretzky playoff run, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't have beaten out eveyrone else in 1987 for the smythe.

After taking a deeper look at the numbers I'd probably agree with that since Messier and Anderson did most of their damage before playing Philly, while Gretzky had a strong finals in a close series. I do think Kurri might have gotten the vote instead if it went to an Oiler, though largely because of voter fatigue rearing it's ugly head.

 

[Leafidelity]

The only effective way to stop Mario was to hack and haul on him. In this era, he would have significantly more of an advantage than in his time, and I think he could go close to 2PPG

 

[tfwnogf]

voted 400-500 only because there was no 500+ option

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

the Crosby's and McDavid's are doing what the Gretzky's and Lemieux's would have done today

votes for 200+ is funny lol

Crosby and McDavid would have scored more going backward; not Gretzky and Lemieux going forward

 

[TheStatican]

Crosby and McDavid would have scored more going backward; not Gretzky and Lemieux going forward

Wow your so right bro!!

That completely explains how Lemieux was still some how able to destroy the competition when he was healthy in the early 2000's at ages 35 and 37 after having not even skated seriously in 3 and 1/2 years and a decade past his peak.