Mario Lemieux circa 1988-89 = 65 goals and 88 assists for 153 points in 2022
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Lafleurs Guy
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- Jul 20, 2007
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Interesting, thanks for posting. This has been out there for years. I had always thought this was the case.
McGuillicuddy
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- Sep 6, 2005
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Indeed:
Bill McCreary Jr. - Disappearance from the NHL
There is a myth that Bill McCreary Jr. hit on Gretzky in 1981 ended his NHL career because he hurt badly the face of the league, when in fact it was only his 2 of 12 NHL games. Why did he not make it in the NHL, was he not good enough?
It is a myth accepted only among people who couldn't be bothered to check. It's complete crap, as is the myth that Gretzky wasn't hit because players weren't allowed to hit him due to some league-wide conspiracy.
You would have to provide some awfully strong evidence to convince me that every single player on the 80s Islanders or Flyers wouldn't have cleaned Gretzky's clock if they could have. They all hated each other. Denis Potvin himself said that trying to hit Gretzky was like "trying to wrap your arms around fog". And other players have said something similar.
So we can believe the internet idiots who think that fiercely competitive NHL players trying to earn their living would go out of their way to leave the greatest threat to their success untouched. Or we can make the very logical leap that Gretzky's quickness and legendary vision (not to mention the fact that he spent his ENTIRE life playing against players much larger than him from the time he was a child) also made him very difficult to hit. Seriously, I can't understand the obsession with this unwritten rule when it doesn't pass the smell test after 2 seconds of consideration by somebody with even modest critical faculties.
Lafleurs Guy
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- Jul 20, 2007
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It's been out there for a long time. After you posted this I found that Cherry and Strachan had perpetuated this.Indeed:
Bill McCreary Jr. - Disappearance from the NHL
There is a myth that Bill McCreary Jr. hit on Gretzky in 1981 ended his NHL career because he hurt badly the face of the league, when in fact it was only his 2 of 12 NHL games. Why did he not make it in the NHL, was he not good enough?forums.hfboards.com
It is a myth accepted only among people who couldn't be bothered to check. It's complete crap, as is the myth that Gretzky wasn't hit because players weren't allowed to hit him due to some league-wide conspiracy.
You would have to provide some awfully strong evidence to convince me that every single player on the 80s Islanders or Flyers wouldn't have cleaned Gretzky's clock if they could have. They all hated each other. Denis Potvin himself said that trying to hit Gretzky was like "trying to wrap your arms around fog". And other players have said something similar.
So we can believe the internet idiots who think that fiercely competitive NHL players trying to earn their living would go out of their way to leave the greatest threat to their success untouched. Or we can make the very logical leap that Gretzky's quickness and legendary vision (not to mention the fact that he spent his ENTIRE life playing against players much larger than him from the time he was a child) also made him very difficult to hit. Seriously, I can't understand the obsession with this unwritten rule when it doesn't pass the smell test after 2 seconds of consideration by somebody with even modest critical faculties.
As for Gretz being slippery... absolutely true and I said so earlier. But there was still a sense that he couldn't be touched. And the Oilers had not one but two goons to protect him. He also wasn't the massive guy Lemieux was and you didn't see guys tackling him. His prime mostly comes in the 80s when it was more freewheeling than the 90s were.
And for the record, I think Gretzky would kill in this league as well. He was an astonishingly good player. I just think Lemieux would benefit from the new rules far more than Gretzky would.
I've read many posts in the thread but not every one.
I personally see no point in adjusting scoring for ice time. I would prefer a player scoring 3 points in 20 actual minutes of ice time, rather than someone scoring 1 point in 5 actual minutes, even though the latter has "more points per minute".
Also, it's easier to score during power play than penalty killing, so guys playing plenty of penalty killing will be punished.
Regarding Gretzky, he not only scored for a very high scoring team (EDM). His share of points (Gretzky points / EDM goals) were much higher than any other player in the league, being around 50 %. So he stood out much more among teammates like Kurri, Coffey, Messier et al, than any other player stood out among his teammates.
(Mario, Kariya/Selänne and in recent hockey McDavid are other examples of being fairly near 50 %, I believe.)
I personally see no point in adjusting scoring for ice time. I would prefer a player scoring 3 points in 20 actual minutes of ice time, rather than someone scoring 1 point in 5 actual minutes, even though the latter has "more points per minute".
Also, it's easier to score during power play than penalty killing, so guys playing plenty of penalty killing will be punished.
Regarding Gretzky, he not only scored for a very high scoring team (EDM). His share of points (Gretzky points / EDM goals) were much higher than any other player in the league, being around 50 %. So he stood out much more among teammates like Kurri, Coffey, Messier et al, than any other player stood out among his teammates.
(Mario, Kariya/Selänne and in recent hockey McDavid are other examples of being fairly near 50 %, I believe.)
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McGuillicuddy
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Gretzky had Semenko (later McSorely). Yzerman had Probert. Clarke had Schultz. Bossy had Gillies (not a goon, but a protector nonetheless). Lafleur had Robinson (same). And so on. The Oilers were hardly unique to have an enforcer to keep other players honest around their stars.
I think "don't touch Gretzky" only truly became a thing in his last couple years. Guys knew he was winding down and nobody wanted to be the one to end the career of a legend.
Lafleurs Guy
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Yep, all those stars had people to protect them.
Except Mario Lemieux.
He was fending for himself. And again, I look at Kasparitis on Lemieux in '93... crazy. He was basically mugged throughout the series.
BraveCanadian
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Yep, all those stars had people to protect them.
Except Mario Lemieux.
And again, I look at Kasparitis on Lemieux in '93... crazy. He was basically mugged throughout the series.
Someone will have to tell that to Dan Frawley, Rod Buskas, Jay Caufield and the like..
Back on the topic of this thread: there are some serious issues with your adjustments, OP. That is all.
What about Bure in Florida? His goals alone were nearly twice the amount of points the rest of his team was scoring one season.
nuck
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This has always interested me. I posted a thread a while back on adjusting season scoring totals to league goals per game and comparing the results of the shooting gallery years with the dead puck era. I used Hockey Reference data rather than any science of myself so it was hardly a thesis paper but Gretzky, Lemieux and Ovy were dominant in any era. This allows for the differences in rules and the fluctuation in competition after expansions. Easy enough for anyone to go there and "normalize" to a target year and then try to figure out the holes there might be in doing this.
The other part of that discussion is the 99th percentile athletes of 40 years ago would still be 99th percentile today. Mike Gartner won the NHL All Star skills fastest skater in 1996 at the age of 37. He was always known to be fast but nobody in the early 80s was saying he was some kind of freak. That record lasted 13 years. Skating is not sprinting and even if it was the 100 meter record in 1983 was 9.93s and now is 9.58s and that is 1.5 NHL rinks long so that is like a one stride edge assuming breakaways are the main reason for scoring . Until Kucherov's 2018 season the best post lockout scoring was Thornton's 125 points which was only 2 points more than 33 year old Jagr. Nobody thinks 33 year old Jagr was better than prime Jagr and nobody thinks prime Jagr was better than prime Lemieux/Gretzky.
Todays league is faster and the average athlete is much fitter but these are typically less talented guys trying to catch up to the naturally gifted players. Kucherov and Drai are not among the top 10 skaters in the league but they are top 5 point producers. Larkin is as fast as McDavid but that hasn't translated to the scoresheet and Gartner with his blistering speed in a slower era was barely a top 10 forward in his best seasons. Its important to consider this as some people are applying some voodoo logic to how much better athletes are today. They are better, but only by minutia, and the things that made the great ones so good, like Gretzky's eyes in the back of his head passing and his ability to deke guys out of their jock strap have nothing to do with training. His brothers all had the Walter treatment growing up but that wasn't the cause of the success, just a trigger.
Once you get into the 60s I think comparisons get a little muddy. Not just equipment but the players were smaller. A lot more tiny defensemen and goaltending (the last maskless goalie was still around in 1974) was evolving to deal with the proliferation of the slap shot. Hull was a beast by all accounts, and obviously Howe was a one off but they are, to me, among a relatively few slam dunk 60 stars that would still tear it up today. I won't get into an Orr analysis but I am pretty surer he would feast on todays game.
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morehockeystats
Unusual hockey stats
Wasn't there something the other way around, when Gretzky got a rare chance to play against Gordie, he allowed some trickery against the old man, and got lightly slashed on the gloves, followed by a whisper, "You don't do that to me, kid." ?
krutovsdonut
eeyore
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lemieux is really easy to extrapolate.
jagr was still a handful in the modern nhl into his 40s. it is not hard to extrapolate that peak jagr would have been every bit as good in this era as he was in the 1990s. all his tools translate.
and lemieux even with a bad back was a better player than peak jagr. like jagr he also had to play in a much more physical era. he would tear the modern league apart.
gretzky is a little harder. i would compare him to quinn hughes and henrik sedin. hughes is undersized with no shot but is also ppg as a dman. he's proof that even in the modern game, a hockey iq works. henrik was still dissecting defences in his last game. as good as he was in the current era as a pure playmaker he's not in gretzky's weight class as a playmaker. nobody is.
so while peak gretzky might not score 92 goals today, i am confident he could still make dmen fall over for no reason and still be easily the best playmaker in the game.
jagr was still a handful in the modern nhl into his 40s. it is not hard to extrapolate that peak jagr would have been every bit as good in this era as he was in the 1990s. all his tools translate.
and lemieux even with a bad back was a better player than peak jagr. like jagr he also had to play in a much more physical era. he would tear the modern league apart.
gretzky is a little harder. i would compare him to quinn hughes and henrik sedin. hughes is undersized with no shot but is also ppg as a dman. he's proof that even in the modern game, a hockey iq works. henrik was still dissecting defences in his last game. as good as he was in the current era as a pure playmaker he's not in gretzky's weight class as a playmaker. nobody is.
so while peak gretzky might not score 92 goals today, i am confident he could still make dmen fall over for no reason and still be easily the best playmaker in the game.
Johnny Cakes
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- Jan 18, 2023
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Serious issues? Fair enough, that's your opinion. However, I just took the adjustment formula laid out, and made it even better - removing entirely Player X from the equation/calculations. I did the 1920-21 and 1921-22 Toronto St. Pats - breaking down each player's ice time thoroughly, even referring back to newspaper accounts for clues about "sub" usage - frequency, duration, etc. And considering the shortened seasons back in the 20s, I squashed two seasons together per player (so, it being a 24-game season in '21 and '22, I combined them to make for a bigger sample and thus, in theory, a purer calculation).
You say all this has serious issues and you may be right to a degree. Or you may lack creativity. Either or (and I certainly won't make the call). However, here are the results for Babe Dye, Reg Noble and Harry Cameron, so YOU be the judge:
(Games - Goals - Assists - PiM - IceTime)
BABE DYE 80 - 55 - 43 - 98 - 96 - 20:30
HARRY CAMERON 82 - 23 - 68 - 91 - 57 - 24:00
REG NOBLE 82 - 21 - 45 - 66 - 66 - 20:30
So that's three St. Pats stars TRANSLATED - resurrected if you will - into the 2021-22 season. Notes:
1) Dye would be tied for 2nd in goals (behind Auston Matthews) with Leon Draisaitl.
2) Cameron would be 2nd among "D" for points (behind Roman Josi, ahead of Cale Makar)
3) Noble (21 goals, 45 assists) would be points-wise something like a Patrice Bergeron (who had 25 goals, 40 assists)
But you, BraveCanadian, think this has "serious issues"? What issues in particular? I'm curious. Thanks in advance for letting me know.
Slats432
Registered User
Mario in today's game with diet and technology. I think he would put up better numbers than McDavid.
Johnny Cakes
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BraveCanadian
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Other posters have already pointed out some very obvious red flags to you.
IMO, attempting to adjust and compare very early era players to more modern ones is very difficult due to the roster size, rule changes, and ice time differences.
Even modern players are difficult to compare for some of the same reasons. This is why dead puck era players like Forsberg, who peaked during a down period for the league, tend to look so good in these comparisons compared to players who peak in the 80s-90s.
However, if your adjustments are telling you that Forsberg is a better playmaker than Wayne Gretzky, or telling you that he has the 4th best offensive seasons of all time... you have very glaring issues.
Yes, average scoring changed, but scoring proportions in the lineups changed. Again in this scenario, ice times and deployments changed and I'm on the side saying the ice time estimates are not that great the farther you get from the late 90s seasons they were calibrated against.
The problems get worse as soon as you scratch the surface (as @Hockey Outsider did up thread) and realize that if you adjust players in certain years to the astronomical heights, a half dozen other players come along with them.. and that doesn't pass the smell test. Like at all. He gave you a few examples there.
All of this has been hashed out many, many, times on the boards here which is why many people on the history board use a comparison against peers instead of adjusting based on average scoring etc. Again, this system is not perfect by any means, and requires context as well, but it has stood up better than the others so far.
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The Panther
Registered User
I do tire of these kinds of threads, which frankly require a lot of mental and mathematical gymnastics. I think it's better if we just compare players who played in the same era... like Gretzky and Lemieux.
(Can I ask why the OP is using Gretzky's 1984-85 season, rather than 1983-84 or 1985-86, for statistical comparison to Mario's 1988-89? Or is that just part of the thinly-disguised agenda to make Lemieux look better?)
If we're going down the path of "McCreary hit Gretzky and never played again" (false) and "Gretzky was protected and never got hit" (false), we're into main-board level stuff about Karlsson being better than Orr. At which point, the discussions aren't really worth much.
(Can I ask why the OP is using Gretzky's 1984-85 season, rather than 1983-84 or 1985-86, for statistical comparison to Mario's 1988-89? Or is that just part of the thinly-disguised agenda to make Lemieux look better?)
If we're going down the path of "McCreary hit Gretzky and never played again" (false) and "Gretzky was protected and never got hit" (false), we're into main-board level stuff about Karlsson being better than Orr. At which point, the discussions aren't really worth much.
The Panther
Registered User
In his prime years, Gretzky scored about 27.7% of his points on the PP. The percentage markedly increased from 1991-92 onward, after his three back injuries (the third being the 'Suter-ing').
In his prime years, Lemieux scored about 41% of his points on the PP.
The point about the Pens having more power-plays is correct, but you'd have to suppose that Lemieux himself (being a big man who was impossible to bring down and who liked to beat guys one-on-one) was quite a large factor in drawing those PP opportunities. Further, with the extra PP-time the Pens had, that also means less ES time for Lemieux, which over 10 years or whatever becomes a factor here as well.
CanucksMJL
Context apologist.
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I never got to see Gretzky in his prime, it was just before my time. He petered out in the 90s. Mario Lemieux was a f***ing unstoppable force every time he stepped on the ice whether it was cancer or back issues or age. When Mario came back from one of his retirements the CBC dedicated a picture in picture of what Mario was doing overlaid on the broadcast. The man was incredible. I've never seen and may never again see a national broadcast have a dedicated camera for a specific player broadcast live during a game. He was far from his physical prime yet when watched you understood that there was no stopping what was about to happen. All this talk about stats and adjusted eras is an absurdity if you watched the man play.
edit: McDavid is amazing and your favorite player is too.
Why is hooking even a penalty?
Sarcasm aside, that clip is the tip of the iceberg. I didn't stop watching hockey when Lemieux retired. I've just never seen anyone even close to being as good. I've seen many great hockey players since, the difference is that I can't say that any player today would translate to that era as well as Mario would to this era. Mario Lemieux in today's game would probably require rule changes because he would be so dominant.
edit: McDavid is amazing and your favorite player is too.
Why is hooking even a penalty?
Sarcasm aside, that clip is the tip of the iceberg. I didn't stop watching hockey when Lemieux retired. I've just never seen anyone even close to being as good. I've seen many great hockey players since, the difference is that I can't say that any player today would translate to that era as well as Mario would to this era. Mario Lemieux in today's game would probably require rule changes because he would be so dominant.
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SwedishFire
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McDavid is disciplined on his training, and also has strength, I think he would pass 200 pointsbat least once in his career in the mid 80s.
And of the two Gretz and Lemeiux, I think the game today favours Lemeiux. Less grab, I think he would hold his 2pt/game clip.
The thinc with Gretz, except he played on a stacked Oilers team, he played almost 30 min each game. Either McDavid, Crosby, Lwmeiux has had that advantge when comparing numbers. I bet Lemeiuxs career pt/60 min is higher than Gretz pt/60 mim.
Lemeiux thou even kept smoking, and has se to blame himself.
But I would guess Lemeiux could end up with around 230
Pts, playing 10 min more each game.
And of the two Gretz and Lemeiux, I think the game today favours Lemeiux. Less grab, I think he would hold his 2pt/game clip.
The thinc with Gretz, except he played on a stacked Oilers team, he played almost 30 min each game. Either McDavid, Crosby, Lwmeiux has had that advantge when comparing numbers. I bet Lemeiuxs career pt/60 min is higher than Gretz pt/60 mim.
Lemeiux thou even kept smoking, and has se to blame himself.
But I would guess Lemeiux could end up with around 230
Pts, playing 10 min more each game.
ItWasJustified
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Håkan Loob, who played for Calgary Flames the years when the Battle of Alberta was at its peak, has said in interviews that before each game against Oilers their number one objective was always to stop Gretzky by any means necessary.
The Panther
Registered User
Gretzky has the highest-scoring season in NHL history before the Oilers were stacked and when they were one year removed from expansion.
He also scored 163 points in 78 games on a nineties' Kings' team that was reasonably talented, but hardly stacked.
Gretzky also led the NHL in assists in 1998 on a terrible Rangers' team that couldn't score. He was 37 that year, and in the back-half of the season outscored every NHL player except Jagr, who scored 1 more point than him.
Next, Gretzky did not play 30 minutes a game.
I don't know enough to guess whether Gretzky or Lemieux's ice-time was higher overall, but we should note that in 1995-96, Lemieux played nearly every minute of every PP the Penguins had that season. Gretzky rarely did that.
I tend not to get into the "how-so-and-so-would-do-in-a-different-era" discussions, because who cares, but while I have no doubt Mario Lemieux would be the best player today (no worse than McDavid, anyway), one factor he'd face would be getting far less PP time.
McDavid is not doing anything that we didn't see from Crosby and Jagr, and Jagr was clearly a level below Mario.
Future GOAT
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Not only that, but Lemieux at 35 was waaay better than Gretzky at 35...and that was after four years off.
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