Mario is a great player, one of the top-5 of all-time. But Gretzky is the greatest. With Mario it's always going to be what might have been because of all his health problems.
Mario, we hardly knew you
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Unholy Diver
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JCD said:
not so fast there Chief,
are you forgetting that Wayne also played with Luc Robitaille, Rob Blake, and Brian Leetch?
I went through and compiled games played with HOF or very good players for both Mario and Wayne and it is not even close
mario
260 w/ coffey
137 w/ recchi
172 w/murphy
258 w/ francis
172 w/ mullen
111 w/ trottier
361 w/jagr
101 w/ tocchet
1572 games played with HOF or very good players
gretz
705 w/ messier
915 w/ kurri
581 w/ coffey
579 w/ anderson
496 w/ robataille
288 w/ rob blake
80 w/ tocchet
228 w/ Leetch
3872 games played with HOF or very good players
stick to the NFL threads
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
Way to waste your time...
It doesn't change anything. Wayne is the greatest.
The greatest thing to illustrate that is PPG.
Gretzky is ahead despite these factors:
Playing far more games past his prime.
Playing nearly half of his career injured.
Playing more games in general.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
DrMoses said:
and the only reason he is ahead in PPG is because Mario returned after a 4 year retirement
I am not saying Mario is better than Wayne, what I am arguing is that saying Mario played with more good players than Wayne did, it is simply untrue
JCD
Registered User
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
You can tell right off the bat how meaningless your numbers are when you say Wayne played 3872 games with HOF players. You do realize that he played all of 1487 games in his career, right? But he somehow managed to play 3800+ games with HOFers?!?!!?
In other words, your added up games has absolutely no significance.
Furthermore, when did Leetch, Robitialle, Tocchet or Blake ever play for the Oilers? chooch was making a reference to Wayne's glory days with the Oilers (he previously claimed that Wayne's numbers have been inflated by the team around him). That was the only stacked team Wayne was on.
dr clayton forrester said:
Classy, but to be expected from the likes of you. Why don't you go cheer for Alexander dying on the field tomorrow, that seems more up your alley.
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JCD
Registered User
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
Ironically, the only reason Mario EVER took the lead is because he retired in the first place.
Had Wayne retired a half season earlier, Mario would NEVER have even briefly lead the league in PP/G.
As has been proven previously, had Wayne sat out as many games in his golden years as Mario has, he would absolutely crush all comings in PP/G.
dr clayton forrester said:
chooch said Mario would have scored more had he played with 6 HOFers. News flash kiddo: HE DID PLAY WITH SIX HALL OF FAMERS!!!
chooch was making an obvious reference to Wayne and his glory days with the Oilers.
Both Wayne and Mario played for some amazingly stacked teams. Wayne with the Oilers, Mario with the Cup-era Pens. Both also had to carry some less-than-talented teams on their backs. Kings were a 1-line team built around Wayne (Blake didn't emerge as a Norris-caliber player until Wayne's final seasons there) and the Rangers were a thin over-the-hill team that Wayne carried to their last play-off berth.
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Unholy Diver
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Gretzky still played more of his prime with good players than Mario did, thats what those numbers I provided showed, Gretzky played almost as many games with Messier and Kurri and Coffey on the Oil as Mario did before his first retirement total
of course Mario was also blessed with Rob Brown, Mike Bullard and Warren Young so I guess I am just crazy to say that Messier, Kurri, Coffey, and Anderson for 6 years was better than 2 and a half with Coffey, Recchi, Murphy, Francis, and a broken down Trottier
of course Mario was also blessed with Rob Brown, Mike Bullard and Warren Young so I guess I am just crazy to say that Messier, Kurri, Coffey, and Anderson for 6 years was better than 2 and a half with Coffey, Recchi, Murphy, Francis, and a broken down Trottier
JCD
Registered User
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
By Mario's 4th year (22 years old), he had Paul Coffey on the team. From that point until two seasons ago, he had at least one HOFer on his team. The "Mario never had any help" line is just a myth. Mario had a great team around him for the majority of his career. His first few seasons and his last few being the exception.
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
Your numbers showed nothing. Just random amounts of games played added up. Heck, you even missed Brett Hull, Al MacInnis, Chris Pronger and Pat LaFontaine. How can those be his "prime" years when you include players from his NY days when he was 35+ years old? Honestly, it looks like you just picked players at random and then added up the number of games they played while Wayne was on the team. That is a meaningless number.
DCF said:
Yep. And Gretzky destroyed Mario in every accomplishment you can measure. I would wager that Mario played a comparable % of his career games with Jagr and Francis as Wayne did Messier and Kurri.
DCF said:
Point? Wayne was blessed Sundstrom, a 80-year-old John MacLean, Blair MacDonald, Brett Callighen, Vitali Yachmenev and Dmitri Khristich over the course of his career as well. You really think Mario is the only Hall of Famer to carry a stiff on his line? Heck, Wayne-haters are quick to point out that Semenko was his bodyguard, yet are so quick to forget about him when comparing linemates. Wayne played a healty dose of time with McSorely/Semenko on one wing and Kurri on the other. Now, think Semenko's role was to score? Mario had a similar thing, only his "protector" was Kevin Stevens. Really want to compare who the better scorer is between Marty/Semenko and Kevin Stevens?
DCF said:
No, you are just trying to be all snarky and "get me" only you don't have a leg to stand on. Mario DID play with 6+ Hall of Famers and he DID play on stacked teams.
DCF said:
Saying he only had help for 2 and a half seasons if just being a overly dramatic.
Mario had at least one HOF player to help him from 87-88 through 96-97, or the vast majority of his career (games played). He had Francis for 6 of those seasons and Jagr for 7, Recchi for 4, Coffey for 5 and Murphy for 5.
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Dr Clayton Forrester said:
um...Jaromir Jagr?
From 1991-1997 he always had excellent offensive players to play with. Go look it up. Just because they all weren't on the team at the same time makes no difference. Paul Coffey leaves, Larry Murphy enters, etc.
He had little help in his first few seasons, and then again in the handfull of games he's played over the last 3 years or so. Other than that, he was always on stacked teams offensively (essentially for his prime years).
Here's a list of guys who had PPG seasons during that span:
Coffey, Cullen, Recchi, Brown, Francis, Stevens, Jagr, Murphy, Tocchet, Mullen, Nedved, Sandstrom...not to mention some talented youngsters like Straka and Naslund.
The Oilers may have been more stacked offensively (and were certainly the better team), but it's not as far off as people say.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
ok I will quote my own post to reiterate this
Wayne played with more good players during the prime of his career than did mario and the games that each of them played with said players shows that, I even deleted the Robitaille numbers even though Wayne played with him from ages 27 through 34 maybe not his prime but not far off
Wayne had 6 good seasons or more with those 4 very good to great players
Mario had 1.5 seasons with Recchi and Trottier, 2.5 with Mullen and Murphy 3.5 with coffey and 4.5 with Jagr
The entire notion that Gretzky's numbers are the result of the players around him is completely absurd.
The man scored 164 points as a 2nd year player and broke the single season scoring record on a horrible Oilers team where the second leading scorer had 75 points. Does that really sound like he needed help to be the greatest scorer of all time?
Almost every NHL player improves on his 2nd NHL season. Is it really a stretch to believe that Wayne would have hit the 200 point mark on ANY team? If it was just a product of his teammates, why did NO OTHER Oiler ever even come close to 200 points? It was all just the team, wasn't it?
The bottom line is, the greats score on any team, under any circumstance, with any teammates. That is why they are great, they flat out score.
Gretzky had the greatest career of any NHL player ever. He was better than Mario. End of story.
The man scored 164 points as a 2nd year player and broke the single season scoring record on a horrible Oilers team where the second leading scorer had 75 points. Does that really sound like he needed help to be the greatest scorer of all time?
Almost every NHL player improves on his 2nd NHL season. Is it really a stretch to believe that Wayne would have hit the 200 point mark on ANY team? If it was just a product of his teammates, why did NO OTHER Oiler ever even come close to 200 points? It was all just the team, wasn't it?
The bottom line is, the greats score on any team, under any circumstance, with any teammates. That is why they are great, they flat out score.
Gretzky had the greatest career of any NHL player ever. He was better than Mario. End of story.
Luigi Lemieux
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- Sep 26, 2003
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i'm not going to get into a mario/wayne debate, but saying mario benefitted from stacked teams just as much as wayne is totally untrue. when the penguins finally became good, mario started missing significant time. he missed pretty much all of the following seasons: '90-91, '93-94, '94-95. you all can dismiss clayton forrester's numbers if you want, but it does show as a fact that gretkzy had far more games with his all star cast than lemieux did with his.
it's hard to argue with all of gretzky's achievements, but there is a reason why there are people who prefer lemieux to him.
it's hard to argue with all of gretzky's achievements, but there is a reason why there are people who prefer lemieux to him.
Dark Metamorphosis said:
Because they're from Pittsburgh?
I kid, I kid.
My basic point was that too many people never give the penguins enough credit during Mario's prime when these discussions appear. It's always: "Gretzky had Kurri and Coffey, Lemieux had Brown". Both of them played with great players for the best years of their career. Lemieux basically played by himself for the first few, and last few seasons of his career, while Gretzky played on very shallow teams at the end in LA and NY.
Just listing the hall of famers each played with means nothing. There have been a lot of great offensive players who never quite had what it took to make the HOF. Doesn't mean they couldn't score though. I mean, why is Trottier on that list instead of Kevin Stevens? Imagine how many Hall Of Famers have gone through Detroit in the last 10 years. Does that take away from Yzerman?
Basically, it's not such a huge disparity that it makes so much of a difference. It's not like Wayne never had to be a one man team, or Mario never had a good winger in his life. Both of these guys can be compared to each other under these circumstances.
Dr Clayton Forrester said:
Considering Wayne never played on the same line as Messier, your numbers are rendered even more meaningless. Furthermore, Wayne suffered just as Mario did when he played with Stan Wier and Blair Mcdonald.
Even moreso, your post is again inaccurate since Coffey started with the Penguins in 87-88. That means Mario had to play 3 years with no help and what's interesting is, his numbers were worse or equivalent to Wayne's days with McDonald and Wier.
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