Bure wasn’t better than Jagr but he was better than Graves.
Also, Ovechkin’s Hart in the lockout season is relatively weak. Bure’s 93–94 and 99–00 are better.
The only way this is close is if you remove Ovechkin's best three years from the picture completely and you could make an argument that Ovechkin's resume is still more impressive than Bure's.
Based on the analytical method that Zuluss has designed, I can not justify Bure's 1993-94 season being better than Ovechkin's peak. I think to try to make such a justification would be to lose focus of Bure's peak, which I believe is clearly defined as 1997-98 to 2000-01.
In order for Bure's % lead to have been the same in 1993-94 as it was in 1999-00, Bure would have needed to score 76 goals (76/46 = 61%).
The problem with "some of" is you could stretch certain point-scoring streaks or goal-scoring streaks from any season and make an argument about what that streak would have looked like. What we're dealing with are full, measurable seasons. If Teemu had a full season on par with Gretzky, then it might be worth comparing. Bure had 35 goals in 28 games in 2000-01; stretched over an 82-game season, that's a 102-goal season in the Dead Puck Era. It never happened; the streak can only be taken into consideration for what it represents -- part of a season.
Circumstances would have to be
that much better for him to have had a 76-goal season, and even that would only have matched his 1999-00 season in terms of goal-scoring dominance. He already has a 61% lead season and a few other seasons in the 44%+ category, so let's talk about those. His 1997-98 season was, by all accounts, his second-best season -- he was a Lester B. Pearson Award finalist.
Scoring was higher in the early 1990s than it was in the late 1990s. Using those metrics, one can see that Teemu Selanne's 1997-98 season was worlds ahead of his 1992-93 season where the 10th-placed goal-scoring finish was 54 goals.
One, similarly, would have to stretch the imagination to consider Bure the better point scorer than Ovechkin. Even though Bure played on a much lesser team, the difference between the two in terms of points at their peak is significant enough that we would have to debate whether Bure could match Ovechkin's peak point total with better circumstances before we could even dare talk about whether he could surpass those totals. Ovechkin achieved those numbers, so Ovechkin should receive the right of consideration as the better point scorer.
The only argument one could make about Bure's peak is that he was the better goal scorer at his peak compared to Ovechkin. The metrics provide a sound argument that he was the best goal scorer of his generation -- a three-year period of elite dominance over his peers, and a higher peak than Selanne, Jagr, and other high-end players of his generation. His peak period, in terms of goal-scoring % leads, is
very similar to Ovechkin's -- close enough that one could argue that circumstantial evidence could have significant implications. The raw numbers show are very similar.
Ovechkin:
63-61-52-52-50-44-43-30-15-6
Bure:
61-55-48-27-10
One could, thus, very reasonably argue based on circumstances that his peak ability as a goal scorer was higher than Ovechkin.
However, that is the
only argument that one can make that could rule in Bure's favor.