Pavel Bure's place among NHL's all-time greatest goal scorers

[RECsGuy*]

NHL: 766 GP - 472 G - 377 A - 849 PTS

50.53 goals per 82 games

Olympics: 12 GP - 11 G - 1 A - 12 PTS

I threw in the Olympic numbers since those totals came in Winter Games that NHLers were permitted to participate.

So, who's ahead of him?

Click to read more...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Off the top of my head, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy, Maurice Richard, Charlie Conacher, Phil Esposito and Alexander Ovechkin are/were all better.

Brett Hull, Teemu Selanne, Bill Cook, Cy Denneny are all in the conversation too. Joe Malone if you include pre-HL guys. I probably forgot some.

Here are some useful threads:

http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=663302
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=614595

 

[RabbinsDuck]

His name gets thrown in with "one of the greatest pure goal scorers of all-time" an awful lot, and if by "pure" you mean "couldn't do much else" I suppose he might be, but in terms of actual goal-scoring prowess, I'm not even sure if he is even Top 10. Still very good and easily top 20 though.

 

[Mayor Bee]

It's weird in retrospect, but I don't think Bure scored many goals from outside of 10 feet from the net. He'd prefer to deke the goalie out of his jock, or get loose near the net, but there weren't many wristers from 25 feet or anything else.

 

[Tavaresmagicalplay*]

Top 10, not top 5.

 

[Hardyvan123]

His name gets thrown in with "one of the greatest pure goal scorers of all-time" an awful lot, and if by "pure" you mean "couldn't do much else" I suppose he might be, but in terms of actual goal-scoring prowess, I'm not even sure if he is even Top 10. Still very good and easily top 20 though.

Injuries and playing one dimensional hockey for teams that were not all that great certainly hurt Bure.

He is 6th all time in GPG for what it's worth.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/leaders/goals_per_game_career.html

Depending on how peak versus career are weighted by people I can see Bure as a top 20 for sure and maybe even around 10.

He is part of the BIG 3 group of "what if they had not been injured? How great could they have been?" from the end of the 20th century along with Forsberg and Lindros.

 

[Freakshow]

Definately top five, look at the names on this list of goals per game in the history of the NHL.

Regular season goals per game
Minimum 200 goals

Mike Bossy, 0.762
Cy Denneny, 0.756
Mario Lemieux, 0.754
Babe Dye, 0.742
Alexander Ovechkin, 0.679
Pavel Bure, 0.623
Wayne Gretzky, 0.601
Brett Hull, 0.584
Bobby Hull, 0.574
Tim Kerr, 0.565

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Definately top five, look at the names on this list of goals per game in the history of the NHL.

Regular season goals per game
Minimum 200 goals

Mike Bossy, 0.762
Cy Denneny, 0.756
Mario Lemieux, 0.754
Babe Dye, 0.742
Alexander Ovechkin, 0.679
Pavel Bure, 0.623
Wayne Gretzky, 0.601
Brett Hull, 0.584
Bobby Hull, 0.574
Tim Kerr, 0.565

This is really a brutal use of stats, as it immediately discounts players who played during the Original 6 era (except Bobby Hull who that freaking amazing), when scoring was much lower due to the defensive systems that every team played Or are we really supposed to believe that only one of the best goal scorers of all time played between 1930 and 1980 (9th at that)?

Even worse, career goals per game penalizes players like Gretzky and Howe, who played for a long time after their respective primes, while giving extra credit to guys like Bossy and Bure who retired before declining.

 

[Fredrik_71]

How about trying to look at the best gpg ratio during their peak years. E.g. the best 5 years. Bure played in the NHL between the age of 20-30. This boost his gpg ratio. The same can be said about Mike Bossy.

Gretzkys gpg ratio from 1981-1986 was 0,95 during the regular season!

/Cheers

Edit: TheDevilMadeMe got me by a nanosec

 

[seventieslord]

TDMM, thanks for posting my thread.

my "consistency" studies are just a starting point for analysis, really, but as you can see, Bure's three seasons in the top-2 in goals are not as exclusive as you might think. He is one of 25 players to have done this.

His number of top-5 seasons is unique to 29 players, and his number of top-10 seasons is unique to a whopping 73.

Could have been on the edge of the top-10. In terms of accomplishment? Not top-20, IMO.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

TDMM, thanks for posting my thread.

my "consistency" studies are just a starting point for analysis, really, but as you can see, Bure's three seasons in the top-2 in goals are not as exclusive as you might think. He is one of 25 players to have done this.

His number of top-5 seasons is unique to 29 players, and his number of top-10 seasons is unique to a whopping 73.

Could have been on the edge of the top-10. In terms of accomplishment? Not top-20, IMO.

i hear what you're saying and i appreciate the work you did in the consistency thread. obviously bure's consistency isn't great, and his longevity was non-existent. but it seems disingenuous to claim that bure's three seasons in the top 2 is not that exclusive when really it's three seasons in the top 1.

that puts him in the company of: conacher, cook, richard, howe, hull, esposito, gretzky, hull, and selanne. i don't think bure's a top 10 scorer all-time, but by your metric he is one of only ten guys to have done this.

 

[seventieslord]

i hear what you're saying and i appreciate the work you did in the consistency thread. obviously bure's consistency isn't great, and his longevity was non-existent. but it seems disingenuous to claim that bure's three seasons in the top 2 is not that exclusive when really it's three seasons in the top 1.

that puts him in the company of: conacher, cook, richard, howe, hull, esposito, gretzky, hull, and selanne. i don't think bure's a top 10 scorer all-time, but by your metric he is one of only ten guys to have done this.

Fair enough. And that is the only metric that attempts to view all eras equally, that would make him a top-10 all-time goal scorer. As you can see, the further down the resumes you look, the less impressive he looks and the more impressive others look.

 

[Starchild74]

NHL: 766 GP - 472 G - 377 A - 849 PTS

50.53 goals per 82 games

Olympics: 12 GP - 11 G - 1 A - 12 PTS

I threw in the Olympic numbers since those totals came in Winter Games that NHLers were permitted to participate.

So, who's ahead of him?

Not to be picky or anything but the stats are a little off. I mean you have combined his regular season and playoff stats

NHL Regular season 702gp 437g 342a 779pts

NHL Playoffs 64gp 35g 35a 70pts


It is important to me anyway to seperate regular season and playoff stats

I loved watching Bure and he became my favourite players after the Stanley Cup run of 1994. Especially when he threw the elbow on I believe it was Shane Churla against the Stars. He was the the first skilled Russian playerthat I saw really to show that he would not take cheap shots from others and would give it back he was tough and gritty

As much as I liked him and want to put him in the top 10 of all time for goal scoring or even maybe the top 20. I find it hard to do this. WIthout making a list of the top scorers ever it is just that as great as he was and we all pretty much know he would have been even better without the injuries. He just didn't have that great of a career when compared to others because of his injuries

However I will make slight case for Bure. Only because I like him so much. Here are the top 10 goal scorers from 1991-92 Bure rookie year and 2002-03 his last

Hull 877gp 484g
Jagr 870gp 479
Shanahan 905 445gp
Bondra 853gp 439g
Bure 702gp 437g
Selanne 801gp 436g
Sundin 925gp 411
Mogilny 792gp 408g
Sakic 844gp 399g
Tkachuk 781gp 398g

Every player ahead of him played at least an extra 152 games compared to Bure. This is just a sample size for a lot of the players went on to continue scoring after this 12yr span

Now if you take the players ahead of him during this period and see how they performed in their first 702gp. Or the best I could figure out anyway here is what they look like

Hull 735gp 527g
Jagr 725gp 387g
Shanahan 713gp 288g
Bondra 754gp 382g
Selanne 719gp 375g

Only Brett Hull scored more then Bure of those guys in 702 games.

During the years Bure played he was one of the best goal scorers in the game. He was also one of the top skilled goal scorers in the game as well. Alot of his goals were amazing

So the problem is for example let's compare him to Selanne for a sec. It could be argued that Bure was better then Selanne during this time period when it comes to goal scoring. However Selanne continued to keep scoring at a very decent pace. So who is the better goal scorer the one who was great for a short period of time or one that was great for a short period of time but also good for a very long time.

I guess it depends on the person and what is more important.

Playoffs wise Pavel Bure put up some really good numbers and his goals per game didn't drop by much really. I think if you take what Bure did in the playoffs it shows that he was able to play at the same level all the time and when it mattered the most he performed realy well despite never winning the cup. However in 1994 he did score 16 goals

As for the Olympics He scored 9 goals in the 1997-98 Olympics. That is also pretty impressive

No matter what anyone might say or where they rank him. One thing is for sure. When Pavel Bure was healthy he was one of the few players that was unstoppable. I rank him higher then probably most on here but would still find it hard to say for sure he is a top 10 or top 20 for the greatest all time goal scorers ever. Of course I say this without making a list

 

[Infinite Vision*]

Not to be picky or anything but the stats are a little off. I mean you have combined his regular season and playoff stats

NHL Regular season 702gp 437g 342a 779pts

NHL Playoffs 64gp 35g 35a 70pts


It is important to me anyway to seperate regular season and playoff stats

I loved watching Bure and he became my favourite players after the Stanley Cup run of 1994. Especially when he threw the elbow on I believe it was Shane Churla against the Stars. He was the the first skilled Russian playerthat I saw really to show that he would not take cheap shots from others and would give it back he was tough and gritty

As much as I liked him and want to put him in the top 10 of all time for goal scoring or even maybe the top 20. I find it hard to do this. WIthout making a list of the top scorers ever it is just that as great as he was and we all pretty much know he would have been even better without the injuries. He just didn't have that great of a career when compared to others because of his injuries

However I will make slight case for Bure. Only because I like him so much. Here are the top 10 goal scorers from 1991-92 Bure rookie year and 2002-03 his last

Hull 877gp 484g
Jagr 870gp 479
Shanahan 905 445gp
Bondra 853gp 439g
Bure 702gp 437g
Selanne 801gp 436g
Sundin 925gp 411
Mogilny 792gp 408g
Sakic 844gp 399g
Tkachuk 781gp 398g
Every player ahead of him played at least an extra 152 games compared to Bure. This is just a sample size for a lot of the players went on to continue scoring after this 12yr span

Now if you take the players ahead of him during this period and see how they performed in their first 702gp. Or the best I could figure out anyway here is what they look like

Hull 735gp 527g
Jagr 725gp 387g
Shanahan 713gp 288g
Bondra 754gp 382g
Selanne 719gp 375g

Only Brett Hull scored more then Bure of those guys in 702 games.
During the years Bure played he was one of the best goal scorers in the game. He was also one of the top skilled goal scorers in the game as well. Alot of his goals were amazing

So the problem is for example let's compare him to Selanne for a sec. It could be argued that Bure was better then Selanne during this time period when it comes to goal scoring. However Selanne continued to keep scoring at a very decent pace. So who is the better goal scorer the one who was great for a short period of time or one that was great for a short period of time but also good for a very long time.

I guess it depends on the person and what is more important.

Playoffs wise Pavel Bure put up some really good numbers and his goals per game didn't drop by much really. I think if you take what Bure did in the playoffs it shows that he was able to play at the same level all the time and when it mattered the most he performed realy well despite never winning the cup. However in 1994 he did score 16 goals

As for the Olympics He scored 9 goals in the 1997-98 Olympics. That is also pretty impressive

No matter what anyone might say or where they rank him. One thing is for sure. When Pavel Bure was healthy he was one of the few players that was unstoppable. I rank him higher then probably most on here but would still find it hard to say for sure he is a top 10 or top 20 for the greatest all time goal scorers ever. Of course I say this without making a list

Wait a minute here, if he was the best goal scorer over a 12 year period, and the NHL itself is not even 100 years old, how could he not even be a top 20 goal scorer of all time?

Not to mention, he's lead the NHL in goals 3 times, once by a fairly decent margin, and has also led the playoffs in goals.

Also Bure was a better goal scorer than Brett Hull IMO. The only reason he has the edge on Bure in goals there is because he was centered by a top 5 playmaker of all time during his prime in high scoring seasons Bure never saw in his prime. Hull had the definite edge when it comes to linemates and higher scoring seasons. Not saying it wasn't extremely close between them, but taking everything into context Bure was a bit better.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Also Bure was a better goal scorer than Brett Hull IMO. The only reason he has the edge on Bure in goals there is because he was centered by a top 5 playmaker of all time during his prime in high scoring seasons Bure never saw in his prime. Hull had the definite edge when it comes to linemates and higher scoring seasons. Not saying it wasn't extremely close between them, but taking everything into context Bure was a bit better.

Bure's situation in Florida was truly unique and makes him hard to rate as a goal scorer in an all-time context.

On the one hand, he did want he did (lead the league in goals by decisive margins twice in a row, one of them a pretty huge margin) without any help from his teammates (more goals than a teammate had points, really?)

On the other hand, the fact that he was a "one man show" allowed him to cherrypick to his heart's content and gave him more ice time than most top pairing defensemen!

So it's hard to say how much he was hurt and how much he was helped in his situation.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Bure's situation in Florida was truly unique and makes him hard to rate as a goal scorer in an all-time context.

On the one hand, he did want he did (lead the league in goals by decisive margins twice in a row, one of them a pretty huge margin) without any help from his teammates (more goals than a teammate had points, really?)

On the other hand, the fact that he was a "one man show" allowed him to cherrypick to his heart's content and gave him more ice time than most top pairing defensemen!

So it's hard to say how much he was hurt and how much he was helped in his situation.

He scored 58 goals in a year that 96 points led the league in scoring. He was a +25 which was the highest on the Panthers that year.

The next season he scored 59 goals and the 2nd leading goal scorer on his team had 14. Though he was a -2, there were only 2 plus players on that team.

At least on the ice, it would seem that he was a big help.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

He scored 58 goals in a year that 96 points led the league in scoring. He was a +25 which was the highest on the Panthers that year.

The next season he scored 59 goals and the 2nd leading goal scorer on his team had 14. Though he was a -2, there were only 2 plus players on that team.

At least on the ice, it would seem that he was a big help.

Yeah. I was more commenting on whether his unique situation helped or hurt his personal stats (which is basically what is being compared in this thread).

 

[sr edler]

his stats are pretty good for a player who refused to score garbage goals

pavel datsyuk wouldn't have a single move in his arsenal if it wasn't for pavel bure

no he isn't the best goal scorer ever or even top 5 but he's up there in the top 15

 

[CHGoalie27]

What with people naming guys they've never seen, not even once in a replayed game?

I'm pretty sure Pavel Bure is a top 5 all time GOAL SCORER. I'VE SEEN HIM.
One man show, in no need of high talent support to keep his stats up.(unlike everyone except Ovechkin)
My top 5 Ovechkin, Bure, Bossy, Lemieux, Gretzky..in no order.

Original 6 era shouldn't even be compared, not only because 99% of you phonies never seen em...but because it was basically a completely different sport save the ice, skates, and sticks.


I wonder how Pavel would've done against the 1980s goalies

 

[jepjepjoo]

Now if you take the players ahead of him during this period and see how they performed in their first 702gp. Or the best I could figure out anyway here is what they look like

Hull 735gp 527g
Jagr 725gp 387g
Shanahan 713gp 288g
Bondra 754gp 382g
Selanne 719gp 375g

Only Brett Hull scored more then Bure of those guys in 702 games.

And here are the real numbers for what its worth:


Hull 702gp 504g
Bure 702gp 437g
Selanne 702gp 404g (how the heck did you get 375g in 719gp?)
Jagr 702gp 378g
Bondra 702gp 348g
Shanahan 702gp 332g

 

[seventieslord]

Original 6 era shouldn't even be compared, not only because 99% of you phonies never seen em...but because it was basically a completely different sport save the ice, skates, and sticks.

oh, sorry. We'll try to only talk about players from 1980 and later now. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[jepjepjoo]

Yeah. I was more commenting on whether his unique situation helped or hurt his personal stats (which is basically what is being compared in this thread).

One thing to consider is certainly his ice time he played 26:52 per game and got 5:48 pp time per game.

Normally a first liner plays about 20-22 minutes per game so 21 minutes per game adds up to 1722 minutes.

26:52 per game adds up to 2203 per season.

(2203-1722)/21+82=104.905 which basically means that Bure had the ice time worth of 105 games of a typical first line star.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

What with people naming guys they've never seen, not even once in a replayed game?

I'm pretty sure Pavel Bure is a top 5 all time GOAL SCORER. I'VE SEEN HIM.

So basically, you are sure that the best goal scorers of all time all happened to play after you started watching hockey? How self-centered and arrogant!

Original 6 era shouldn't even be compared, not only because 99% of you phonies never seen em...but because it was basically a completely different sport save the ice, skates, and sticks.

I guess someone forgot to tell Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, etc, to retire in 1967.

I wonder how Pavel would've done against the 1980s goalies

Better than he did against 1990s goalies and their equipment, that is for sure. But you aren't telling us what we don't already know.

 

[Starchild74]

And here are the real numbers for what its worth:


Hull 702gp 504g
Bure 702gp 437g
Selanne 702gp 404g (how the heck did you get 375g in 719gp?)
Jagr 702gp 378g
Bondra 702gp 348g
Shanahan 702gp 332g

Forgot to add the 29 goals in 2001-2002 my bad

 

[jepjepjoo]

Forgot to add the 29 goals in 2001-2002 my bad

It still wouldn't add up since he has 408g in 719 games.