Ok, so you are saying a 21 year old Gretzky would score 50 goals less if playing today? If that is true, then Mike Bossy would only score 10 goals today….
Peak/Prime Lemieux vs. Gretzky - Adjusted
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Morgoth Bauglir
Master Of The Fates Of Arda
Given the disparity here (and on the season) it makes me wonder if the league was targeting the Oilers for some reason.
Uncle Rotter
Registered User
The NHL changed the rule ending 4-on-4 hockey around this time (maybe a year earlier) just because of the Oilers.
Morgoth Bauglir
Master Of The Fates Of Arda
True, I'm just wondering if they'd have been so brazen as to use the officials to tilt the playing field against them as opposed to changing the rules to their disadvantage.
Mike has different skillset, and is more dependable of his center but would be a sniper still.Likely be 35-50 goalscorer for 7-8 year straight if playing with a center like Nicklas Backstrom.
To me, the adjustment greztky allegedly took by becoming more a passer by 1991 season,he would have no choice to took it to dominate
the league as a point getter.
And again, i still think a prime Gretzky would get like 40g 100a on his best kinda balanced year. I think his speed, deking ability, wrister, slapper, size, strenght werent enough to overcame the new nhl defence, size, goalies ...
Btw im sorry for my bad english, im trying
Killion
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And again, i still think a prime Gretzky would get like 40g 100a on his best kinda balanced year. I think his speed, deking ability, wrister, slapper, size, strenght werent enough to overcame the new nhl defence, size, goalies ...
Btw im sorry for my bad english, im trying
... quite alright, your doing very well..... well enough to be perfectly understood.
And as such, Im afraid I disagree with you. A talent like Gretzky, he would have found a way, upped his game. No, not into the stratospheres of the high-scoring 80's era, but certainly he would I think be scoring more than 50, 60 goals at peak.
Mike has different skillset, and is more dependable of his center but would be a sniper still.Likely be 35-50 goalscorer for 7-8 year straight if playing with a center like Nicklas Backstrom.
To me, the adjustment greztky allegedly took by becoming more a passer by 1991 season,he would have no choice to took it to dominate
the league as a point getter.
And again, i still think a prime Gretzky would get like 40g 100a on his best kinda balanced year. I think his speed, deking ability, wrister, slapper, size, strenght werent enough to overcame the new nhl defence, size, goalies ...
Btw im sorry for my bad english, im trying
I can understand why you might think that, but by 91 Gretzky was already a 12 year vet. How many people are still elite goal scorers 12 years into their careers? Including his year in the WHA, it was his 13th year of pro hockey. As I mentioned earlier, Gretzky has more 40+, 50+, 60+, 70+, 80+ goal seasons ever, not to mention the only 90+ goal season. He's tied with Bossy at 50+, but if it weren't for an injury he was on pace to beat Bossy there as well. Gretzky has some of the greatest longevity as an elite goal scorer of all time. No one has more 40+ goal seasons than him.
The reason it looks like he had trouble adjusting was because of the back injury that nearly ended his career combined with the fact that he was getting old and had played a lot of hockey by then. But honestly - look at SV% and goals/game scored averages from 91-94. They're a little lower than the late 80's, but not by much. There were no significant improvements in goaltending really around 91 or 92 that would account for Gretzky's sudden drop in goal scoring ability. It had nothing to do with changes in the league - Gretzky suffered a major injury that nearly ended his career. And he was getting old.
Again, no one is saying he'd still get 92 goals in today's game. But to think that he'd somehow experience a 60% drop from his best seasons when league scoring rates have only dropped by half that would require something really specific to only Gretzky. Considering he holds every major goal scoring record there is, I think it isn't unreasonable to think he'd be capable of winning at least 1 Richard.
Nice post, i totally get what u r saying. I cant find the average time on ice in the early 80s but I remember top forward used to play every night 25 min with alot of pp sometime 28 min. (on nhl.com the 97-98 season Adam Oates averaged 24 min a game and grandpa gretzky 21min, last year crosby averaged 21min the most for the centers), Im pretty sure young Wayne was playing 24+ min a night (when he was owning my Habs i tought he was always on the ****ing ice
)My earlier argument was his skillset(speed,wrister,slapper,size...) against the new nhl reality (goalies, defence,size, speed ...) would oblige him to be more like an EPIC Joe thornton like player to succeed without getting hurt and to maximize productivity .Adding the fact that ALL nhl teams now pretty much roll with 4 lines he would have tougher time to get more chance to produce.
Im not stubborn and read carefully ur argument so I'll change my statement: Wayne would get around 50g 100a on his best goal scoring season but still wont get the Richard trophy because some scrub winger on his team would win it
.
Sidney the Kidney
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... quite alright, your doing very well..... well enough to be perfectly understood.
And as such, Im afraid I disagree with you. A talent like Gretzky, he would have found a way, upped his game. No, not into the stratospheres of the high-scoring 80's era, but certainly he would I think be scoring more than 50, 60 goals at peak.
Re: the bolded, that's exactly how I see it.
I mentioned Crosby as an example earlier of someone who doesn't have a particularly overpowering shot and relies on "quantity of shots" rather than quality of shots who actually scored 51 goals and who paced for 64 goals. If Crosby, with a similarly underwhelming shot power, could score 50+, I just don't believe for a second that Gretzky, at his absolute peak, couldn't score 60+ at some point.
Mario was on pace to have a better scoring year than Wayne ever had in 92-93 and still ended with 69 goals in 60 games.
His 85 goal season was in 76 games played.
I'll say it again...
Crosby was stronger before he entered the league than Gretzky ever was during his career
Crosby at 18...
And Gretzky (age unknown)...
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KMart27
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Gretzky and Lemieux each played 6 game 7's. Gretzky had 12 points and Lemieux had 6 points.
BraveCanadian
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A very good demonstration of how little strength determines effectiveness as a hockey player.
Malkin is a beanpole too. Apparently he is pretty good though?
Uncle Rotter
Registered User
byrath
Registered User
I don't have any stats to back it up, but it always seems that the team with the lead gets the shaft on penalty calls. 80s Oilers had a lot of leads, and big ones too. Why give the Oilers a PP when they already have a 3 or 4 goal lead? The bigger the blowout, the greater chance of fisticuffs or a brawl. Refs don't want to deal with that, they want the lopsided game to end so they can have pizza and beer.
Morgoth Bauglir
Master Of The Fates Of Arda
I don't have any stats to back it up, but it always seems that the team with the lead gets the shaft on penalty calls. 80s Oilers had a lot of leads, and big ones too. Why give the Oilers a PP when they already have a 3 or 4 goal lead? The bigger the blowout, the greater chance of fisticuffs or a brawl. Refs don't want to deal with that, they want the lopsided game to end so they can have pizza and beer.
Good point
Although, I'm wondering if that's a phenomenon that started in the '80s. I just checked the '76-'77 Canadiens and their PPOs where pretty even.
Iain Fyffe
Hockey fact-checker
Or it could just be a score effect. Teams with the lead are more likely to play defensively, which means the opponents will have the puck more often, which means the team in the lead will take more penalties. Most penalties come when your team does not have possession of the puck.Why give the Oilers a PP when they already have a 3 or 4 goal lead? The bigger the blowout, the greater chance of fisticuffs or a brawl. Refs don't want to deal with that, they want the lopsided game to end so they can have pizza and beer.
That makes sense in theory, but I do not believe it accurately describes what happened with the Oilers, as seen in any of the boxscores posted by Uncle Rotter.
BraveCanadian
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Iain Fyffe
Hockey fact-checker
And? Once again, my point is that raw numbers do not determine "better" because they ignore context. 1992/93 had a context of an unusually high number of players scoring very high numbers of goals.
True, it may not apply to the Oilers specifically. However, the Oilers did tend to give up shots than they took.
If we were to run a scientific experient. Complete with Time machines, genetic cloning and NHL dictatorship and all that fun stuff. Said expirement would have:
Gretzky and Lemieux at their absolute peak (pick whatever age that is for either).
0 injuries sustained - they play full season at full health
SAME TEAM - SAME Linemate, same opposition, etc
SAME year (so, run the expriement with Gretzky, use time machine and swap him for Lemieux and redo)
With everything else constant. I would expect Mario Lemieux to outscore (points, not just goals) Gretzky. I'm fairly confident too that a lot of the posters on this thread who are arguing Gretzky > Lemieux would also pick Lemieux above Gretzky. But it's close.
If you look at actual facts though - peak, prime, career - Gretzky is ahead of Lemieux in every category. Not by a lot, but definately ahead. And it's a testament both to Lemieux's bad luck (injuries, etc), but also to Gretzky's abilitiy to overcome the odds and compete and be the best no matter what, so more power to him.
Gretzky and Lemieux at their absolute peak (pick whatever age that is for either).
0 injuries sustained - they play full season at full health
SAME TEAM - SAME Linemate, same opposition, etc
SAME year (so, run the expriement with Gretzky, use time machine and swap him for Lemieux and redo)
With everything else constant. I would expect Mario Lemieux to outscore (points, not just goals) Gretzky. I'm fairly confident too that a lot of the posters on this thread who are arguing Gretzky > Lemieux would also pick Lemieux above Gretzky. But it's close.
If you look at actual facts though - peak, prime, career - Gretzky is ahead of Lemieux in every category. Not by a lot, but definately ahead. And it's a testament both to Lemieux's bad luck (injuries, etc), but also to Gretzky's abilitiy to overcome the odds and compete and be the best no matter what, so more power to him.
This isn't a full season, but this is playing on the same team -- sometimes on the same line -- with (and against) the best players in the world:
Amazing highlights, aren't they? Gretzky would have tied Lemieux for the tournament scoring title with his assists alone if he had not scored a single goal (of course that didn't happen, and Gretz won the Canada Cup scoring title just as he always did in his prime by scoring some goals). And if you look at the one game where Gretz and Mario played on the same line (game 2 vs Russia), Gretz outscores him 5 points to 3 (all 3 of Lemieux's points were goals assisted by Gretzky).
