Yzerman was 3rd and then Pat in 4th (or 2nd if we take out Wayne and Mario) followed by
Moose (15 points behind Pat),
Oates 21 points behind Pat
Hawerchuck 30 points behind
Gilmour 54 points behind
Right off the bat I think everyone here realizes that Lafontaine's peak pales in comparison to Messier's and Gilmour's. Point totals be damned, he's starting behind those guys and Yzerman
as a hockey player.
Also, the way these numbers are framed gives a misleading impression of how highly Lafontaine was ranked in a given season.
1988 - 12th among centers in scoring. 7 centers got AS votes, Lafontaine did not. The centers who were ahead of him in scoring AND got AS votes were Lemieux, Gretzky, Savard, Yzerman, Stastny, Hawerchuk, Carson
1989 - 11th among centers in scoring. 4 centers got AS votes, Lafontaine was not one of them. Those in both categories were Lemieux, Gretzky, Yzerman, Nicholls.
1990 - 7th among centers in scoring. He finished behind Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier and Yzerman in AS voting, and was only slightly ahead of Turgeon.
1991 - 10th among centers in scoring. 9 centers got AS votes, Lafontaine was not one of them. Ahead of him in both areas were Gretzky, Oates, Sakic, Yzerman, Roenick, Cullen, Janney and Messier (I'm assuming Fleury was a mistake).
1992 - 10th among centers in scoring. 4 of them finished ahead of him in AS voting -- Messier, Lemieux, Gretzky and Roenick. Yzerman was just slightly behind.
1993 - 2nd among centers in scoring, behind Lemieux. He was the 2AS behind Mario as well, though just a hair ahead of Gilmour and we know how Gilmour performed that spring after the voting.
Outside of 1993 and to a lesser extent 1990, there were pretty easily half a dozen better centers in the league at any given time. It's not like Lafontaine contributed anything besides points, either, so we are looking at his area of specialty here and he only cracked the top-10 two times in his peak years.
And, importantly, he has virtually nothing to add outside this 6-year prime.
so to warp it up it's a bit untrue to call him the 6th best center over that time frame IMO,
Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Messier, or Gilmour. Which of these would you feel he surpassed?