I am not saying he didn't make things better, or even try new things himself. I am saying that who did you see do the cradle with the puck in the fluid motion as he is passing a defender like Lemieux? I'd show you a highlight of it, but if you saw Lemieux's career you can probably pick a dozen ones without even thinking of him doing that.
I never saw someone do that so effortlessly and with so much regularity until Lemieux. No one walked around defenseman like they were pylons quite like him.
I'm not entirely sure what it is your referring to without some clips Phil, and you may be talking about something else entirely, some other move that he executed that one could reasonably lay claim to or attribute as "a Patented Mario Lemieux move"?..... Could it be that because of his size & reach you were sort of "extra impressed" with his ability to do that? Because sure, absolutely, it was unusual for so big a guy to have hands like that, the ability to cradle a puck like it was attached to a silk string to his blade, glued to it. Generally you'd only see that with the smaller, craftier, fancy dangle types however, not entirely rare to also see with the bigger guys, even some of the Power Forwards including any number of 2 way Defensive Forwards actually.
Its a skill that many elite players possess, Puck Mastery 101, it really is part of the tool box though one that sadly seems to have been discarded somewhat. You can see many many examples of it throughout the history of the game. Howe with his patented one arm telescoping of his stick while holding off a checker with the other, cradling the puck on his backhand but on his forehand, weaving in on the goalie then roofing it. Jean Beliveau. Stan Mikita. Bobby Orr. Guy Lafluer & Gilbert Perrault. Gretzky... Yzerman. Datsyuk.... When were young & begin playing, manipulating the puck or ball during free-time, cradling the puck an art that like shooting & dekes worked on extensively, very enjoyable pastime, building confidence in the player, then when put into practice in-game successfully even more so, pushing the limits of ones skills in that art/craft even further. You watch a Lacrosse player freely cradling a ball, shinny players on a pond, a lot of puck cradling going on. Hockey version of Hacky Sack.
Puck carrying & those skills, arts & crafts like cradling, curling, using the boards etc is unfortunately discouraged in this day & age but absolutely, not 10-15-20 & certainly 30-50yrs ago we saw lots of it. I can tell you for sure cradling a beyond common occurrence and something goalies constantly faced from players coming in deep. Goalies were taught (or learned through error) to read the lay of the puck on the shooters stick on the forehand, where the puck was resting on the blade when players started getting really fancy, wrapping, curling, cradling, sliding it to the backhand momentarily & cradling some more or whatever.... like in a Shell Game, Slight of Hand Magic Trick.... miscues, hiding the puck, holding it & cradling the puck in an attempt to make you the goalie make the mistake of making the first move & committing yourself to what you think he's going to try on, what shot selection, what kind of a deke to the back or forehand & so on..... and yes, most certainly, Lemieux a regular Houdini in that regard.... and ya, I do see this modern era of BF Goalies falling for those once so obvious tricks, shooter cradling or just waiting..........holding the puck and stopping time, much to my disgust. Goalie committing early, down & out, badly embarrassed.
..... thats what really put Clint over the hedge..... mebbe I digress some?.... look, as Tommy Lee Jones said in No Country for Old Men... "you get older, mind wanders sometimes".... point in there somewhere... sometimes no point at all, just senseless... Carry on...
