Even though I agree Gretzky had the greater career, do you honestly think a supporting offensive cast of Quinn, Cunneyworth, Ruskowski, and Bodger is remotely comparable to Messier, Kurri, Anderson, and Coffey?
Lemieux's numbers exploded when the Pens finally got him someone to play with in Coffey.
It's true that Gretzky's team (from 1980 to 1987 or so) was much better constructed and smartly developed than the Eddie Johnston (lol!) Penguins of Mario's first five or so seasons.
But there are simple points of comparison, if team-strength is your big thing:
1) Compare Wayne's first 2 NHL seasons to Mario's first 2 NHL seasons
These are
very comparable in terms of team strength. In fact, I think the Pens were stronger than Edmonton in each player's first two seasons, with a comparable or better supporting cast (remember the Oilers entered the NHL in 1979 with Gretzky and basically nothing else). Pens had a 50-goal scorer (Bullard), and some established players, albeit not a lot of great ones. So, the numbers comparison:
Wayne
159GP: 106G + 195A = 301 PTS (+55)
NHL scoring rank = 1st PTS, 1st PPG
ES/SH points = 206
Mario
152 GP: 91G + 150A = 241 PTS (-41)
NHL scoring rank = 4th PTS, 4th PPG
ES/SH points = 142
Bear in mind the size difference between Gretzky and Lemieux, and that Lemieux was slightly older than Gretzky in these two seasons. And overall scoring levels were higher in Mario's first two seasons than Wayne's first two seasons (Mario was also told by his coach, in 1984, that he didn't have to play any defense). So, if Mario was Wayne's equal in on-ice performance, why doesn't this show up in the first two seasons? 60 more points scored by Gretzky is a lot. But what's really notable is how Wayne was overall succeeding, and Mario getting destroyed, at even strength. Mario has all the evident advantages here (age, size, team, expectations [none], scoring levels) and comes out WAY behind.
2) Compare Wayne's "stacked team" seasons to Mario's "stacked team" seasons
Of course, one can simply argue that Lemieux peaked later than Gretzky, so the first two seasons comparison isn't fair to Mario (even though Gretzky hadn't peaked in his first two seasons, either). Right, so then let's compare their seasons when they were each on "stacked" teams, rich in high-level players, and when both were in their primes (the sample size is larger for Wayne, which, again, should favor Mario in this comparison).
There's some subjectivity in which seasons/teams are fair game for comparison, but I'll try:
-- For Gretzky, let's take 1981-82 all the way through 1987-88. For six of these seven seasons, Gretzky is playing with Messier (though they rarely combined for goals), Kurri, Anderson, and Coffey -- all future Hall of Famers. Kurri and Coffey hadn't yet reached their peaks in 1981-82, but they were good by then. He also also had two seasons with Tikkanen on his line, two seasons with Linseman as teammate, etc.
-- For Lemieux, I'm not sure I should include 1988-89 or not. I guess I will: the Cup-era supporting cast wasn't in place yet, but it's one of Mario's most dominant seasons and the Pens scored a lot of goals, and had four 90+ point scorers. So, we'll take that season and extend it all the way to 1995-96. (Of course, Mario missed much of 1993-94, and all of 1995.) In these six or seven seasons, Mario skated with Jagr (five seasons), Stevens (five seasons as impact player), Coffey (three seasons), Recchi (three-and-half seasons), Murphy (four seasons), Mullen (four seasons), Francis (four seasons), Tocchet (two seasons), and Nedved / Sandstrom / Zubov (about one season each).
Wayne
537GP: 477G + 891A = 1368 PTS (+498)
NHL scoring rank = 1st PTS (73% higher than the #2 guy), 1st PPG (almost 1.00 PPG over the #2 guy)
Hockey Ref. "adjusted" points = 2.04 PPG
Mario
377 GP: 348G + 508A = 856 PTS (+121)
NHL scoring rank = 2nd PTS (to Gretzky), 1st PPG (almost 0.6 over the #2, Gretzky, and 0.83 over the #3, Yzerman)
Hockey Ref. "adjusted" points = 1.97 PPG
So, again, though Lemieux is, to put it mildly, now doing extremely well in all areas, Gretzky's numbers are still more impressive. And, again, his even strength numbers are far more impressive. (If we projected these peak years of Lemieux's to Gretzky's 537 games, he'd come out to around +172, a whopping -226 compared to Wayne.) Then, add in consistency (Lemieux missed a bunch of games and a whole season), international hockey (Gretzky led four Canada-Cups in a row in scoring), long playoff runs (five for Wayne in this period, two for Mario), etc., etc.
The one area in which Lemieux has a clear advantage over Gretzky, scoring-wise, is production past age 30 (or, Gretzky's production after September 1991). But even here, it's not as big a difference as it at first appears: In the season in which Lemieux was 31, his production fell off by about 35-40 points from the year before, a similar drop as Gretzky from 1990-91 (age 29-30) to 1991-92 (age 30-31). Of course, in Lemieux's case, there's the remarkable 'comeback' in late 2000 that led to incredible run... but, to temper it a bit, it was only 43 games. Other than that, we never saw him regain the full-season form he had up to spring 1996 (aged 30).
Lemieux's numbers exploded when the Pens finally got him someone to play with in Coffey.
Yes and no. Actually, in 1987-88, Lemieux had already scored 37 points in 18 games before Coffey arrived. So, his pace after Coffey didn't change, that season.
Both of these players could score 140 to 160 points with average to garbage-level teammates in their primes, but I think one slight difference between them is that I think Lemieux could do more by himself, whereas Gretzky could do more with teammates in general. As I think I pointed out earlier in the thread, Mario's production did
not increase as the Pens were getting better players in 1990-91 or 1991-92 (or 1993-94). In fact, it decreased from 1988-89 and even 1987-88. Basically, Lemieux was going to put up big numbers regardless of who he was playing with because he was such a powerful individual player at his peak. Gretzky, by contrast, wasn't the kind of player who beat you by one-on-one moves and doing it alone. But Gretzky could make all of his teammates on the ice (Randy Gregg, Bob Kudelski) into very dangerous players because he could somewhat control the pace and the movement of the 5-man flows on the ice.
I think this is why Gretzky's even-strength numbers are so much better than Lemieux's not only in the first two seasons, but when each played on stacked teams. When Gretzky was on the ice (in his prime, and maybe the first three years in L.A.), all the Oilers / Kings on the ice became opportunistic scorers and were dangerous players, but I think when Lemieux was on the ice, he himself was mainly the threat, alone. (I'm not saying that Lemieux didn't elevate linemates and so on -- see Warren Young and Rob Brown -- but merely that Gretzky's impact in this regard was greater and more consistent, regardless of who he was on the ice with.)
Mario's game was different by 1996-97 and especially after his late 2000 comeback. He was slower, of course, and couldn't do as much by himself. His advantage over Gretzky at a comparable age (35, 36) was that he came back to play with the best player (Jagr) in the NHL at that moment (Gretzky was stuck with Bruce Driver in New York at that age).