I don't think it's unreasonable to make a case that Lemieux was better offensively than peak Howe. But even if he was, his lead over Howe would certainly be much smaller than Crosby's offensive lead over Toews. You know what Howe's best seasons were relative to his peers and you know what Toews' best seasons were relative to his peers. It's not close.
IMO you have to at least rate Howe on par with Lemieux or at the very least close to him when you compare their overall peak play (offensive play plus everything else) even if you rate Lemieux the better offensive player. Howe obviously makes up a lot of ground with his all-around game and the difference offensively is nowhere near as large as Crosby vs Toews.
Why don't you go ahead and tell us specifically what context is missed or not used properly by your opponents?
I wasn't saying Toews is to Crosby what Howe is to Lemieux. I was saying if people can find a way to justify Toews above Crosby for being better "all around", the gap between Howe and Lemieux is much less than that so of course it can be done there too.
Context. Offensive peak. Basically boils down to, in a vacuum, would Howe have topped 199 points in 1989 with proper era adjustments, or Lemieux have topped 95 in 1953? It's too lazy to just look at domination over #2 and draw an immediate conclusion. To me 199 in 1989 is much more impressive and unattainable than 95 in 1953.
Competition. Richard 61 points. He had .87 PPG that year. That's his 2nd lowest in his career to date. He was also 31, 1953 was out of his peak. Howe benefited from weak competition (as Crosby in 14)
Yzerman 1989. 155 points. Career year, both in points, and PPG. Anomaly, much greater than anything else he's come close to.
Bernie Nichols? Again - career year. Anomaly. Howe's 1953 season is missing any anomalies.
Is Sidney Crosby's 2014 season pretty great? What if Kane had peaked in 2014 instead of 2016 - does it make Crosby's season suckier? I think scoring 104 points in 2014 should be evaluated based on how much we decide 104 points in 2014 should be, and not draw drastically different conclusions based on 1 or 2 player's career season occurring at the same time. Is 95 points in 1953 = to 199 points in 1989? What if Beliveau plays in 1953 and has his 1956 season then, do you change your answer?
In 1956 Beliveau scored 88 points. If Beliveau had been 3 years younger and had had his 56 season in 53 - do you think he scores 88 points? More? Less? Less than Richard's 61? Would Howe's peak have all of a sudden been that much weaker without changing a single thing to his own resume? You need proper context.
when I ask whose offensive peak was better - I try to answer the question "If Howe had played in 1989, or 1993, and had his best year then, what would his point and PPG total have looked like vs Lemieux's, with all appropriate adjustments". And Vice Versa.
There's a ton of context that needs to be considered.
