Crosby passes Lemieux in games played, will he pass total career points?

[CHGoalie27]

I'm trying to make an educated guess for 200 pts. We know Lemieux at 35 after being out of hockey for 3 years with all his cancer and back problems came into the league and scored at an astounding 1.77ppg. This was when scoring league wide was down to as mentioned before 2.76 goals per game per team. The closest competition for Lemieux that year was a 28 year old Jagr with a 1.49 ppg who also benefited directly from Lemieux.

Lemieux returned on 12/27/2000. Jagr played 36 games before Lemieux's return. In those 36 games Jagr scored 19 goals with 16 assists for a total of 35 points which equals .97ppg. With only 46 games left in the season Lemieux elevated Jagr to a 1.49ppg player from a .97.

Let's keep going. Sakic was 3rd in the league that year with a 1.44ppg pace. Remember, it's harder to score than now because the league had a 2.76 goals per game per team average. The average now is 3.06 with McDavid and Kucherov leading the league at 1.5ppg. Lemieux put up those numbers at 35 so it's not close to his prime. The league is more wide open now compared to then. There's no more ties and he would have played 3v3 approximately 20% of the 82 games. That's 16 games he gets to play 3v3. There's no two line pass and that factors into how open the game is played now. Put Lemieux at the age of 25 and healthy and I think he scores 2.5ppg to break 200 points.

@JLaw1719 how about "I don't have time for this" as a rebuttal LMAO

 

[Outofbodyinhungary]

Oh god no...Mario is one of the top 4 most important hockey players ever in this game's history. Easy. Solid. Not debatable. Gretzky, Howe, Orr, and Lemieux...5th maybe Richard?

As for the Penguins, I feel silly having to type out all Lemieux did, that nobody, including Crosby or the other 3 of the top 4 I mentioned, could do for their teams what Mario did, including actually buying into and literally saving the franchise.

While playing, Lemieux is still really the only player in the same conversation as 99 for truly greatest player ever...and for the Penguins.

North American only *

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Lemieux in today’s nhl as in the 18-19 season at 25 years old scorers 160 points easy