Gretzky: McDavid is the best 19 year old I've ever seen

[MrMaster]

 

[Sam Spade]

Gretzky was the best 19 year old I have ever seen.

 

[Johnnybegood13]

Gretzky was the best 19 year old I have ever seen.

As a Flames fan I agree, 55g-164pts was 89pts more than 2nd place for team scoring, this wont be matched any time soon and likely not ever.

 

[gretskidoo]

At this point it's insulting to have Gretzky call you the best.

 

[TBL12345]

This thread is pure legend

This. Great work folks. I have shed a tear in laughter.

 

[The Panther]

Wayne concluded after this game that Brent was the best Gretzky brother he'd ever seen:

 

[Shark Finn]

His comments are always sarcasm because people know he's the best ever. So he's just reminding people how great he himself is.

 

[Iceman]

I just got asked if I was ok.


Ye I am fine. Show then why I laughed they don't get it

Haha, I just cracked up at work too.

 

[JackSlater]

I once met Gretzky and shook his hand. Nice guy. Told me I have the softest hands he's ever seen. Eat your heart out Mario Lemieux.

 

[Beville]

Gretzky said that Al-Assad was the best ruler the Middle East has ever seen

Well, that escalated quickly...

But didn't Gretzky say the exact same thing about Crosby?

 

[Sam Spade]

Well, that escalated quickly...

But didn't Gretzky say the exact same thing about Crosby?

So did tons of people here, until McD came along.

His comments are always sarcasm because people know he's the best ever. So he's just reminding people how great he himself is.

Yep. He is the ultimate troll.

 

[Trap Jesus]

It's gotten to the point where if Gretzky says someone is a "good player", it should be viewed as an insult.

 

[Derrty]

I like how the guy who scored 90+ goals in a season says "even I could get 60", as if he was a peon like the rest of us.

 

[JA]

It's gotten to the point where if Gretzky says someone is a "good player", it should be viewed as an insult.

Nobody knows this better then Keith Gretzky.

The 'Good One' waits for chance
The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] 06 Nov 1987: D.15.

ROCHESTER, NY -- Associated Press ROCHESTER, N.Y. His teammates have dubbed him, "The Good One," and Keith Gretzky thinks it's pretty funny.

The 20-year-old rookie centre with the Rochester Americans smiles when his new nickname is mentioned, shrugs his slender shoulders and talks about anything but his famous brother.

It's not the first time he's been reminded that he's the younger brother of hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, who's known around the world as "The Great One," and it won't be the last time.

What's it like to be compared with a 26-year-old brother who holds 44 National Hockey League records and has been selected the league's most- valuable player for eight consecutive years?

"You get used to it," said Keith Gretzky. "But no one really talks about it because there's really nothing to say. I just try to be myself and that's about it."

There's not much to compare between the two brothers, the younger Gretzky said.

When Wayne swept into the professional ranks nine years ago at age 17 without playing in the minor leagues and turned the hockey world on its ear with his ingenious passing ability and over-all superb play.

Keith's appearance on the professional hockey scene hasn't created much of a sensation in the American Hockey League or even on the Rochester Americans, the farm team of the Buffalo Sabres.

In fact, Gretzky is finding it difficult to break into the Amerks' lineup, which is filled with talented and more experienced centres with less familiar names such as Hogue, Brydges and Priestlay.

He's been spending a growing amount of time scoring and setting up goals in practice by day, and sitting in the stands and watching his teammates at night.

...

"I know my chances will come," Gretzky said. "I'm just trying to work hard and be ready to make the most of them, whether it be one line shift or 10 line shifts."

Coach John Van Boxmeer calls Gretzky, from Brantford, Ont., a typical rookie hockey player who just happens to be related to a great hockey player.

"It's something he's had to deal with his whole life and probably will have to continue to deal with, but to me he's just another hockey player who I look at in terms of how he can help my club," Van Boxmeer said.

The two things that are keeping the younger Gretzky on the bench so far are his size - at 5-foot-9, 160 pounds, Gretzky is one of the smallest players on the roster - and his lack of speed.

He makes up for those drawbacks by being a "very, very smart" hockey player, who can see plays developing both on offence and defence and who, like his brother, can make precision passes.

"Everybody has to wait for their turn and that's the way life is," Van Boxmeer said.

...

Even Wayne was demoted to the status of "The Good One" a few times in his career.

Great or merely good?: Quiet Gretzky tied for 3rd in scoring race: [Final Edition]
Rappoport, Ken. The Spectator [Hamilton, Ont] 29 Oct 1996: C2.

In his first month with the New York Rangers, Wayne Gretzky has been unusually quiet.

Not that he hasn't been the Rangers' best player and a spokesman in the locker room.

But while methodically piling up a team-leading point total in the first 11 games, he was more the Good One than the Great One.

...

 

[JA]

I like how the guy who scored 90+ goals in a season says "even I could get 60", as if he was a peon like the rest of us.

In all honesty, Wayne thinks he could have done better throughout his career:

Gretzky's odometer keeps on clicking; 2,000 points is only a pit stop in Great One's unequalled career: [FINAL Edition]
Farber, Michael. The Gazette [Montreal, Que] 23 Oct 1990: D11.

...

Gretzky is playing against himself now, watching the totals mount. After he passed Gordie Howe's record 1,850 points 53 weeks ago, the only pressure is the pressure he puts on himself. Two thousand points is a milestone, not a millstone. Other than Howe's 801 goals, there is nothing but uncharted territory ahead.

...

"I honestly haven't thought about where this one fits," Gretzky was saying. "I don't know, maybe (it's equivalent) to 1,000 home runs. Five thousand hits. I don't know. Six thousand strikeouts."

...

"I find now that when I break a record or when I've accomplished something, I used to think, `Wow, that's pretty good,' " Gretzky said. "But now I look back at the year I scored 92 goals (1981-82) and I think that I could have had more than 100. I don't think I'll have a chance to score that many again. The 215 (points in 1985- 86), I wish maybe now I had 225. Maybe in my mind I'm saying 3,000. It looks like a long way to go, I don't know if I can get there."

So would you play beyond the length of your contract?

"That goes on forever," Gretzky said, laughing. "I'll be 82 by the time it's done. I'll be playing in a Senior Global League by then. I'll be playing for Santa Monica."

You can develop a scenario of 3,000 points even without Gretzky playing until age 53 and erasing Howe's other standard of note. Gretzky, 30 in January, has seven years left on his contract. The days of 80 goals and 200 points are behind him. But if he avoids injuries and can play 70 or so games a season, 500 more, with the looming expansion and the sieve-like defences it will bring, maybe he can keep his average propped up at two points a game. Since joining the NHL, Gretzky has 684 goals and 1,313 assists - a 2.34 average. In eight matches this year, he has seven goals and 18 points.

The 3,000 would be for Gretzky. But it would also be for Mario Lemieux and Eric Lindros and Eric Lindros's grandchildren.

Here I am, one more level, one new number. Come and catch me.

The only thing being left to chance is when the third point will come. Gretzky has been cataloguing his sticks - just four per game now that he has switched to aluminum - and the one with which he jumps a plateau will be offered to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. At the end of the Howe chase last October, he used 15 sticks in games in Vancouver and Edmonton. The record-breaking stick went to the Hall of Fame, the record-equalizer went to his father, Walter, and the others were donated to charity.

"This is probably a little bit different than what happened last year," Gretzky said. "The fact that it was Gordie and what he'd accomplished, it really was a special feeling. Two thousand is more like when I'm done, retired, watching my kids grow up, that I can look back and say, `Yeah, I got 2,000' ... After breaking Gordie's record, all I want to do is win a championship with this team."

...

 

[FDBluth]

Damn after reading that now I have to say that Gretzky is the funniest hockey player I've ever heard

 

[Rebuilt]

I think the Great One might wanna rethink his boast after 2 fairly LACKLUSTER performances by the McGreat One against 2 non playoff teams.


/end rant.

 

[Beef Invictus]

This is the greatest 76th post I've ever seen in a thread.

 

[Beef Invictus]

It's gotten to the point where if Gretzky says someone is a "good player", it should be viewed as an insult.

This is the greatest 87th post I've ever seen in a thread.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

little known fact is that wayne gretzky did not grow eyeballs until the summer of 1968

 

[Beef Invictus]

little known fact is that wayne gretzky did not grow eyeballs until the summer of 1968

This is the greatest 95th post I've ever seen in a thread.

 

[PensBandwagonerNo272*]

This is the greatest 95th post I've ever seen in a thread.

This is the least creative 97th post I've ever seen.

 

[Patmac40]

Gretzky thinks I'm the best tax accountant he's ever seen. But I think he's not too far off with this one about Connor.

 

[Firebot]

I was trying to find praise from Gretzky on another Oiler 1st overall and found this gem:

http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/h...gratulates-taylor-hall-on-breaking-his-record

Wayne Gretzky was on the blower to Taylor Hall Thursday night to offer words of encouragement after Hall scored two goals in eight seconds on Long Island to break No. 99’s Edmonton Oilers record of a pair in nine seconds against the St. Louis almost 33 years ago.

“That’s good…he seems like a nice young man,” said Gretzky, in a phone conversation after the game.

“I remember when I’d break one of Gordie’s (Howe) records he always said that about me.”

Gretzky didn’t see the game but he was texted by ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun for a comment.


“What was the score in the game? Did the Oilers win?” Gretzky asked, over the phone.

When told the Oilers had dropped a 3-2 decision to go to 1-6-1 on the season, he was taken aback.

“Two goals in eight seconds and the Oilers didn’t win?”

“They do seem to be playing better, though.”

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

His comments are always sarcasm because people know he's the best ever. So he's just reminding people how great he himself is.

i am guessing you are just joking around, but

look at the guys who would top anyone's list of the best players of the second half of the century. Howe, Richard, Hull, Orr, Lafleur, Lemieux. To be the best of the second half of the century, you would have to be better than all of them.

now that is what i call a humblebrag

https://www.nhl.com/news/wayne-gretzky-book-excerpt-99-stories-of-the-game/c-282694864