blueandgoldguy
Registered User
Selanne. No one here has mentioned that Kurri played most of his career during the greatest offensive period in NHL history. Selanne played most of his career during the dead puck era and the today's NHL, which still has substantially less scoring than the NHL of the 80s.
Kurri did have some good seasons after Gretzky left. What wasn't mentioned is that instead of playing with the greatest forward who ever played the game, he had to "settle" for playing with arguably 10th-15th best forward who ever played the game, Mark Messier. While I'm on that subject I should also mention he had an MVP season with 130 points in 1990 which would have also helped Kurri's numbers quite a bit, don't you think?
So far, Selanne's numbers are:
GP: 1198
G: 611
A: 661
TP: 1272
Kurri's numbers:
GP: 1251
G: 601
A: 797
TP: 1398
Hmmmmm. Kurri's played just over 50 more games than Selanne, during the highest scoring era in NHL history, playing most of his career with the greatest offensive player of all-time, playing with arguably the team with the greatest offensive depth of all-time, yet he has fewer goals than Selanne and only 120+ total points. Once Selanne makes up those games this season, I suspect he will be about 40 goals ahead and 50 total points behind Kurri. Most of that while playing with substandard talent during the first half of his career with the exception of a few brief flings with Housley, Zhamnov, Tkachuk, and Kariya.
AS for those mediocre seasons during the middle of his career, you can blame that on the idiot coach, Darryl Sutter (one of the most over-rated coaches/GMS I've ever seen who gets by on the glory of one flucky playoff run) who didn't use Selanne and his talents properly while he was in San Jose. In Colorado, you had another terrible coach, Tony Granato, who cut Selanne's icetime early in the season when he struggled to gel with his new teammates. That, and his leg injury which has been documented in the past, led to his worst season. The following year off due to the lockout was a godsend for him!
Back to the comparisons, if Selanne had played during Kurri's era and Kurri had played during Selanne's, you could probably add another 100+ goals and 200+ points to Selanne's career stats, while subtracting 75-100 goals from Kurri and 200 points. Not close really when you think about.
Since Selanne put up similar, if not better offensive numbers than Kurri under much more difficult curcumstances, I think it's safe to assume he is the better player. AS for the comments regarding Kurri's better defensive play, I don't buy it. On those Oiler teams, goalies like Fuhr and Moog were left to fnd for themselves, defense be damned. It was all about the offense back then and how quickly the defense could join the rush.
Kurri did have some good seasons after Gretzky left. What wasn't mentioned is that instead of playing with the greatest forward who ever played the game, he had to "settle" for playing with arguably 10th-15th best forward who ever played the game, Mark Messier. While I'm on that subject I should also mention he had an MVP season with 130 points in 1990 which would have also helped Kurri's numbers quite a bit, don't you think?
So far, Selanne's numbers are:
GP: 1198
G: 611
A: 661
TP: 1272
Kurri's numbers:
GP: 1251
G: 601
A: 797
TP: 1398
Hmmmmm. Kurri's played just over 50 more games than Selanne, during the highest scoring era in NHL history, playing most of his career with the greatest offensive player of all-time, playing with arguably the team with the greatest offensive depth of all-time, yet he has fewer goals than Selanne and only 120+ total points. Once Selanne makes up those games this season, I suspect he will be about 40 goals ahead and 50 total points behind Kurri. Most of that while playing with substandard talent during the first half of his career with the exception of a few brief flings with Housley, Zhamnov, Tkachuk, and Kariya.
AS for those mediocre seasons during the middle of his career, you can blame that on the idiot coach, Darryl Sutter (one of the most over-rated coaches/GMS I've ever seen who gets by on the glory of one flucky playoff run) who didn't use Selanne and his talents properly while he was in San Jose. In Colorado, you had another terrible coach, Tony Granato, who cut Selanne's icetime early in the season when he struggled to gel with his new teammates. That, and his leg injury which has been documented in the past, led to his worst season. The following year off due to the lockout was a godsend for him!
Back to the comparisons, if Selanne had played during Kurri's era and Kurri had played during Selanne's, you could probably add another 100+ goals and 200+ points to Selanne's career stats, while subtracting 75-100 goals from Kurri and 200 points. Not close really when you think about.
Since Selanne put up similar, if not better offensive numbers than Kurri under much more difficult curcumstances, I think it's safe to assume he is the better player. AS for the comments regarding Kurri's better defensive play, I don't buy it. On those Oiler teams, goalies like Fuhr and Moog were left to fnd for themselves, defense be damned. It was all about the offense back then and how quickly the defense could join the rush.