Jarome Iginla- Top 10 goal scorer all time?

[VMBM]

Just nitpicking, but does Kharlamov really belong on this list? Not disputing his talent at all, I was just more under the assumption that this was about NHL players.

IMO Kharlamov was barely a top 5 goal-scorer in SOVIET hockey history. I'd put at least Mikhailov and Firsov above him. And players like Makarov, Krutov and even Starshinov and Yakushev were somewhere on the same level (in goal-scoring), I think.

 

[jepjepjoo]

Iginla is the only player in the last 40 years to win the Art Ross while having no team mate over 80 points besides Jagr in 99 and Ovechkin in 08.
It's silly to believe that if he had a #1 centre he wouldn't have won multiple scoring titles.

That's a silly point since that season only 3 players scored over 80 points and it's one of the 3 seasons in the last 40 years the Art Ross was won with under 102 points(excluding 94-95). Conroy was 12th in points with 75 which pretty much equals to an 80+ point player in other seasons

 

[Infinite Vision*]

Not even close. Yes, Iginla is awesome but he has only scored 50 goals twice. A lot of 30 goal seasons and some 40 goal seasons.

Gretzky
Lemieux
Brett
Bobby
Bossy
Richard
Howe
Ovechkin
Bure
Esposito

 

[tony d]

Iginla is nowhere near Bobby Hull territory. Iginla may finish his career with 600+ goals but that'll be due more than longevity than anything else.

 

[sr edler]

as a goal scorer he plays pretty much in mogilny territory

see it as a compliment

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Here is some more support for Bobby Hull as the best goal scorer of all time. These are the top 15 biggest margins ever to lead the NHL in goal scoring for a single season.


1. Bobby Hull: 68.8% 65'-66'
2. Brett Hull: 68.6% 90'-91'
3. Maurice Richard: 56.3% 44'-45'
4. Wayne Gretzky: 55.4% 83'-84'
5. Gordie Howe: 53.1% 52'-53'
6. Gordie Howe: 51.6% 51'-52'
7. Bobby Hull: 51.5% 61'-62'
8. Maurice Richard: 50.0% 46'-47'
9. Phil Esposito: 49.0% 70'-71'
10. Bobby Hull: 48.6% 66'-67'
11. Charlie Conacher: 44.0% 34'-35'
12. Wayne Gretzky: 43.8% 81'-82'
13. Gordie Howe: 33.3% 56'-57'
14. Phil Esposito: 32.0% 71'-72'
15. Pavel Bure: 31.8% 99'-00'

 

[Doshell Propivo]

I'm not going to knock Bobby here, but how many HOF players has Iginla played with in his career?

Once when I played pond hockey, a 13 year old girl was on my team. I scored 6 goals that game. Imagine if I had Gretzky instead! Pffft... I should be in the Hall of Fame.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

I'm not going to knock Bobby here, but how many HOF players has Iginla played with in his career?

How many games a season was Bobby Hull up against a HOF defenseman?

 

[arrbez]

How many games a season was Bobby Hull up against a HOF defenseman?

True that. In the early 60's for instance, Bobby Hull faced one of Sawchuk, Plante, Bower, or Worsley in just about every game he played. In 1962 Bobby Hull scored 50 goals. Gordie Howe and Frank Mahovlish were tied for second with 33. That season, 56 of the 70 games Bobby Hull played were against Hall of Fame goaltenders.

So while it's true that pretty much any player on an Original Six team played with better players, they also played against better players as well.

Iginla never got to play with a guy like Stan Mikita on the PP. But Hull never got to shoot against Tommy Salo and Dan Cloutier on a regular basis.


Iginla should absolutely be commended for his production despite never really having a #1 centre. But Bobby Hull is just out of his league. A lot of people consider Bobby Hull to be the best goal scorer of all time. It's just not a fair comparison to Iginla, who is "merely" one of the best snipers of his era.

 

[hfboardsuser]

Although it says nothing about exact ranking, we can get a good idea of who should be included in this debate by looking at GPG since 1930-31 (the first full season of forward pass with offsides) with a minimum GP of 700:

Ranking-Name-GPG-Best Goal Finishes
1. Mike Bossy- 0.76 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3)
2. Mario Lemieux- 0.75 (1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3)
3. Pavel Bure- 0.62 (1, 1, 1, 3)
4. Wayne Gretzky- 0.60 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3)
5. Brett Hull- 0.58 (1, 1, 1, 2, 3)
6. Bobby Hull- 0.57 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3)
7. Rick Martin- 0.56 (2, 3)
8. Maurice Richard- 0.56 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3)
9. Phil Esposito- 0.56 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2)
10. Cam Neely- 0.54 (2, 3)

Although it of course tends to favor players with shorter careers, such a ranking eliminates so-called "compilers" who racked up high totals by playing a long time- a major problem when using goal/assist totals without any kind of context. Alas, numbers really do tell most of the story here; all but two players on this list led the league in goals at least once, something that should be a requirement in a discussion about the best in NHL history.*

As it is, the above list is rather diverse in terms of era and represents most of the players you'd likely include in a top ten. I myself would only drop Neely and Martin. Howe (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3) of course deserves to be there, but is punished by GPG because his career was the longest. The other spot could be occupied by any of the following:

Alex Ovechkin 0.65 GPG (1, 1, 3, 3)
Teemu Selanne 0.51 GPG (1, 1, 1, 2, 3)
Guy Lafleur 0.50 GPG (1, 2, 2, 2, 3)
Charlie Conacher 0.49 GPG (1, 1, 1, 2)
Bernie Geoffrion 0.45 GPG (1, 1, 3, 3)

Now, where does this leave Iginla? Admittedly, he's on a very short list of players who have led the league in goals twice since 1930- in conjunction with the above 12 players, Peter Bondra, Bryan Hextall, Bill Cook, Jean Beliveau and Doug Bentley are the others (I think- I might be missing someone).

But just being one of them isn't good enough to be considered one of the ten best in history. Besides his two top seasons, he's only finished in the top 10 in goals one other time (2008, 3rd in the league). Even Bondra has a better resume than that. Is Iggy a better all-around player than Bondra? Sure, but that's not the debate. When discussing the ten best scorers in NHL history, Iginla falls short of the standard.

*- As an aside, I know many of the history folks here look at scoring finishes with Gretzky/Lemieux removed, the idea being that they were just so good that the players under them tend to get lost in the noise. It's a valid point, but not when it comes to a discussion like this.

Here are the years Gretzky or Lemieux led the NHL in goals, as well as the player who finished #2:

1982 (Gretzky) Mike Bossy (See above)
1983 (Gretzky) Lanny McDonald (Never finished top three again)
1984 (Gretzky) Michel Goulet (Never finished top three again)
1985 (Gretzky) Jari Kurri (Led NHL in goals in 1986)
1987 (Gretzky) Tim Kerr (Never finished top three again)
1988 (Lemieux) Craig Simpson (Never finished top three again)
1989 (Lemieux) Bernie Nicholls (Never finished top three again)
1996 (Lemieux) Jaromir Jagr

No single player was so consistently overshadowed by Lemieux/Gretzky that they would be in the top ten conversation had neither been born.

 

[seventieslord]

yeah, no. TDMM said it best here.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Goodness gracious no. Someone needs his blogger permit taken away.

 

[jepjepjoo]

Inspired by the blog I did some creative math myself:

Selanne's teams scored 3540 goals while he was playing and he scored 616 of them so that makes it 17.4% of team goals for career. The teams scored 2.918 goals per game when Selanne was playing. The blogger used the Islanders gpg of 4.419 as an example so here goes:

4.419 x 1213 x 0.174 = 933 goals 0.77gpg

Conclusion: Selanne is the all time goal scorer!!!

 

[Big Phil]

Lets not get nuts over this article either. I mean the guy is obviously misled. A good example of a writer being misled is Ryan Kennedy when he claimed the 2007 Ducks were the best team of all time (like a THN writer doing something boneheaded is a shock)

But without even thinking I had to ask myself, in a split second would you consider Iginla a top 10 goal scorer of all time? Immediately I say no, that's telling right there.

The next thing to do is make a list of guys that were for sure better than him:

Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull, Hull, Richard, Howe, Beliveau, Esposito, Lafleur, Bossy, Kurri, Conacher, Ovechkin, probably Bure, Selanne, Jagr, etc.

Sorry Iggy, but you aren't ahead of any of them and that's a rough list.

In his era he fares pretty good. Players who's primes have overlapped his would be Heatley, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk for example. Maybe you put Iggy in the Heatley/Kovalchuk mix.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

He assumes that Iginla will score a fixed percentage of his team's goals, regardless of how many goals his team scores. If Iginla played on a higher-scoring team, a lot of the offense would be due to contributions from depth forwards and defensemen. Thus, even though the Flames scored more, it doesn't mean that Iginla himself would have contributed to the offense. Does it really make sense to say that Iginla would score an extra goal just because his second liners score 7?

If anything, Iginla's percentage would decrease as his team got better (he'd need to share powerplay ice time with other forwards.

 

[jepjepjoo]

He assumes that Iginla will score a fixed percentage of his team's goals, regardless of how many goals his team scores. If Iginla played on a higher-scoring team, a lot of the offense would be due to contributions from depth forwards and defensemen. Thus, even though the Flames scored more, it doesn't mean that Iginla himself would have contributed to the offense. Does it really make sense to say that Iginla would score an extra goal just because his second liners score 7?

If anything, Iginla's percentage would decrease as his team got better (he'd need to share powerplay ice time with other forwards.

Let's not overlook the fact that his numbers are random and incorrect and he doesn't take injuries in to account because it favors Iginla and brings guys like Lemieux down.

 

[boopronger]

If only Iginla had a better center....Imagine if Heatley played with Thornton? He would have 70 goals!!

 

[Dark Shadows]

If only Iginla had a better center....Imagine if Heatley played with Thornton? He would have 70 goals!!