I've seen all the post-war NHL greats, but I'm not going to get caught up in a who's better debate between Gretzky and Lemieux, two of the very best athletes of the last century. Still, I will say that I think Lemieux was the more dazzling player, the more entertaining player to watch.
What brings this to mind is an exchange I had perhaps a decade ago with an English guy, who didn't know anything about ice hockey when he began watching on one of the U.K.'s sports channels. Watching Lemieux had made him a hockey fan. In fact, he thought Lemieux was the most talented athlete he had ever seen; Lemieux often simply took his breath away.
Both Lemieux and Gretzky had fabulous skills, but for pure entertainment value I would pick Lemieux. Take note that I am not saying Lemieux was the more skilled player. Nor am I even saying that this entertainment factor is one that should carry much weight in determining which players were greater than other players, although I do think that it often is given sub rosa weight and perhaps even more weight than it should in these eternal debates over comparative greatness.
I've seen similar discussions about the entertainment factor in comparisons of other players over the past 60 years. When Red Kelly and Doug Harvey were the two best defensemen in the NHL, the sportswriters at first thought Kelly was the better of the two. He was the more dazzling because he often rushed with the puck and scored more goals. But gradually the writers came around to Harvey as the better player. They noted that Harvey was capable of rushing with the puck if he wanted, but chose not to do so because it was unnecessary on a Canadiens team loaded with talent up front. Why take the effort and risk involved in rushing with the puck when it was unnecessary? Harvey played a much more laid-back style, controlling the game in much more subtle and perhaps more skilled ways.
At the same time the Howe-Richard debate was raging. Noted Canadian sports journalist Andy O'Brien wrote a biography of Richard soon after his retirement in 1960, which could not have anticipated Howe's remarkable longevity or the career goals and assists levels he reached. In fact, as I recall, O'Brien vastly underestimated how long Howe would continue to play. At that point, O'Brien came down on Richard's side in the debate largely because Richard was the far more entertaining player to watch. Richard was dashing; he dazzled, he excited. Howe played a much more measured game, one factor that might partially account for his longevity. O'Brien wrote that if you had two big hockey stadiums next door to each other with identical teams except that one featured Richard and the other Howe, the one that would be filled night after night would be the one where Richard played.
I think you mean 86-87, when Gretzky scored "only" 183 points in 79 games. But the reason for this, I believe, is that Paul Coffey only played in 59 games that year. Had Coffey and Gretzky played an extra 31 games together, Gretzky likely would have scored 200 points once again. (Remember, it wasn't just Coffey; it was the pairing of Coffey with Kurri playing with Gretzky that really created a ripple effect on Gretzky's totals...almost exponentially.)
