Mario Lemieux and 200 point season

shazariahl

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I know what you wanted to do. But you also now brought up one single season for Gretzky that was during a lower scoring year than Lemieux:s 1988/89, besides 1986/87 that in my mind does not compare to Lemieux:s season in question. That's all you had to come with in terms of Gretzky not playing in a higher scoring era. But guess what, he mainly DID. And why do you compare Lemieux:s one season with a whole row of Gretzky seasons, why did you not also bring Lemieux:s 1992/93 and 1995/96 into play? I saw a very interesting post in the center project-thread btw; Did'nt Lemieux through his way of play simply draw more penalties from the opposition than Gretzky did?

I do agree with you there. While I think Gretzky was still the better player, Lemieux seems to have drawn more penalties, and seemed to score more on the PP for whatever reason (even as a % of his scoring). And those are pluses for Lemieux. Mario was also better on a breakaway/shootout (probably the best player in history IMO). But in the end, Gretzky was just better overall. Maybe its because there's more 5 on 5 than anything else, and Gretzky just excelled at 5 on 5? I don't know. Despite more PP opportunities and more proficiency on the PP, Lemieux still never quite reached the same heights Wayne did overall.
 

member 51464

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I was just looking at the season-by-season stats of both. It blows my mind that Gretzky topped 100 assists in 11 straight seasons. Lemieux did it. Once.

I am a diehard Penguins fan, but I sure wish I was old enough to watch Gretzky in his prime. His numbers are just so obscene that contextualizing them seems next to impossible.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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Lemieux...

When he was healthy, he was the best player I ever saw. Problem is that he could never stay healthy long enough to fully reach his potential over a given season. That season in the late 80s he was ridiculous. Terrible team, bad back and he puts up 199 points while missing a few games...

Even in today's game teleported to today with his lack of conditioning he'd still be head and shoulders over everyone.
 

zidell*

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Mario Lemieux was almost the second player in the history of NHL with 200 point in one season. Almost. In season 1988/1989 he collected 199 points. And here is the question.

Isn't it possible, that he really had 200 points? The statistics were made by a human and as we know, nobody is perfect. There is a possibility, that someone forgot to write him second assists, or maybe some goal was written to another guy as Lemieux.

Where do people come up with stuff like this?
 

blogofmike

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No, just an educated guess based on the fact that 1. Lemieux's teams tended to have more power plays than Gretzky's teams, and 2. Lemieux's style of play would tend to lend itself to drawing penalties more than Gretzky's did.

Someone said limit your penalties and you could limit Mario. Easier said than done - sometimes holding, hooking, or slashing him was the alternative to conceding a goal against, and sometimes it still wasn't enough.

The Pens got a ton of PPO even before Lemieux, and even in seasons where he missed time. They were always in the top 7, and Gretzky's teams always in the bottom 7. Bad teams who fell behind tended to get more PPO love from referees.

Patrick Division teams like Pittsburgh, Washington, New Jersey and the Rangers racked up a lot of PPO in that time frame, so the divisional environment accounts for some of it, especially after the Pens became a decent team. (The Isles got jobbed. Most PPOA, least PPO, in 1985.)

Refs also tended to even up the calls, so Lemieux's penalty-drawing ability may have been enhanced by the league-high 482 PPOA that the Pens received in 1988-89. Or perhaps we should give Mario more flak for TAKING so many penalties...:sarcasm:

Dude, you can not come on here and seriously make the argument that Gretzky's 6 most Elite seasons were in a "higher scoring Era" than Mario's 2 most Elite seasons.

81/82 8.03
82/83 7.73
83/84 7.89
84/85 7.77
85/86 7.94
86/87 7.34

88/89 7.48
92/93 7.25

I'm sorry but when we're talking about an average difference of 138 - 102, an average GpG of 7.78 to an average of 7.37 is not going to change much and I even showed you what Adjusted Stats would bring it to, 115 - 85 for Gretzky's best year vs Mario's best year, STILL a whopping 30 point difference!
Different scoring era...gimme a freakin break!




And it's a damned good thing that Mario did draw those extra penalties because if he didn't, he wouldn't have been able to hold Gretzky's jock strap production wise.

Fully agree on the era-adjustment being smaller than a hypothetical PPO adjustment.

In Gretzky's 215-point season, Edmonton had a league-low 295 PPO. In Lemieux's 199 point season, Pittsburgh had 491 PPO (which would be a record if they didn't get 500 the year before...)

If 88-89 Pittsburgh's PPO drops to 295, (and Lemieux's PP points drop by 40%), Mario falls to 167 points. Or if the 1986 Oilers had 491 PPO, and Gretzky's PP points increase accordingly, Gretzky hits 243 points. Granted this is an overly simplistic calculation, but no amount of era-adjusting between 1986 and 1989 is going to make up the difference caused by PPO.
 
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H8DUMPnCHASE*

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I was just looking at the season-by-season stats of both. It blows my mind that Gretzky topped 100 assists in 11 straight seasons. Lemieux did it. Once.

I am a diehard Penguins fan, but I sure wish I was old enough to watch Gretzky in his prime. His numbers are just so obscene that contextualizing them seems next to impossible.

Considering you were a "diehard penguins fan" it's pretty amazing that you don't understand the concept of "pace". Mario being on pace for 6 100 assist seasons, seeing as he was seen as more of a pure goal scorer than a playmaker for some unknown reason and his career goals per game dwarf Wayne's, I'd say those 6 100 assist seasons look pretty damn amazing.
 

Kyle McMahon

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Considering you were a "diehard penguins fan" it's pretty amazing that you don't understand the concept of "pace". Mario being on pace for 6 100 assist seasons, seeing as he was seen as more of a pure goal scorer than a playmaker for some unknown reason and his career goals per game dwarf Wayne's, I'd say those 6 100 assist seasons look pretty damn amazing.

Really, they do? Can we have the details? The rest of us don't know what they look like since they only exist in a fantasy scenario in your own mind.
 

Pominville Knows

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Really, they do? Can we have the details? The rest of us don't know what they look like since they only exist in a fantasy scenario in your own mind.

I dont think that claim is so bold considering he had quite the margin to play with. The closest of them would be in 87-88 where he had 98 in 77, but besides that one it's pretty bold to say that he would not have hit 100 in the other four, not counting 88-89 of course.
 

Kyle McMahon

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I dont think that claim is so bold considering he had quite the margin to play with. The closest of them would be in 87-88 where he had 98 in 77, but besides that one it's pretty bold to say that he would not have hit 100 in the other four, not counting 88-89 of course.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. So much of the Lemieux > Gretzky argument comes down to things that didn't actually happen.
 

Kyle McMahon

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There's no-one denying that Gretzky played a whole lot more games than Lemieux.

No, but one poster is chastising another for his factual observation that Lemieux only had 100 assists once, and basically crediting him with 6 on the basis of phantom games.
 

member 51464

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No, but one poster is chastising another for his factual observation that Lemieux only had 100 assists once, and basically crediting him with 6 on the basis of phantom games.

As the chastised party, I concur with this assessment. I bet we could come up with some even more amazing looking numbers if we play with Gretzky's totals. Regardless, 11 actual seasons of doing it still beats an amount that is barely half as much including pretend times!
 

8LX7psQ

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As the chastised party, I concur with this assessment. I bet we could come up with some even more amazing looking numbers if we play with Gretzky's totals. Regardless, 11 actual seasons of doing it still beats an amount that is barely half as much including pretend times!

That's the interesting thing about the Gretzky vs X arguments.

Nobody ever has to bother playing with 99's numbers or extrapolating things. He just did them.

Mario is top 3 for me, but when comparing the two, Wayne did, Mario could have and the difference between the two concepts is a million miles wide.
 

TheStatican

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Dude, you can not come on here and seriously make the argument that Gretzky's 6 most Elite seasons were in a "higher scoring Era" than Mario's 2 most Elite seasons.

81/82 8.03
82/83 7.73
83/84 7.89
84/85 7.77
85/86 7.94
86/87 7.34

88/89 7.48
92/93 7.25

I'm sorry but when we're talking about an average difference of 138 - 102, an average GpG of 7.78 to an average of 7.37 is not going to change much and I even showed you what Adjusted Stats would bring it to, 115 - 85 for Gretzky's best year vs Mario's best year, STILL a whopping 30 point difference!
Different scoring era...gimme a freakin break!

And it's a damned good thing that Mario did draw those extra penalties because if he didn't, he wouldn't have been able to hold Gretzky's jock strap production wise.


Love it how you conveniently ignore Mario's 92-93 season where he had 96 ES points in only 60 games. That translates to 128 in 80 games/134 in 84 games. And adjusted to league scoring in Gretzky's best year(147 in 81-82) would be 141 or 149 in 84 games, which would beat Gretzky's record albeit in more games.

So in what world, no what universe does a 6 point difference equate to not being able to "hold one's jock strap"? :loony:
 

SchultzSquared*

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Love it how you conveniently ignore Mario's 92-93 season where he had 96 ES points in only 60 games. That translates to 128 in 80 games/134 in 84 games. And adjusted to league scoring in Gretzky's best year(147 in 81-82) would be 141 or 149 in 84 games, which would beat Gretzky's record albeit in more games.

So in what world, no what universe does a 6 point difference equate to not being able to "hold one's jock strap"? :loony:

It's not 200+... End of story
 

TheStatican

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1996 is the season where he is the next closest to 200 after 1989 and 1993. At least from a per game basis. He is on pace for 189 points that year. He had 161 in 70 games. I guess nothing is impossible with Lemieux, but he would have needed 39 points in 12 games and I think the most impressive string of his career was 56 points in 20 games after his cancer. So in a full season he is likely around the 185 mark.

Don't disagree with your projection, but for the record he's actually had more than 39 points in a 12 game period before;

Lemieux actually started that season with 41 points in his first 12 games(3.42ppg), which is known to be the hottest start in league history, beating any of Gretzky's season starts.
(http://articles.philly.com/1988-12-...emieux-pittsburgh-s-civic-arena-penguins-fans)
(http://biography.yourdictionary.com/mario-lemieux)
http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/l/lemiema01/gamelog/1989/


And he actually had 40 points in a 12 game period in the 95-96 season itself!
http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/l/lemiema01/gamelog/1996/
 

TheStatican

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Keep in mind that in 1995-96, Lemieux was sitting out the second half of back-to-backs, so his points-per-game number is likely slightly inflated that season.

Slightly yes, but perhaps not as significantly as people seem to imagine. I did the research on it and came to the this conclusion a while ago;

While that most certainly makes sense, do the actual statistics back that claim up?

In 1995-96 Lemieux did play in 7 of the teams 16 back-to-back games. Of the games he missed, 9 were the second game of a back-to-back and 3 were other games. So while the second game of a back to back represented 75% of the games he took off, he still played in 44% of his teams back-to-back games.

In the first games of the back-to-backs his stats are;
7 9-5-14 -6 1.29gpg 2.00ppg
and in the second games of the back-to-backs;
7 5-7-12 -6 0.71gpg 1.71ppg

While there is a noticeable decline in gpg, his point production only declined by 14%. Of course due to the small sample size its difficult to determine how much value to place on those stats.

But for those who think his numbers would have precipitously dropped in the remainder of his back-to-backs, consider this; In 96-97 Lemieux's stat line in the 2nd of back to back games was far better than the 1st game;
1st games
13 7-8-15 -6 0.54gpg 1.15ppg
2nd games
13 9-14-23 +15 0.69gpg 1.77ppg
Yes, it was a different year so it may be hard to put any relevancy to that, but Mario was a different kind of player than the norm.

Anyhow, back to 95-96.
In the reminder of his games he was;
56 55-80-135 +22 2.41ppg

Based on his averages above, for the 12 games he missed his totals would come out to;
back to backs 9 6-9-15 (1.67ppg)
other 3 3-4-7 (2.33ppg)
which gives us,
82 78-105-183 0.95gpg 2.23ppg

Obviously, things don't work out so precisely in the real world. But I think its highly unlikely that his production would of dropped in half or worse, in the rest of those back-to-back games.

But for the naysayers, lets do just that. Say he was only able to average 1ppg in those 9 games (9 4-5-9).
That would still result in a stat line of;
82 76-101-177 0.93gpg 2.16ppg

So, in what world is that stat line over-rated?? :dunno:

Whats more, is that overrated in a year when the average goals per game league wide was 6.285? No one ever averaged over 2 ppg(let alone 2.3) in a season where the average gpg was under 6.9 and even then just barely.

6.285 gpg is 25% lower than the year Gretzky set the all time ppg record (2.77 in 83-84 with 7.889 gpg). Add 25% to Lemieux marks and tell me what you'd get...

My point in all this stat-overloading is this,

Lemieux's 95-96 is not overrated.
If anything its possibly underrated.
The value of his defensive ability and contributions that year is one thing and I take no issue with those who say he was somewhat flawed in that respect. But in terms of offensive, it was clearly one of the most incredible years ever witnessed. Considering the era, I'd say its easily in the top 10 all time.
 

Kyle McMahon

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Love it how you conveniently ignore Mario's 92-93 season where he had 96 ES points in only 60 games. That translates to 128 in 80 games/134 in 84 games. And adjusted to league scoring in Gretzky's best year(147 in 81-82) would be 141 or 149 in 84 games, which would beat Gretzky's record albeit in more games.

So in what world, no what universe does a 6 point difference equate to not being able to "hold one's jock strap"? :loony:

I love how you conveniently credit Lemieux with hypothetical points that he might of scored in games that never actually occurred. Gretzky's best year actually happened in real life. The Lemieux season you've constructed only happened in the fantasy realm of your own mind.

Oh, and any adjustment you may make doesn't benefit Lemieux. It is well know that the 92-93 season was the highest scoring in history amongst top-flight players. Ten players had 120+ points. The only reason 80's seasons have a higher average goals per game is because 3rd line scrubs were scoring at a higher rate.
 
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BraveCanadian

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I love how you conveniently credit Lemieux with hypothetical points that he might of scored in games that never actually occurred. Gretzky's best year actually happened in real life. The Lemieux season you've constructed only happened in the fantasy realm of your own mind.

The best part is that even when he does give him the credit for games AND adjust for scoring level (which we know doesn't actually reflect the scoring distribution in the league) -- Gretzky still tops him 147 to 141.
 
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Morgoth Bauglir

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The best part is that even when he does give him the credit for games AND adjust for scoring level (which we know doesn't actually reflect the scoring distribution in the league) -- Gretzky still tops him 147 to 141.

Hey my favorite's when they say "Well Lemieux wins this cuz he looks so badass in You Tube highlight videos." :naughty:
 

TheStatican

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I love how you conveniently credit Lemieux with hypothetical points that he might of scored in games that never actually occurred. Gretzky's best year actually happened in real life. The Lemieux season you've constructed only happened in the fantasy realm of your own mind.

Oh, and any adjustment you may make doesn't benefit Lemieux. It is well know that the 92-93 season was the highest scoring in history amongst top-flight players. Ten players had 120+ points. The only reason 80's seasons have a higher average goals per game is because 3rd line scrubs were scoring at a higher rate.

The best part is that even when he does give him the credit for games AND adjust for scoring level (which we know doesn't actually reflect the scoring distribution in the league) -- Gretzky still tops him 147 to 141.

There is something called "pace", look the up in the dictionary if you don't know what that's all about. Is it to be taken as an accurate prediction of the future? Of course not, but its the most fair prediction of what could of been and hardly something that's based on a figment of my own imagination. :laugh:

More importantly my point has completely gone over your heads. Never said Lemieux was better than Gretzky, that's not what my argument was about. The point was simply that he was a player and the only player ever at that, who was at least capable of approaching Gretzky's stats. But I'm sure some people will still claim that he was some bum unworthy of figuratively "holding his jock strap". :rolleyes:
 

Kyle McMahon

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There is something called "pace", look the up in the dictionary if you don't know what that's all about. Is it to be taken as an accurate prediction of the future? Of course not, but its the most fair prediction of what could of been and hardly something that's based on a figment of my own imagination. :laugh:

More importantly my point has completely gone over your heads. Never said Lemieux was better than Gretzky, that's not what my argument was about. The point was simply that he was a player and the only player ever at that, who was at least capable of approaching Gretzky's stats. But I'm sure some people will still claim that he was some bum unworthy of figuratively "holding his jock strap". :rolleyes:

One poster demonstrated that Gretzky was well superior to Lemieux in even-strength scoring ability. Your refutation of this is based on one partial season that might have been close if Lemieux didn't miss a bunch of games. Jock strap holding comments are here nor there.
 

shazariahl

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Apr 7, 2009
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There is something called "pace", look the up in the dictionary if you don't know what that's all about. Is it to be taken as an accurate prediction of the future? Of course not, but its the most fair prediction of what could of been and hardly something that's based on a figment of my own imagination. :laugh:

More importantly my point has completely gone over your heads. Never said Lemieux was better than Gretzky, that's not what my argument was about. The point was simply that he was a player and the only player ever at that, who was at least capable of approaching Gretzky's stats. But I'm sure some people will still claim that he was some bum unworthy of figuratively "holding his jock strap". :rolleyes:

I think most of us agree Lemieux was close. And most of us concede Lemieux was even better at parts of the game, such as breakaways (where he's probably the greatest of all time). But Gretzky did it longer, more consistently, missed less time, won more awards, won more championships, and set more records. Every argument for Lemieux comes down to what ifs, pro-rated and adjusted stats, and highlight reels. Gretzky actually did it all, Lemieux didn't.

Sorry to sound short with you, but it's not like this is the first time people have had this debate. Both sides have made their arguments countless times, and no one will likely change their opinions.

I just find that most Lemieux fans didn't appreciate Gretzky's style of play. Most Gretzky fans put him #1, most Lemieux fans seem to put not only Lemieux, but usually Orr and often Howe all above Gretzky as well. While there are legitimate arguments to have any one of these guys above him, I have a hard time accepting the opinion of someone who wants to put all 3 of them above Gretzky.
 
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