Ovechkin passes Selanne,Super Mario,Yzerman and Messier for career goals. 2 more for 700 goal club.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Not by much. Lemieux put up 199 points on an average team and Gretzky put up 215 on perhaps the greatest team ever assembled.

The difference between 85 and 92 goals isn't that much either when you take into account the teams they were on.

Gretzky had his peak seasons on an all time dynasty and you can't say the same about Lemieux.

Teammates matter.

Mario missed the majority of the Penguins 1991 Stanley Cup season.

By the time the Penguins built their team, he already had started getting severely injured.

When you start asking What if Lemieux stayed healthy? The question gets a lot more murky.

Lemieux was more talented and played on worse team and lower scoring era.

 

[GreatGonzo]

Lemieux was more talented and played on worse team and lower scoring era.

Lemieux did not play in a lower scoring era. Why does thus continue being brought up?

 

[King Mapes]

Lemieux did not play in a lower scoring era. Why does thus continue being brought up?

Than Gretzky? Yes he did because he played more of the DPE but it’s not a big amount of his career like some seem to imply

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

What gets me in all this is I had no idea how much of a goal scorer Steve Yzerman was. I'd never have guessed that he is in Selanne/Mario territory

EDIT: looking at his hockeydb page it's no wonder. As a 30 year old I only witnessed the 2nd half of his career. Five time 50-goal scorer and a 65 goal season in the first half.

 

[JasonRoseEh]

From what i have seen Ovys been 15 years with Caps and has 1 Stanley if he would have been replaced with Kane or Crosby or even Kopitar on same time line its reasonable to say they would have won 3 or 4 Stanley's by now with that core Ovechkin was such a cancer to team and loser for so many years until finally he once won.

You haven't watched Ovechkin and the Capitals much, clearly. Just stop posting and move along, your irrational hatred of the greatest goal scorer of all time is showing.

 

[JasonRoseEh]

Ovi is the Hank Aaron of goalscoring. Just incredibly consistent. He doesn't have any one super high goal scoring season but he just puts up 40-50 goals like clockwork and has done it for a long period of time. Granted, his 65 goal year was pretty awesome, but it wasn't like the 70-92 goal seasons Gretzky put up.

Hank Aaron never hit 50 HR in a season in his career,(his career high was 47) but put up 35-45 HRs per season for 20 years, and that's how he got Babe Ruth.

If you do the math, averaging 45 goals per season for 20 years beats Gretzky.

Again, where do you people come up with this garbage? His 65 goal season is one of the 3 best goal scoring seasons of all time. If you're still using simply raw totals to compare players across era in 2020 I feel sorry for you.

 

[Jacoby4HOF66]

 

[gtrower]

Very cool to see although Howe is noticeably absent on there. Isn’t he the career leader for adjusted goals? I guess maybe the guy couldn’t find accurate game logs from the 40s/50s to plug in?

 

[Plural]

Very cool to see although Howe is noticeably absent on there. Isn’t he the career leader for adjusted goals? I guess maybe the guy couldn’t find accurate game logs from the 40s/50s to plug in?

It's from 1979 and after.

 

[Strangle]

Thanks.

Im getting bad stats from somewhere.

Scratch everything i posted on the subject. Ill start again another day .

You’re probably looking at ‘adjusted stats’, don’t feel bad, a lot of posters here take those pretty seriously

 

[Strangle]

What gets me in all this is I had no idea how much of a goal scorer Steve Yzerman was. I'd never have guessed that he is in Selanne/Mario territory

EDIT: looking at his hockeydb page it's no wonder. As a 30 year old I only witnessed the 2nd half of his career. Five time 50-goal scorer and a 65 goal season in the first half.

Yzerman changed his outlook on the game significantly in his later years. He got a lot of flack for the dead wings early in his career, when he was seen as selfish. He became a leader later on and the wings started winning too

 

[JasonRoseEh]

You’re probably looking at ‘adjusted stats’, don’t feel bad, a lot of posters here take those pretty seriously

Yes, using raw totals to compare players across eras in a game that had gotten astronomically harder to score in until on very recently is a much better barometer...

 

[JasonRoseEh]

Very cool to see although Howe is noticeably absent on there. Isn’t he the career leader for adjusted goals? I guess maybe the guy couldn’t find accurate game logs from the 40s/50s to plug in?

In the tweeters follow up post he mentioned Howe as the leader and that stats aren't available prior to 1979 so guys like Espisito and Richard aren't done justice. Also this was only done for the top 20 goal scorers all time.

 

[Fantomas]

Interesting that someone brought up Hank Aaron, who played most of his career in baseball's dead ball era (the same one in which Bob Gibson posted a 1.14 era), and still broke Babe Ruth's home run record.

By conventional stats, he is extremely underrated. However advanced stats (like WAR) reveal him to be among the most dominant players of all time. Stats like WAR also adjust for context, and are widely accepted in baseball discourse. Needless to say, we're a little behind in the hockey circles.

So I like the comparison to Ovechkin.

 

[Fantomas]

And yeah, Ovechkin's 65-goal season is among the very best, if we adjust for context.

 

[madinsomniac]

Than Gretzky? Yes he did because he played more of the DPE but it’s not a big amount of his career like some seem to imply

The thing is thatcwhile DPE clutch and grab tactics didn’t leech across the league until the late 90’s... people were doing it religiously to Lemieux as early as 89... its why he bitched so adamantly about the league in the early 90’s while the Hulls and Gretzkys didn’t agree with him cause they were not seeing that level of interference yet... as soon as it extrapolated to them they bitched too...

Lemieux was a physical freak with a super high hockey IQ and vision... he was tge single greatest pure talent the NHL ever saw... including orr and Gretzky... he had horrible training habits and the league just did not protect him like they did wayne... he was perpetually injured because of it

when he retired the first time one of the tributes to him had an anonymous ref saying that you had to let guys mug him or he’d score every other shift...

Here is a neat trick, take all the games Lemieux missed due to injury and lockouts and apply his average points per game from that season or the average of the season before and after the missed time and see what ridiculous numbers he may have had...

Ovie or crosby arent even in the stratosphere of Lemieux and Gretzky...not even close

 

[Devil Dancer]

The thing is thatcwhile DPE clutch and grab tactics didn’t leech across the league until the late 90’s... people were doing it religiously to Lemieux as early as 89... its why he *****ed so adamantly about the league in the early 90’s while the Hulls and Gretzkys didn’t agree with him cause they were not seeing that level of interference yet... as soon as it extrapolated to them they *****ed too...

Lemieux was a physical freak with a super high hockey IQ and vision... he was tge single greatest pure talent the NHL ever saw... including orr and Gretzky... he had horrible training habits and the league just did not protect him like they did wayne... he was perpetually injured because of it

when he retired the first time one of the tributes to him had an anonymous ref saying that you had to let guys mug him or he’d score every other shift...

Here is a neat trick, take all the games Lemieux missed due to injury and lockouts and apply his average points per game from that season or the average of the season before and after the missed time and see what ridiculous numbers he may have had...

Ovie or crosby arent even in the stratosphere of Lemieux and Gretzky...not even close

This is a new level of nuts. The league, including players and the refs, somehow, for some reason, collectively decided it would be a good idea to interfere with Mario while letting other big stars of the same era get a pass.

This is tinfoil hat stuff.

 

[Khomutov]

And yeah, Ovechkin's 65-goal season is among the very best, if we adjust for context.

This is the highest goal scoring season since 1996. This is almost 25 years ago! Only Stamkos in 2012 came close. So it is even if you look at raw numbers very impressive.

 

[alphabetical]

This is a new level of nuts. The league, including players and the refs, somehow, for some reason, collectively decided it would be a good idea to interfere with Mario while letting other big stars of the same era get a pass.

This is tinfoil hat stuff.

That is penguin fandom in a nutshell.

 

[Strangle]

Yes, using raw totals to compare players across eras in a game that had gotten astronomically harder to score in until on very recently is a much better barometer...

whatever helps you sleep at night

 

[pitcher]

This is a new level of nuts. The league, including players and the refs, somehow, for some reason, collectively decided it would be a good idea to interfere with Mario while letting other big stars of the same era get a pass.

This is tinfoil hat stuff.

I’m not a Pens fan, but Lemieux definitely had it harder than some other players. If you watched both him and Gretzky play, it was evident that there were unwritten rules players and/or refs followed for Gretzky that didn’t apply for Lemieux. It’s not like nothing similar happen before... Maurice Richard definitely didn’t benefit of the same advantages other superstars of his era did.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

I’m not a Pens fan, but Lemieux definitely had it harder than some other players. If you watched both him and Gretzky play, it was evident that there were unwritten rules players and/or refs followed for Gretzky that didn’t apply for Lemieux. It’s not like nothing similar happen before... Maurice Richard definitely didn’t benefit of the same advantages other superstars of his era did.

I grew up watching Gretzky and Lemieuxs careers (as a die hard edmonton fan).

Gretz used opposition interference and shadowing to bait players out of position.
Lemieux overpowered players with speed, size, and finesse (Gretzky had none of those).

The gameplan used on Mario (intense interference) couldn't be used as easily on Gretzky.

When Gretzky didn't have the puck, he wasn't anywhere near the play most of the time. He basically did everything he could to draw attention bait as many players as he could to be completely out of position.

Gretzky was playing chess.

His "office" was behind the net. You think opposing defenders would be stupid enough to chase the greatest passer of all time with the best vision in history? He DARED you to come after him. with or without the puck.

 

[cesareborgia]

Lemieux is the best goal scorer of all time, and he will remain so for years to come. But Ovi has a real shot of passing Gretzky within the next 4-7 years.

 

[Trap Jesus]

I do kind of wonder how much of an "era excuse" will apply to other offensive records if Ovechkin ends up breaking the record. You expect a drop-off, but he's currently ahead of Gretzky for goals per game.

 

[GreatGonzo]

Than Gretzky? Yes he did because he played more of the DPE but it’s not a big amount of his career like some seem to imply

Gretzky played 234 games in the DPE, That is if you count the DPE starting in ‘97, which I’m sure most people do. Lemieux played 220. So no, he technically didn’t. Not just that but he played only 144 games from ‘98-‘04.