In some ways, it'd be right if Gretzky's goal scoring record is surpassed, as of all his accomplishments, it is in my view by far the most "era-propped". Even Lemieux wasn't benefitting from a high scoring league to that same extent.
The thing is, here are the goals-leaders from
1981-82 through 1984-85:
323 -- Gretzky
233 -- Bossy
210 -- Goulet
200 -- Kurri
1981-82 to 1986-87:
437 -- Gretzky
332 -- Bossy
322 -- Kurri
312 -- Goulet
While the raw totals are obviously influenced by era, the gaps of domination (from the NHL's origin up to the cap-era, anyway) are not. You'd be hard-pressed to find any comparable domination of NHL goal-scoring over a four-, five-, or six-season period in League history -- in fact, there probably is
nothing as dominant, with the possible exception of Hull mid-/late-60s and Espo in early-70s. (There were intelligent viewers who watched all players from the 1940s through the Gretzky era, who considered Bossy the greatest goal-scorer they'd ever seen -- and Gretky out-goaled him by nearly 100 goals over a five-season period.)
Mario Lemieux certainly had the uber-elite talent / potential to be the #1 career goals guy if he'd stayed healthy / motivated for long enough. It's notable, though, that most of his top goals' seasons (1989; 1993; 1996 if you consider the PP environment) were in seasons of unusually high scoring by top players (higher than in Gretzky's peak seasons). In the more "normal" seasons, Lemieux couldn't score at Gretzky levels, and he wasn't in Gretzky's class as an ES producer. The other thing with Mario (who was disadvantaged in this comparison by hitting the DPE earlier in his career than Gretzky) is: If healthy, would he have had the will / determination to push/grind his way through c.1997 to 2002 hockey, playing 82 games-plus-playoffs-per-year, to chase those kind of career records? He seemed (understandably) to quit NHL hockey partly because he was fed-up with the holding / clutching / cheating.
Ovechkin does have this (admittedly) lesser advantage over Gretzky / Lemieux -- the NHL got both higher-scoring and 'softer' as he got older and past his physical prime.
Anyway, I agree that it would be fair and good to see someone else (well, Ovi) take the career goals-record off Gretzky. I'm not really into career-totals' records anyway (unless they're achieved in a player's prime, which is rare), and I've always felt the goals-record was kind of an "empty Gretzky record". It felt rather anti-climactic at the time (March, 1994) as Gretzky was past his prime and his team was in the crapper, and he spent the next half-decade as a fairly mediocre / unexceptional goal scorer. To be honest, I tend to think of Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Hull as the best and top "career" goal scorers in N. American hockey history. Ovechkin is in there now, of course.
