The 2019-20 Around the League Thread, Pt. III

[xtra]

I’d argue that Mario Lemieux was more talented than Gretzky or at worst on the same level. Just that cancer and other injuries stopped him from getting to the numbers gretz had.

in Regards to ovi him missing 1.5 season of play due to lockouts makes his run at Gretzkys goal record even crazier. Wouldn’t be a stretch to say he’s the beat goal scorer ever.

 

[4Twenty]

Gretzky was consistently 50-80 points ahead of his peers and had unique vision and intelligence that no other player in the history of hockey has approached. He'd be the best player in the league by a wide margin today and would get 100+ assists every season. I think the notion that he's in a different class than other elite players is accurate, and that this is easy to recognize.

How do you quantify this?

I'd say the moment big 66 entered the league, that "uniqueness and intelligence" advantage was shared at the top. And I also think it's nearly impossible to compare an era where you could slide the puck on the ice from the blueline and score regularly to now a days.

 

[vancityluongo]

I don't think Ovechkin will break Gretzky's record, but just the mere fact that it's even up for discussion as a possibility when Gretzky spent so much of his career in an era where scoring was like 150% what it is now means that we need to stop pretending like he was on a whole other planet from other elites. He was obviously generational, and may be the consensus best player of all time, but it's not like he was head and shoulders above the other generationals. And the variance in opponents' abilities is so much less than it used to be that inevitably you wonder just how much a Crosby or McDavid would feast against the weak links in some 1980s defenses.

Gretzky is still over 900 points clear of the next guy (Jagr).

Like, a borderline HHOFer better than the second highest scoring player of all-time, who also played like 300 more games.

In absolute terms, Connor McDavid is the best hockey player I've ever seen in my life, but he is just slightly better than his peers, and over some stretches, is only equal. Nobody said that about Gretzky. Gretzky would not have lost a Hart to Taylor Hall.

I agree that Gretzky was not head and shoulders above some other generational players (you can easily make an argument for Orr/Lemieux's peak or Howe's longevity/toughness), but that's maintaining a very strict definition of generational.

Is Gretzky (9 Harts) clearly above Crosby (2 Harts) or Stan Mikita (2 Harts) or Bobby Hull (2 Harts) or Phil Esposito (guess how many... that's right, 2 Harts) or Bobby Clarke (3! Harts) ? Well, yeah.

 

[4Twenty]

Gretzky is still over 900 points clear of the next guy (Jagr).

Like, a borderline HHOFer better than the second highest scoring player of all-time, who also played like 300 more games.

In absolute terms, Connor McDavid is the best hockey player I've ever seen in my life, but he is just slightly better than his peers, and over some stretches, is only equal. Nobody said that about Gretzky. Gretzky would not have lost a Hart to Taylor Hall.

I agree that Gretzky was not head and shoulders above some other generational players (you can easily make an argument for Orr/Lemieux's peak or Howe's longevity/toughness), but that's maintaining a very strict definition of generational.

Is Gretzky (9 Harts) clearly above Crosby (2 Harts) or Stan Mikita (2 Harts) or Bobby Hull (2 Harts) or Phil Esposito (guess how many... that's right, 2 Harts) or Bobby Clarke (3! Harts) ? Well, yeah.

Hart trophies are voted on by media, the same media who put Toews in their top 100 and the guy with 200+ more goals and points and a better playoff record didn't.

Art Ross' would be a better trophy to use.

 

[vancityluongo]

Hart trophies are voted on by media, the same media who put Toews in their top 100 and the guy with 200+ more goals and points and a better playoff record didn't.

Art Ross' would be a better trophy to use.

Which of these seasons would you argue there was a bias?

The only one I can see is 88-89 when Lemieux had 199 points vs 168 for Wayne. But no one else was ever close.

And sure, if you want to look at Art Ross'

NHL Art Ross Trophy Winners | Hockey-Reference.com

Still head and shoulders (I think double the wins counts as pretty clear) over anyone not named Lemieux or Howe.

 

[4Twenty]

Which of these seasons would you argue there was a bias?

View attachment 288791

The only one I can see is 88-89 when Lemieux had 199 points vs 168 for Wayne. But no one else was ever close.

And sure, if you want to look at Art Ross'

NHL Art Ross Trophy Winners | Hockey-Reference.com

View attachment 288795

Still head and shoulders (I think double the wins counts as pretty clear) over anyone not named Lemieux or Howe.

I just prefer objective measures not voting. Most points does the trick.

 

[krutovsdonut]

How do you quantify this?

I'd say the moment big 66 entered the league, that "uniqueness and intelligence" advantage was shared at the top. And I also think it's nearly impossible to compare an era where you could slide the puck on the ice from the blueline and score regularly to now a days.

lemieux was like an yzerman in a more toolsy 6' 5" body. he was a perfect all rounder hockey specimen and he got his points the same way the great all rounder centres of his era also got them only he was bigger and better at every individual skill.

there is nobody ever to compare how gretzky got his points as a skinny, weird skating, weird shooting outlier.

 

[Orr4Norris]

Gretzky is still over 900 points clear of the next guy (Jagr).

Like, a borderline HHOFer better than the second highest scoring player of all-time, who also played like 300 more games.

In absolute terms, Connor McDavid is the best hockey player I've ever seen in my life, but he is just slightly better than his peers, and over some stretches, is only equal. Nobody said that about Gretzky. Gretzky would not have lost a Hart to Taylor Hall.

I agree that Gretzky was not head and shoulders above some other generational players (you can easily make an argument for Orr/Lemieux's peak or Howe's longevity/toughness), but that's maintaining a very strict definition of generational.

Is Gretzky (9 Harts) clearly above Crosby (2 Harts) or Stan Mikita (2 Harts) or Bobby Hull (2 Harts) or Phil Esposito (guess how many... that's right, 2 Harts) or Bobby Clarke (3! Harts) ? Well, yeah.

To me it always comes down to this. You can’t compare players playing in different eras but you can compare them to their peers.

 

[krutovsdonut]

i think you can compare the very best of different eras. i am not at all convinced mcdavid is necessarily better than the best of those days. i think lemiuex and gretzky have different arguments for being better players. they were miles ahead of the rest of their era. the last remnants of that era competed very well against the beginnings of this era in the early 2000s.

csb/

many years ago i watched some video of bobby orr in black and white playing along the boards where he was rapidly rotating around guys in a weird way to get position. within a few days i saw pavel bure do exactly the same thing during a game. i'd never seen the play before. i've never seen it since. it made me realize that bobby orr and pavel bure had the same level of skating talent and skill.

/csb

 

[I am toxic]

lemieux was like an yzerman in a more toolsy 6' 5" body. he was a perfect all rounder hockey specimen and he got his points the same way the great all rounder centres of his era also got them only he was bigger and better at every individual skill.

there is nobody ever to compare how gretzky got his points as a skinny, weird skating, weird shooting outlier.

Agreed on your points, except I would put him a small notch above yzerman and the other great centres in hockey IQ. Watch the tying goal by Kariya from Pronger in the 2002 gold medal game. I still can't fathom how Lemieux sees that play. yzerman is one of my all-time faves, but I can't see anyone other than Gretzky - and of course Lemieux - making that play.

 

[UK Canuck]

McDavid is the best player in NHL History(not greatest, there's a difference), unless we think Hockey is utterly unique in being the only sport on earth where players dont get better as generations go on

 

[krutovsdonut]

Agreed on your points, except I would put him a small notch above yzerman and the other great centres in hockey IQ. Watch the tying goal by Kariya from Pronger in the 2002 gold medal game. I still can't fathom how Lemieux sees that play. yzerman is one of my all-time faves, but I can't see anyone other than Gretzky - and of course Lemieux - making that play.

lol, i knew that play would come up. i almost mentioned it. yes it was a gretzky like dummy.

i agree with you that lemieux had that extra vision to a greater degree than the other really good centres of his day. i guess i would say the difference was just a few increments better than those guys, rather than a whole other paradigm like gretzky. lemieux played the game incredibly well. gretzky played a different game.

if it helps, the one intangible where lemieux wins is i think he made other guys better than gretzky did, maybe because they were capable of comprehending what he was doing and learning from it.

 

[Jyrki21]

Gretzky is still over 900 points clear of the next guy (Jagr).

Like, a borderline HHOFer better than the second highest scoring player of all-time, who also played like 300 more games.

In absolute terms, Connor McDavid is the best hockey player I've ever seen in my life, but he is just slightly better than his peers, and over some stretches, is only equal. Nobody said that about Gretzky. Gretzky would not have lost a Hart to Taylor Hall.

Not disputing that, I'm just saying if you were to unleash some of today's best players in an era as high-scoring as Gretzky's prime scoring years, I'll bet their totals would be a lot more numerically comparable. Even Lemieux, who had early injury troubles and played on a much worse team for the first chunk of his career, probably could have approached similar heights if not surpassed them with some better luck. (And circling back, the fact that Ovechkin even gets into this discussion playing in the dead-puck era after goaltenders figured out how to tend goal is pretty remarkable. How many does that guy score if his career begins in 1979, even adjusting for training, diet, equipment, etc.?)

For the record, if it's somehow possible, I feel Lemieux actually gets a bit underrated historically. Apart from the above (I mean, he put up 199 points on an 87-point team), the mere fact that he took three years off hockey, comes back and still stars is pretty crazy. I mean, some of us were already on HF when Näslund and Forsberg were duking it out for the Art Ross in 2002-03, and I had basically zero recollection that 37-year old Lemieux put up 91 points that year and finished 8th in league scoring on an awful Penguins team.

 

[Melvin]

Not disputing that, I'm just saying if you were to unleash some of today's best players in an era as high-scoring as Gretzky's prime scoring years, I'll bet their totals would be a lot more numerically comparable. Even Lemieux, who had early injury troubles and played on a much worse team for the first chunk of his career, probably could have approached similar heights if not surpassed them with some better luck. (And circling back, the fact that Ovechkin even gets into this discussion playing in the dead-puck era after goaltenders figured out how to tend goal is pretty remarkable. How many does that guy score if his career begins in 1979, even adjusting for training, diet, equipment, etc.?)

For the record, if it's somehow possible, I feel Lemieux actually gets a bit underrated historically. Apart from the above (I mean, he put up 199 points on an 87-point team), the mere fact that he took three years off hockey, comes back and still stars is pretty crazy. I mean, some of us were already on HF when Näslund and Forsberg were duking it out for the Art Ross in 2002-03, and I had basically zero recollection that 37-year old Lemieux put up 91 points that year and finished 8th in league scoring on an awful Penguins team.

I remember it well. I still played fantasy hockey back then and one dude I played with picked up Lemieux in like the 5th round and torched us all.

 

[vancityluongo]

Not disputing that, I'm just saying if you were to unleash some of today's best players in an era as high-scoring as Gretzky's prime scoring years, I'll bet their totals would be a lot more numerically comparable. Even Lemieux, who had early injury troubles and played on a much worse team for the first chunk of his career, probably could have approached similar heights if not surpassed them with some better luck. (And circling back, the fact that Ovechkin even gets into this discussion playing in the dead-puck era after goaltenders figured out how to tend goal is pretty remarkable. How many does that guy score if his career begins in 1979, even adjusting for training, diet, equipment, etc.?)

Fair enough: NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Adjusted Goals | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[racerjoe]

Can't we just look at scoring adjust rates for a general idea?

https://www.sports-reference.com/bl...ded-to-hockey-reference-player-season-finder/

Not perfect but nothing will be.

I did a quick search and couldn't find the other document I was looking at, that shows just how many more points Gretzky had than other people in that era. It was crazy. I mean in hockey pools you were picking his goals as one player and his assists as a second player because he scored that many more than everyone else.

Imagine where he would be if he was as healthy as Ovie?

 

[krutovsdonut]

the fact that Ovechkin even gets into this discussion playing in the dead-puck era after goaltenders figured out how to tend goal is pretty remarkable.)

not to get sucked into this discussion, but there is a flip side.

how many does gretzky score with a modern stick adding perfect flex, a bigger sweet spot, better accuracy and 5-10mph to his shot? imagine how much more precise his saucer passes would have been. contemplate the zip he could have put on behind the back cross ice backhand feeds.

and how about bobby hull with a new stick? that dude gets overlooked in ovi discussions. look at what he did with victoriaville sticks from the 60s with no flex that even i used to break taking a slapper. look at the curves he put on those sticks to make them perform and still managed to hit the net.

bobby hull and his kid had natural genetics for shooting pucks like we have never seen. you think ovi is a specimen? imagine this guy with a modern trainer and using today's equipment.

 

[4Twenty]

Shows us what the goalies looked like in the 80's vs when Ovechkin broke in.

 

[Zombotron]

 

[vancityluongo]

Can't we just look at scoring adjust rates for a general idea?

https://www.sports-reference.com/bl...ded-to-hockey-reference-player-season-finder/

Exactly.

Single-season:

Career:

Ovechkin is undoubtedly an all-time great goal scorer.

Points wise though, it's still not close; although Jyrki's point stands. Era-adjusted, it is closer than otherwise.

 

[I am toxic]

I will never be able to un-read Cooney Weiland.

"Dad, who are the greatest goal scorers?"

"Well, son, there is Hull, Gretzky, Ovi, Lemieux . . . and Cooney Weiland."

"Cooney Weiland! Stop making stuff up! You're toxic!"

damn you, vancityluongo, damn you to hell!

 

[Blue and Green]

Mario Lemieux at age 35 came out of a 3.5-year retirement during the middle of the dead puck era with traps and interference and butterfly goalies and the whole bit. 35 goals, 76 points in 43 games. 35-year-old, bad back Lemieux was as good as peak Jagr who won his fourth consecutive scoring title that season. Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux were extreme outliers who would've been the best players in any generation.

 

[racerjoe]

Mario Lemieux at age 35 came out of a 3.5-year retirement during the middle of the dead puck era with traps and interference and butterfly goalies and the whole bit. 35 goals, 76 points in 43 games. 35-year-old, bad back Lemieux was as good as peak Jagr who won his fourth consecutive scoring title that season. Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux were extreme outliers who would've been the best players in any generation.

I think to me what was most spectacular was his 95-96 lead the NHL in scoring with 161 points more than 15 than Jagr, his teammate and more than 40 to Sakic next closest player not on his team by over 40 points, played less games then both as he was coming back from Cancer... and called it a bad year.

Would have loved to see what he could have done with a healthier career.

 

[Blue and Green]

I think to me what was most spectacular was his 95-96 lead the NHL in scoring with 161 points more than 15 than Jagr, his teammate and more than 40 to Sakic next closest player not on his team by over 40 points, played less games then both as he was coming back from Cancer... and called it a bad year.

Would have loved to see what he could have done with a healthier career.

Oh for sure, he had several spectacular seasons but I referenced that one because it was when low scoring was fully entrenched plus he was an over-the-hill physical shadow of his former self yet still as good as Jagr who is on the same level as Ovechkin.

 

[4Twenty]

I think to me what was most spectacular was his 95-96 lead the NHL in scoring with 161 points more than 15 than Jagr, his teammate and more than 40 to Sakic next closest player not on his team by over 40 points, played less games then both as he was coming back from Cancer... and called it a bad year.

Would have loved to see what he could have done with a healthier career.

Oh the 161 point season in 70 games pffft, what about the 160 point season in 60 games in 92-93.