It might be personal bias, but having watched some of his earlier games now for the last two or three months, he doesn't wow you much the first two seasons, but then he just turns it on! In a game against St Louis in 81/82, I swear, the ref drops the puck, Mike Liut sets himself and
BOOM!
It's in the net! I couldn't believe it. The puck never touched the ice. He batted it in before it landed from the left faceoff circle. Now I've only seen this on highlights, but I read in a book that he actually did this twice in the same game once!
In game 5 of the 1984 SCF vs Trottier middle of the third period, he won the draw cleanly and it almost went in!
I saw him score off the faceoff against Mike Richter in his last season in LA. I remember thinking at the time, "Only Gretzky could have done that, and now I've seen it!"
Apparently, when Gary Unger joined the team in 80/81, he kind of taught Gretzky how to beat the player to the puck on the faceoff!