What if Lemieux was in his prime today?

[noobman]

Yes, with those line-mates, even just Malkin, he would be putting 150+ seasons.

180+ would probably be reaching it with the NHL of today and goaltenders, but I could see him having that all-time season with 70-80 goals.

Crosby/Malkin/Lemieux puts you at three natural centers. Neither Malkin nor Crosby play the wing exceptionally well... although to his credit, Malkin loses less of an edge at that position.

In any case, I see Lemieux in his prime being able to put a 20-30 point gap between himself and the rest of the league.

Crosby was on pace for an unbelievable year this season. I suspect that he would have slowed down a bit from his 64G 68A 132PT season, but there is little doubt in my mind that he would have broken 120. If it was Mario there instead I think you'd have a guy on pace for 140-150 points.

It's hard to say what the point spread would be like if you inserted an "in his prime" Lemieux into the lineup on a healthy Pens roster. That would almost certainly bump Malkin to the wing and put one of Crosby or Lemieux on the second line. You'd imagine that ice time spreads would be pretty similar, but one center is going to have the better wingers and both will likely have somewhat reduced 5 on 5 ice time. The alternative is to move one of Lemieux or Crosby to the wing. In 2005-06 Crosby briefly spent some time playing on Lemeiux's wing and was quite unremarkable. You could argue that Lemieux would be a better winger given his size/strength, but it's unclear as to whether that would help or hurt his statistics.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Crosby was on pace for around 150 points at one point this season. You're absolutely off your rocker if you think "ruh oh" if we gotta add Mario , we gotta say goodbye to Ryan Kesler. which will mean a dip in production.... WRONG.

You're absolutely off your rocker if you think any team is going to sign the best player in the league without budget consequences.

Lemieux put some of his biggest numbers up with the biggest no names... Kevin Stevens, Joe Mullen.

At that point I stopped reading.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Crosby/Malkin/Lemieux puts you at three natural centers. Neither Malkin nor Crosby play the wing exceptionally well... although to his credit, Malkin loses less of an edge at that position.

...

It's hard to say what the point spread would be like if you inserted an "in his prime" Lemieux into the lineup on a healthy Pens roster. That would almost certainly bump Malkin to the wing and put one of Crosby or Lemieux on the second line. You'd imagine that ice time spreads would be pretty similar, but one center is going to have the better wingers and both will likely have somewhat reduced 5 on 5 ice time. The alternative is to move one of Lemieux or Crosby to the wing. In 2005-06 Crosby briefly spent some time playing on Lemeiux's wing and was quite unremarkable. You could argue that Lemieux would be a better winger given his size/strength, but it's unclear as to whether that would help or hurt his statistics.

The point is moot, because inserting Mario into the lineup would put the Pens several million dollars over the salary ceiling. Somebody would have to go, most likely one of Crosby or Malkin in order to create enough space for the $10m contract.

 

[Infinite Vision*]

Actually in every one of Lemieux's amazing seasons he was actually playing with atleast 1 or even multiple, elite offensive talents. Rob Brown in 89 get's labeled as a bum, yeah ok... the guy was absolutely oozing with offensive talent and put up insane numbers before coming to the NHL, just because the rest of his career didn't pan out doesn't mean he sucked. Think about it this way, if you put Tavares next to Crosby right now it would be something similar. Lemieux had Coffey from 88-92, had Stevens in 93 and in the early 90's Stevens on his own was nearly the best overall forward in the game. Then in 96 his team was fairly stacked. Really these are just more factor's why he or anyone else is not scoring 150+ points in today's NHL. I swear if we see 130 in the next 5 years I'll be really surprised, and I don't think Crosby would have hit 130 points this year.

 

[JackSlater]

Actually in every one of Lemieux's amazing seasons he was actually playing with atleast 1 or even multiple, elite offensive talents. Rob Brown in 89 get's labeled as a bum, yeah ok... the guy was absolutely oozing with offensive talent and put up insane numbers before coming to the NHL, just because the rest of his career didn't pan out doesn't mean he sucked. Think about it this way, if you put Tavares next to Crosby right now it would be something similar.

This is a pretty terrible comparison. First off Tavares was a guy projected to go #1 years before his draft, while Brown only went at #67, and that was in a smaller talent pool of course. Tavares has also shown in his only two seasons that he can play at a much higher level than Brown could, other than when he got to play with Lemieux. Even if Brown really was an incredible junior player the argument still wouldn't work. Alexandre Daigle was a far superior prospect and was even likely a superior NHL player, and no one would say that a star was all that fortunate to play with him.

Lemieux had Coffey from 88-92, had Stevens in 93 and in the early 90's Stevens on his own was nearly the best overall forward in the game. Then in 96 his team was fairly stacked. Really these are just more factor's why he or anyone else is not scoring 150+ points in today's NHL. I swear if we see 130 in the next 5 years I'll be really surprised, and I don't think Crosby would have hit 130 points this year.

I wouldn't say that Stevens was ever nearly the best overall forward in hockey. Even in Stevens' one really big year Lemieux was there and was clearly much better.