Where does Selanne rank as a goal scorer?

[Selanne08*]

Where would you rank Selanne in History just based purely on scoring?

Click to read more...

 

[sidewayzLEAFS]

pretty high as in his youth he was offensively productive and even tied with alex mogilny for the rocket richard trophy in 92-93 with 76 goals(although, mogilny only played 77 games while selanne played at least 82)

also, his days in anaheim with kariya consisted of lots of goals and points as the duo often topped the points campaign in the late 90's.

 

[Selanne08*]

yeah i was thinking about this earlier but i couldnt come to a decision. he was never the fanciest with the puck but he always had the wheels to burn by anyone

 

[RabbinsDuck]

In goal-scoring alone, I would put him ahead of Kurri, Mogilny and Ovechkin (for now) - on a similar level to Bure - but behind Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull, Bossy, Esposito, Jagr, LaFleur, Yzerman and Dionne -- amongst the more modern players.

 

[sidewayzLEAFS]

im not sure if i would put selanne ahead of kurri (both finnish!?) because kurri prime seemed longer and more consistent but yeah i would rank selanne above mogilny but i feel ovie will one day pass him

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

In goal-scoring alone, I would put him ahead of Kurri, Mogilny and Ovechkin (for now) - on a similar level to Bure - but behind Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull, Bossy, Esposito, Jagr, LaFleur, Yzerman and Dionne -- amongst the more modern players.

Selanne is well behind Bure in terms of goal scoring IMO. He has the best season of the two (albeit in the freak 92-93 season), but Bure has the next 3 or 4 best seasons. Kurri was a more consistant goal scorer than Selanne as well, and it wasn't all Gretzky. I'd put them pretty close. Ovechkin has a better goal scoring peak than Selanne, but obviously doesn't have career value yet. Mogilny is the best comparison to Selanne because they both had the huge years in 92-93 then struggled with inconsistancy (though Mogilny struggled a lot more and therefore I have him below Selanne).

If we are JUST counting goals, Selanne > Jagr at least in terms of peak value. Jagr is the much better playmaker obviously.

 

[Ogopogo*]

Where would you rank Selanne in History just based purely on scoring?

#20.

 

[jepjepjoo]

Selanne is well behind Bure in terms of goal scoring IMO. He has the best season of the two (albeit in the freak 92-93 season), but Bure has the next 3 or 4 best seasons. Kurri was a more consistant goal scorer than Selanne as well, and it wasn't all Gretzky. I'd put them pretty close. Ovechkin has a better goal scoring peak than Selanne, but obviously doesn't have career value yet. Mogilny is the best comparison to Selanne because they both had the huge years in 92-93 then struggled with inconsistancy (though Mogilny struggled a lot more and therefore I have him below Selanne).

If we are JUST counting goals, Selanne > Jagr at least in terms of peak value. Jagr is the much better playmaker obviously.

thats quite an overstatement:

Selanne won the scoring title 3 times/Bure won it twice.
Selanne´s five best scoring seasons combined is 274goals/Bure 288.
Selanne had better career
(Selanne is better overall player)

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

thats quite an overstatement:

Selanne won the scoring title 3 times/Bure won it twice.
Selanne´s five best scoring seasons combined is 274goals/Bure 288.
Selanne had better career
(Selanne is better overall player)

While I probably exaggerated the difference between them, I'd like to point out some additional statistics:

Playoff goal scoring:

Bure 35 goals in 64 games.
Selanne 35 goals in 105 games.

Top 10 finishes in goals:

Bure
1992-93 NHL 60 (5)
1993-94 NHL 60 (1 - 3 goals over#2)
1997-98 NHL 51 (3)
1999-00 NHL 58 (1 - 14 goals over #2!)
2000-01 NHL 59 (1 - 5 goals over #2, 14 goals over #4)

Selanne
1992-93 NHL 76 (tied for 1)
1996-97 NHL 51 (2)
1997-98 NHL 52 (tied for 1, 1 goal ahead of Bure)
1998-99 NHL 47 (1 - 3 goals ahead of #2)
2005-06 NHL 40 (10)
2006-07 NHL 48 (3)

So we have Bure with 1, 1, 1, 3, 5 and Selanne with 1, 1T, 1T, 2, 3, 10. Very similar regular season numbers, but only one of them was an elite goal scorer in the postseason.

 

[Ogopogo*]

I have Selanne at #20 and Bure at #21 for goal scoring.

I have Selanne at #60 overall and Bure at #102 overall among non-goalies.

 

[Big Phil]

Other than Bure I wouldn't rate anyone else of his era ahead of him personally. I consider his era to be '92-01 for the most part.

 

[sunb]

Interesting thing about Selanne is that he could've been even more prolific and devastating of a scorer had he not been injured. Early in his career (his 2nd season in the NHL I believe), Selanne tore his achilles tendon and it really affected his speed and acceleration. Although he was still fast throughout his career, he was never as explosive nor as effective as his first NHL season, when he score 76 goals as a rookie.

Had Selanne not been injured, who knows how much better he could've been. At the same time however, maybe he got lucky? Had he kept on playing like the Finnish Flash of his 76 goal season, he may have recklessly skated into high-traffic areas and got concussioned. So maybe it was for the best since he does have a long and meaningful career.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

thats quite an overstatement:

Selanne won the scoring title 3 times/Bure won it twice.
Selanne´s five best scoring seasons combined is 274goals/Bure 288.
Selanne had better career
(Selanne is better overall player)

bure won 3 scoring titles-- '94, '00, '01

according to hockey-reference.com, these are both players' goal totals, adjusted for era:

selanne
1992-93 NHL 62 (1)
1996-97 NHL 53 (2)
1997-98 NHL 60 (1)
1998-99 NHL 54 (1)
2005-06 NHL 40 (10)
2006-07 NHL 50 (3)
Active 616 (3)
Career NHL 616 (13)

bure
1992-93 NHL 49 (5)
1993-94 NHL 55 (1)
1997-98 NHL 59 (3)
1999-00 NHL 64 (1)
2000-01 NHL 65 (1)
Career NHL 463 (45)

so, according to one metric, bure's best goal scoring season was statistically superior to selanne's.

if we consider the period of '97-'99 and '99-'01 to be selanne and bure's respective primes (which makes sense considering that both players' only hart nomination occurred during this time), we can see that on the basis of goal scoring, bure was superior. bure finished one adjusted goal behind selanne in '97-'98 (though selanne missed 9 games that season, so his GPG was significantly higher). and bure's back-to-back goal scoring titles blow selanne's back-to-back titles out of the water (65, 64 vs. 60, 54). adjusted stats are not definitive, but it's at the very least an interesting tool for this debate.

obviously, selanne's longevity blows bure's out of the water, but i think bure's peak goal scoring ability is on a whole different level of dominance. also, the playoff goal scoring edge goes to bure, given that selanne has the same amount of playoff goals in 41 extra games. and, while selanne has phenomenal olympic totals (20 goals in 25 games), bure had that one amazing run in nagano when he scored 9 goals in 6 games. personally, i have bure ahead, but i tend to favour peak and playoff performance over longevity.

 

[Dissonance]

It's also interesting to look at how many players have led the NHL in goals in at least three different seasons. Bure and Selanne are in pretty select company here (and they were each a single goal away from doing it four times):

Cecil Dye (3)
Charlie Conacher (5)
Maurice Richard (5)
Gordie Howe (5)
Bobby Hull (7)
Phil Esposito (6)
Wayne Gretzky (5)
Brett Hull (3)
Mario Lemieux (3)
Teemu Selanne (3)
Pavel Bure (3)

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

It's also interesting to look at how many players have led the NHL in goals in at least three different seasons. Bure and Selanne are in pretty select company here (and they were each a single goal away from doing it four times):

Cecil Dye (3)
Charlie Conacher (5)
Maurice Richard (5)
Gordie Howe (5)
Bobby Hull (7)
Phil Esposito (6)
Wayne Gretzky (5)
Brett Hull (3)
Mario Lemieux (3)
Teemu Selanne (3)
Pavel Bure (3)

if gretzky never existed, bossy would have an extra goal scoring title to go with the two he already has-- and arguably a fourth one in '85-'86, as i suspect kurri wouldn't have scored 68 goals that year without gretzky (bossy had 61).

of course, ovechkin is very likely to join this list very soon. if he wins in another landslide next season, where would he rank among the all-time goal scorers after only 5 seasons?

 

[Ogopogo*]

if gretzky never existed, bossy would have an extra goal scoring title to go with the two he already has-- and arguably a fourth one in '85-'86, as i suspect kurri wouldn't have scored 68 goals that year without gretzky (bossy had 61).

of course, ovechkin is very likely to join this list very soon. if he wins in another landslide next season, where would he rank among the all-time goal scorers after only 5 seasons?

I have Ovechkin at #26 all-time greatest goal scorer right now

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

if gretzky never existed, bossy would have an extra goal scoring title to go with the two he already has-- and arguably a fourth one in '85-'86, as i suspect kurri wouldn't have scored 68 goals that year without gretzky (bossy had 61).

of course, ovechkin is very likely to join this list very soon. if he wins in another landslide next season, where would he rank among the all-time goal scorers after only 5 seasons?

Honestly, 5 years is long enough to get a good idea of a player's prime. If he wins the goal scoring title by a wide margin next year, he's got to be Top 10-15 all time in goal scoring.

Really, who would be definitively ahead of him?

Conacher, Richard, Howe, Bobby Hull, Esposito, Gretzky, Lemieux. Bossy, due to his playoff goal scoring. Brett Hull? At that point, they'd have similar peaks...

 

[lextune]

Honestly, 5 years is long enough to get a good idea of a player's prime. If he wins the goal scoring title by a wide margin next year, he's got to be Top 10-15 all time in goal scoring.

I think so too.

 

[P-M Bouchard]

he was never the fanciest with the puck

www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/players/Teemu_Selanne/

 

[seventieslord]

I would say about 20th, all things considered.

 

[cupcrazyman]

I have Ovechkin at #26 all-time greatest goal scorer right now

Ovechkin has already scored 546 goals ? thats amazing......

 

[arrbez]

Ovechkin has already scored 546 goals ? thats amazing......

Ovechkin is a better goal scorer than most of the guys who have more goals than him, he just hasn't been at it for very long.

 

[Ogopogo*]

Ovechkin has already scored 546 goals ? thats amazing......

Raw goal totals are worthless measure of goal scoring prowess. True impact is what I measure and thus far, Ovechkin is #26.

 

[Mark753]

About Selanne, anyone think he would have broke the rookie goal scoring record had he stayed in Finland for another season, or played in the NHL in 1991-92? I highly doubt he would have scored 76 in 1991-92 or 1993-94 but he could have broke it because it was "only" 53 by Bossy.

 

[Smart Alek]

Raw goal totals are worthless measure of goal scoring prowess. True impact is what I measure and thus far, Ovechkin is #26.

Finally, a voice of reason!

Why 'Ogopogo', do you believe all these peons so stubbornly persist on using goal totals to somehow indicate players' goal scoring prowess? As you stated, it is a wholly 'worthless' statistic. Especially when we're talking about 'goal scoring'!

Please continue to do what you do here. It's truly rare to find one who can buck the conventional wisdom and succeed in bringing common sense to a discussion.