Mario had 17 points in 18 games during those playoffs, which is .95 ppg. You're splitting hairs.
I'm not splitting hairs, you're just reacting to the wrong point. His production went from something like 1.65 to less than 1.
Not a very inspiring drop, and certainly not splitting hairs. His difference in his numbers and his play were VERY signifigant, compared to what Wayne did at the same age on a worse team. If by splitting hairs you meant the point-per-game thing, that's just an afterthought, who cares. The meat of my argument was that he's nowhere near the offensive force he is in the regular season, whereas an old Gretzky's PPG and overall dominance didn't falter when the defenses closed up and the game's got tougher.
Why is it that so many people attribute many of Jagr's successful numbers to playing with Mario, and so many other people attribute a lot of Mario's successful numbers to playing with Jagr? Anyone else ever notice that? Never mind the fact that Jagr stuggled terribly that postseason with a shoulder injury and only had two goals.
What do you mean? I'm not attributing any individual's production to any other INDIVIDUAL.
But when the wingers on your powerplay were often Niklas Sundstrom, a still sub-par Alexei Kovalev, and Adam Graves, that's a MAJOR handicap compared to having Robert Lang, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka, and Jaromir Jagr at your disposal.
Hockey's a team game. So I guess it's fair game to attribute Wayne's better career numbers to his Oilers teammates and poor Penguins teams, but not fair when you use this point AGAINST Mario and FOR Wayne.
Gretzky has 1.8 ppg in the playoffs, Lemieux 1.6. Yeah thats a huge margin. His ppg average is better, but thats what happens when you play with strong teams that enable you to consistently venture deep into the playoffs. Gretzky played twice as many playoff games than Lemieux.
The difference between a 150 point player and a 130 is quite tangible. What looks more impressive to you? How many players have scored 150 points? And how many have scored 130?
And the fact that Wayne played so many playoff games only makes it MORE impressive. Like I said, Wayne played on weaker playoff teams than Mario, who has rarely been in the playoffs (other than '89) without the aid of such players as Kevin Stevens, Ron Francis, Mark Recchi, Jaromir Jagr, Alexei Kovalev, Joe Mullen, Rick Tocchet, Robert Lang, Martin Straka, et al.
An overwhelming amount of his playoff games have been on ELITE offensive squads. His playoff PPG is not affected negatively by those poor mid 80s Penguins teams, because they didn't make the playoffs anyway. He's only ever been on GREAT offensive playoff teams, post 1989 (only 11 games that year).
And he's NEVER went far with a team that wasn't offensively dominant, whereas Wayne carried at least 2 of them on his back through 3 or more rounds. Look at Wayne's wingers in '97, or the playoff stats of the LA Kings in '93. The offense WAS Wayne Gretzky. He had 40, and the only other guys with 20 were... his LINEMATES.
Then look at the stats for Mario's cup winning teams. Lots of guys put up more than 20 points, and Kevin Stevens even put up 33 once, with Recchi putting up 34! Man, imagine if Wayne had THOSE linemates at that time! He might have got 50 points.
Wayne did more, with less, more often. At least in the playoffs.
Mario never played on a playoff team as average offensively as the '93 Kings, or with Wingers as average as some of Wayne's in '97.
Therefore, my point is, Wayne had more time to actually LOWER his PPG in the playoffs... and yet, look at how far ahead of Mario he is, despite that.
Let's see Peter Forsberg or Jaromir Jagr get 90 points in a 5.2 goals per game season, at 37.p
Mario did.
Way to take my quote WAY out of context, Captain Obvious. I wan't even talking about Mario at that point.
