Hardy, why does nationality matter? What matters is the number of elite players in the league...no one is comparing Wayne Gretzky to Martin Straka or Peter Bondra.
The notion is that Wayne Gretzky, Lemieux, and Orr dominated their league to such a degree, that it wouldn't have mattered if players from Europe had been in the NHL. It isn't like Gretzky had a 5% lead over the next guy; then you could say, "hey, there were one or two European plays that would have cut or surpassed that lead".
Gretzky crushed his competition. If more European talent had been in the NHL during his prime, he'd still have a massive scoring lead over 2nd place.
Exactly right. It's rather interesting that Hardyvan hasn't answered my previous question which I'll post once more:
Yet a prime Gretzky played against the best players in the world in the 1981, 1984, 1987, and 1991 Canada Cups - and beat them all in scoring every single time. How would you explain that?
And it's not just that Wayne beat everyone else in the world in scoring. It's that he more than doubled 2nd place Makarov, and, as usual, beat him with his assists alone. If he can beat all the best players in the world with his assists alone, that tells me everything I need to know about how he would do against a more European infused NHL.
http://forums.internationalhockey.net/showthread.php?164-Canada-cup-World-cup-scoring-leaders
Canada cup/World cup - scoring leaders
Top 20 - all time scoring leaders
Player, country GP... Goals Ass. Points
1. Wayne Gretzky, CAN 39 20 44 69
2. Sergei Makarov, USSR 22 16 15 31
3. Paul Coffey, CAN 33 6 25 31
4. Vladimir Krutov, USSR 22 14 16 30
5. Mark Messier, CAN 32 6 20 26
6. Alexei Kasatonov, USSR 27 3 19 22
7. Mike Bossy, CAN 15 13 7 20
8. Brett Hull, USA 15 9 11 20
9. Mario Lemieux, CAN 9 11 7 18
10. Gerry Perreault, CAN 11 7 10 17
11. Guy Lafleur, CAN 14 3 14 17
11. Kent Nilsson, SWE 19 3 14 17
11. Viacheslav Fetisov, USSR 20 3 14 17
11. Raymond Bourque, CAN 24 3 14 17
15. Brian Trottier, CAN/USA 12 8 8 16
16. Michel Goulet, CAN 16 7 9 16
17. Dennis Potvin, CAN 14 3 13 16
18. Mike Modano, USA 16 4 11 15
19. Igor Larionov, USSR/RUS 26 6 9 15
20. Sergei Svetlov, USSR 17 7 7 14