Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
How do you figure that? At least to me, Gretzky was much stronger in the post season than Lemieux. Aside from winning twice as many cups, he also took his team to two other finals appearances (so 3x as many cup runs in total). He had some very strong runs later in his career after his prime years were gone, he had some good runs early before his team became strong as well (particularly against the Habs in their 3-0 sweep). His defence wasn't that bad either, IMO. Not saying he was Selke quality, but he wasn't as bad as many make him out to be.
And, unlike Lemieux, Gretzky has all the records to back this up. You can make the argument he had a better team for longer, but he also accomplished more with it. And when he got traded, he still had some pretty decent success, considering he was in the 2nd decade of his career. Many players are just passengers on their cup runs at that stage, not scoring 40 points in the playoffs more than a dozen years into their careers.
Cups are won by teams and Gretzky's team were better than Mario's. Hell, they may have been better than any team ever.
His defense was better in the playoffs, but so was Mario's. Neither did much of it, though.
Gretzky has the highest PPG in the playoffs, but Mario is 2nd. And Mario has the highest Goals Per Game in the playoffs.
Not saying Mario is better in the playoffs. Just saying its closer than Hardyvan thinks it is.