1995/96 Mario vs. 1996/97 Mario

[daver]

In 95/96, a 30 year old Mario returns after missing a full season and seemingly returns to his video game numbers level of play. His PPG of 2.30 is similarly as far ahead of the pack as it was in 88/89 and 92/93. It is worth noting that he was purposely skipping back-to-back games that season so there is some context needed on his PPG. It is also worth noting that his PP scoring played a larger role in his dominance than it did in 88/89 and a much larger role than in 92/93. Jagr clearly outproduced him at ES.

In the playoffs, the Pens rolled over the Caps and Rangers but then were shutdown by the Panthers. Mario had 10 goals and 20 points thru 11 games then 1 goal and 7 points in 7 games against the Panthers.

In 96/97, his PPG drops to 1.61 as he plays a full season until missing a few games late in the season. His PPG dominance takes a significant drop over the pack which is almost exclusively related to a drop in his PP scoring. While PP opportunities took a big drop in 96/97 from 95/96 league-wide, Mario's numbers took a much bigger drop (79 to 37). He was still among the leaders in ES scoring but still behind Jagr who missed some games.

96/97 was the real first year of the DPE after seeing signs of it starting in 90/91.

Which season do you think was more representative of Mario at age 30/31?

The "close to video game numbers" Mario in 95/96 or the best offensive player with Jagr/Lindros within spitting distance?

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[Troubadour]

Probably the latter one. In 95/96, he was sitting out back-to-back games, still had Zubov on the PP, Jagr for every game he played, and the Lemieux, Jagr, Francis PP punch wasn't close to figured out (Lemieux dominated the PP production; ES, not so much).

96/97, PP opportunities go down, Jagr is sitting out nearly 20 games, and no-one in the league is posting record numbers anymore.

95/96 Lemieux numbers still looked miraculous, but Lemieux was not capable of miracles anymore, which became clear in the playoffs, and the following year, so the following year put everyone back to earth I guess.

 

[MadLuke]

In a strange or maybe not because it is reality and relatively healthy sample size both.

95-96 is what happen if older Mario team has over 400 power play on a team with good players, 96-97 if they have less than 340. I think, not necessarily luck or bad luck one way or the other.

The question become which season is the most representative of nhl history and team situation in a sense.

In the last 40 seasons, Penguins averaged 349 ppo by 82 games, so 1997 would be closer of what older Mario would do in a normal year, but older Mario can probably pull-off what he did in 95-96 in the other high pp season a la 92-93, 87-88, 2006, 2007, etc...

 

[overpass]

In 96-97, the Pens ran a stacked first line with Lemieux-Francis-Jagr for almost half the season. Scoring logs suggest it was from November 22, 1996 to February 8, 1997.

NHL Stats

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www.nhl.com

During this time, Lemieux scored 30 goals and 63 points (49 ES, 13 PP) in 32 games, almost one goal and two points per game. When you separate out the remaining RS games in 1996-97, you can see his even strength scoring rate (both goals and points) more than doubled while playing LW on a stacked first line, as compared to centering his own line.

1996-97, playing with Francis and Jagr (32 GP): 0.69 ESG/GP, 1.53 ESP/GP
1996-97, centering his own line (44 GP): 0.22 ESG/GP, 0.68 ESP/GP

Going back to the question in the OP, I think Mario was a bit fortunate to play on the most stacked PP in the league in the 95-96 season, and with the best linemates in the league for half the 96-97 season. I do think his 95-96 season was clearly better than his 96-97 season. I know there's a revisionist take that rates 96-97 higher because he had better ES scoring and plus-minus, but I don't think they have sufficiently considered the benefit he got from playing 40% of the season as LW on an unbelievably stacked line.

So I would simply say that he was a better player in 95-96 than 96-97, without trying to say which season was more representative of the two.

 

[MadLuke]

During this time,

They also were a .765 team during that time outscoring everyone by 18% :

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Would have roll with it to the end

+/- and evp of Lemieux-Jagr seem quite different than Francis, I imagine they still mixed it up a bit, Lemieux-Jagr being in part a duo with someone else from time to time ?