Best Peak: Gretzky vs Lemieux vs Orr

[BigBadBruins7708]

I used to do the same. Edmonton was obviously good enough to win a cup without Gretzky. You can't say the same about Penguins. Until Crosby and Malkin showed up that is.

which would matter if people were throwing the Cup count argument around...

 

[klefbombs shoulder]

And I don't know about "dominate" the scoring race in 93-94. He barely managed to hold of Fedorov the entire way through, who clearly had a far better season overall.

Dominate is maybe too strong a word. But a 10 point lead is a wide margin for an Art Ross win and is certainly more than "barely holding off".

 

[Video Nasty]

Dominate is maybe too strong a word. But a 10 point lead is a wide margin for an Art Ross win and is certainly more than "barely holding off".

Agreed, dominant is a bit too strong, but it was still an impressive final Art Ross win for Gretzky.

First off, Gretzky turned 33 halfway through the season, while Fedorov turned 24 a month prior. That should be self-explanatory.

Gretzky also sat after game 81 with a 12 point lead; Fedorov played both remaining games for Detroit after that and trimmed it back to the final of 10.

It was his 15th season folks. He already had over 1,000 regular season games and close to 200 playoff games of mileage on his body. Combine that with his own injuries that few will acknowledge and this is a great win for him.

Gretzky, Howe, and St. Louis are the only players to win a scoring race past the age of 31 and the group of players from age 30 on is also just another handful. Barely holding off is such a weird dismissive way of downplaying Gretzky’s final win.

 

[Cup or Bust]

It is tough to compare because Gretzky had the advantage of playing on teams scoring 360-450 goals a season for a lot of the 80's. On teams that scored a comparable amount of goals in a season Lemieux was the better player. I am fairly confident Lemieux would have scored 200 points a season on teams scoring 370-450 goals a season. McDavid would likely score 200 points a season if he got to play on teams scoring 400 goals a season as well. Gretzky actually did it though so that is why he deserves the praise that comes with that. Going out and actually doing something is more impressive then the thought they could do it. You have to pick Gretzky simply because he actually did it and no one else ever has every done what he did.

 

[jigglysquishy]

It is tough to compare because Gretzky had the advantage of playing on teams scoring 360-450 goals a season for a lot of the 80's. On teams that scored a comparable amount of goals in a season Lemieux was the better player. I am fairly confident Lemieux would have scored 200 points a season on teams scoring 370-450 goals a season. McDavid would likely score 200 points a season if he got to play on teams scoring 400 goals a season as well. Gretzky actually did it though so that is why he deserves the praise that comes with that. Going out and actually doing something is more impressive then the thought they could do it. You have to pick Gretzky simply because he actually did it and no one else ever has every done what he did.

A 20 year old Gretzky scored 164 points on a team that scored 328 goals (50% on goals).

This includes outscoring nearest teammate by 89 points and having more assists than anyone on the team had points.

Point shares

Season	Points	Point % of next teammate	Team GF	Share
1979-80	137	145.7%	301	45.5%
1980-81	164	218.7%	328	50.0%
1981-82	212	201.9%	417	50.8%
1982-83	196	184.9%	424	46.2%
1983-84	205	162.7%	446	46.0%
1984-85	208	154.1%	401	51.9%
1985-86	215	155.8%	426	50.5%
1986-87	183	169.4%	372	49.2%
1987-88	149	134.2%	363	41.0%
1988-89	168	108.4%	376	44.7%
1989-90	142	141.6%	338	42.0%
1990-91	163	179.1%	340	47.9%
1993-94	130	151.2%	294	44.2%
1997-98	90	145.2%	197	45.7%

Don't we consistently see Gretzky putting up 45%+ of his team's goals? Deep teams, shallow teams, high scoring, low scoring, he consistently dominated his team's offensive output.

The Oilers aren't a 400 goal team without Gretzky. The year he leaves Edmonton they go from a 363 goal team to a 315 goal team.

McDavid just did 47.1% this past year.

 

[Albatros]

Gretzky, Howe, and St. Louis are the only players to win a scoring race past the age of 31

Roy Conacher (32), Phil Esposito (32), Mario Lemieux (31).

 

[authentic]

A 20 year old Gretzky scored 164 points on a team that scored 328 goals (50% on goals).

This includes outscoring nearest teammate by 89 points and having more assists than anyone on the team had points.

Point shares

Season	Points	Point % of next teammate	Team GF	Share
1979-80	137	145.7%	301	45.5%
1980-81	164	218.7%	328	50.0%
1981-82	212	201.9%	417	50.8%
1982-83	196	184.9%	424	46.2%
1983-84	205	162.7%	446	46.0%
1984-85	208	154.1%	401	51.9%
1985-86	215	155.8%	426	50.5%
1986-87	183	169.4%	372	49.2%
1987-88	149	134.2%	363	41.0%
1988-89	168	108.4%	376	44.7%
1989-90	142	141.6%	338	42.0%
1990-91	163	179.1%	340	47.9%
1993-94	130	151.2%	294	44.2%
1997-98	90	145.2%	197	45.7%

Don't we consistently see Gretzky putting up 45%+ of his team's goals? Deep teams, shallow teams, high scoring, low scoring, he consistently dominated his team's offensive output.

The Oilers aren't a 400 goal team without Gretzky. The year he leaves Edmonton they go from a 363 goal team to a 315 goal team.

McDavid just did 47.1% this past year.

Gretzky also played over 25 minutes a game and surely against more trash teams and goalies than McDavid though. I don’t think he’s so far off in his assessment considering those factors as well

 

[Cup or Bust]

A 20 year old Gretzky scored 164 points on a team that scored 328 goals (50% on goals).

This includes outscoring nearest teammate by 89 points and having more assists than anyone on the team had points.

Point shares

Season	Points	Point % of next teammate	Team GF	Share
1979-80	137	145.7%	301	45.5%
1980-81	164	218.7%	328	50.0%
1981-82	212	201.9%	417	50.8%
1982-83	196	184.9%	424	46.2%
1983-84	205	162.7%	446	46.0%
1984-85	208	154.1%	401	51.9%
1985-86	215	155.8%	426	50.5%
1986-87	183	169.4%	372	49.2%
1987-88	149	134.2%	363	41.0%
1988-89	168	108.4%	376	44.7%
1989-90	142	141.6%	338	42.0%
1990-91	163	179.1%	340	47.9%
1993-94	130	151.2%	294	44.2%
1997-98	90	145.2%	197	45.7%

Don't we consistently see Gretzky putting up 45%+ of his team's goals? Deep teams, shallow teams, high scoring, low scoring, he consistently dominated his team's offensive output.

The Oilers aren't a 400 goal team without Gretzky. The year he leaves Edmonton they go from a 363 goal team to a 315 goal team.

McDavid just did 47.1% this past year.

Lemieux also scored points on 40-50% of his teams goals regularly. Lemieux had 199 points on 347 goals. He had 168 points on 319 goals. Of course the Oilers wouldn't have been a 400 goal team without Gretzky. There is no way Gretzky would have scored as many points as he did playing on those Penguin teams Lemieux played on in the 80's or the Oilers teams McDavid has had to play on. He still would have had great seasons but no one is elevating those rosters to the levels the Oilers of the 80's achieved. That's arguably the greatest hockey team of all time. Gretzky had the greatest career of all time, that is not even debatable, but we still need to use context when comparing different players/era's. I even voted for Gretzky on the poll but unlike most people I looks at multiple factors and variables for both sides before coming to a conclusion.

 

[b in vancouver]

Bobby Orr never reached his peak and still wins this.

 

[Video Nasty]

Roy Conacher (32), Phil Esposito (32), Mario Lemieux (31).

I omitted Conacher by accident, so I was wrong there.

I wasn’t clear in my wording, but I meant past a players’ age 31 season.

So for instance, Esposito turned 32 with about 6 weeks left during his final Art Ross. This was his age 31 season though.

Lemieux didn’t win it past 31.

 

[Albatros]

Lemieux was 31 years and 190 days old when he played his last regular season game in 1996/97.

 

[Video Nasty]

Lemieux was 31 years and 190 days old when he played his last regular season game in 1996/97.

What do you want from me? I admitted I was wrong excluding one guy, I explained what I meant overall in more detail, and the phrase “past the age of 31” literally means 32 and after, so yeah Lemieux didn’t win an Art Ross past the age of 31.

 

[TheStatican]

Agreed, dominant is a bit too strong, but it was still an impressive final Art Ross win for Gretzky.

First off nowhere did I say what he did as a 33 year old player wasn't 'impressive' so stop trying to put words in my mouth. But barely holding off is certainly a far more accurate summarization of the Art Ross race in 93-94 than: "didn't Gretzky dominate the ross race in 93/94".

Fed's was within 4 points of Gretz even as late as less than a month left in the season:

NHL Stats

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

www.nhl.com

And I don't know about you but this sure looks like a pretty tight race overall to me.

Was it impressive based on his age? Sure. Was it an impressive margin of victory? Heck no. Or perhaps you were also calling McDavid's 8-point margin of victory over Gaudreau and Huberdeau back in 2021-22 an "impressive" victory as well. Pretty sure if I went through your posts I'd fail to find one like that.

Gretzky also sat after game 81 with a 12 point lead; Fedrov played both remaining games for Detroit after that and trimmed it back to the final of 10.

Yeah that's nice... So he sat out one game, that poor Gretzky.

Fedorov meanwhile got freaking concussed against the Canucks costing him 2 and a half games of play and was not the same for his final two:

Gretzky, Howe, and St. Louis are the only players to win a scoring race past the age of 31 and the group of players from age 30 on is also just another handful. Barely holding off is such a weird dismissive way of downplaying Gretzky’s final win.

Woo-hoo! Way to go Gretzky! How incredibly fortunate it was for him that Lemieux happened to get cancer, although everyone on planet Earth including Gretzky himself knows that he wouldn't have touched that Ross otherwise

"I know that in order to win the scoring race, you'll have to get 160 or 170 points, because that's Mario's capability".

Lemieux didn’t win it past 31.

Please, don't kid yourself. Is this suppose to be some kind of dig at Lemieux? Because what Lemieux did late in his career is easily more impressive than what Gretzky did late in his.

A 35 year-old Lemieux, after not playing in a single competitive game in over 3 years came back and dominated the league. He scored nearly as many goals in just 43 games as Gretzky did in his entire Ross-winning 93-94 season and he did that in the middle of the dead puck era, not some relatively high scoring early-to-mid 90's season.

Lemieux was recognized as the best player in the game at age 35 both by the hf boards:

Best player in the world: 2001

Didn't Jagr outscore Lemieux in the games they played together? Without taking anything away from Mario, It was one of the great comebacks in sports, I'm not convinced he was the best player in the world at that point. Yea this is my feeling as well. Jagr had 33 goals and 84 points in the 45...

forums.hfboards.com

And also more relevantly by the players themselves at the time:

"He's the best player in the world after a 3½-year layoff," Tony Amonte said. "It's not overblown; it's amazing. … You feel embarrassed getting on the bus with him."

Richer said: ''Playing with the greatest player in the world is great, but the bottom line is to win games no matter who you are playing against."

"The second was a rebound that Jagr missed and it went right to Lemieux, from the second-best player to the best player in the world," Kolzig said.

Now go ahead and show us all that evidence of Gretzky being recognized as the best player in the game in 93-94 or heck, in ANY season after his age 30 season, BY ANYONE. I know I'll be sitting here waiting a looooong time for you to show that, because IT. DOESN'T. EXIST. NOBODY was calling Gretzky the best player in the world anymore after age 30 but I'm sure that Ross was a nice consolation prize, he probably felt the same way St. Louis and Henrik did winning it all the while knowing that they weren't actually the games best. Anyways, I'm not sure why anyone even brought 93-94 up to begin with, not like it has anything to do with the topic of this thread.

 

[Video Nasty]

First off nowhere did I say what he did as a 33 year old player wasn't 'impressive' so stop trying to put words in my mouth. But barely holding off is certainly a far more accurate summarization of the Art Ross race in 93-94 than: "didn't Gretzky dominate the ross race in 93/94".

Fed's was within 4 points of Gretz even as late as less than a month left in the season:

NHL Stats

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

www.nhl.com

And I don't know about you but this sure looks like a pretty tight race overall to me.
View attachment 753785

Was it impressive based on his age? Sure. Was it an impressive margin of victory? Heck no. Or perhaps you were also calling McDavid's 8-point margin of victory over Gaudreau and Huberdeau back in 2021-22 an "impressive" victory as well. Pretty sure if I went through your posts I'd fail to find one like that.


Yeah that's nice... So he sat out one game, that poor Gretzky.

Fedorov meanwhile got freaking concussed against the Canucks costing him 2 and a half games of play and was not the same for his final two:



Woo-hoo! Way to go Gretzky! How incredibly fortunate it was for him that Lemieux happened to get cancer, although everyone on planet Earth including Gretzky himself knows that he wouldn't have touched that Ross otherwise



Please, don't kid yourself. Is this suppose to be some kind of dig at Lemieux? Because what Lemieux did late in his career is easily more impressive than what Gretzky did late in his.

A 35 year-old Lemieux, after not playing in a single competitive game in over 3 years came back and dominated the league. He scored nearly as many goals in just 43 games as Gretzky did in his entire Ross-winning 93-94 season and he did that in the middle of the dead puck era, not some relatively high scoring early-to-mid 90's season.

Lemieux was recognized as the best player in the game at age 35 both by the hf boards:

Best player in the world: 2001

Didn't Jagr outscore Lemieux in the games they played together? Without taking anything away from Mario, It was one of the great comebacks in sports, I'm not convinced he was the best player in the world at that point. Yea this is my feeling as well. Jagr had 33 goals and 84 points in the 45...

forums.hfboards.com

And also more relevantly by the players themselves at the time:




Now go ahead and show us all that evidence of Gretzky being recognized as the best player in the game in 93-94 or heck, in ANY season after his age 30 season, BY ANYONE. I know I'll be sitting here waiting a looooong time for you to show that, because IT. DOESN'T. EXIST. NOBODY was calling Gretzky the best player in the world anymore after age 30 but I'm sure that Ross was a nice consolation prize, he probably felt the same way St. Louis and Henrik did winning it all the while knowing that they weren't actually the games best. Anyways, I'm not sure why anyone even brought 93-94 up to begin with, not like it has anything to do with the topic of this thread.

It really kills you that Gretzky will always be known as the greatest player ever over Lemieux, doesn’t it?

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Highest point totals
199 vs 215
Highest ppg
2.67 vs 2.77

In 80 games
209 and 213 points for Mario and 215 and 223 for wayne. Pick one and call it a night

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

One thing about peak I feel a lot of people misinterpret the meaning. A peak is the apex of your ability. Peak doesn't run for a time frame of years. Peak can be one season. Just because one peaking longer doesn't mean the peak was necessarily higher. There is a difference

 

[TheStatican]

It really kills you that Gretzky will always be known as the greatest player ever over Lemieux, doesn’t it?

That's what I thought; you don't have a response of any merit.

 

[Video Nasty]

That's what I thought; you don't have a response of any merit.

What merit is there in your post that I would even respond to? Half of it thinks I’m taking cheap shots and digs at Lemieux, my second favorite player ever. The other half thinks I’m saying Gretzky was the best in the world in 1993-1994. There’s nothing I can say to ward off those phantoms.

 

[TheStatican]

What am I responding to? Half of your post thinks I’m taking cheap shots and digs at Lemieux, my second favorite player ever. There’s nothing I can say to ward off those phantoms.

Not sure, your the one that initiated this dialog by criticizing one of my posts. But by all means please describe these "phantoms". Actually, allow me me save you or anyone else the trouble; I've never once suggested or claimed that Lemieux should be ranked higher than Gretzky in the all-time player rankings, neither here nor anywhere else on this website. I have no difficulty at all acknowledging Gretzky's standing:

That's why he's the goat and it speaks to his longevity and greatness as a whole.

Does it pain me that Lemieux missed a huge chunk of his career due to injuries? Of course it does. I believe he was the most talented player to ever play the game after all, so it's a damn shame to have not been able to witness him play more which has literally nothing to do with Gretzky.

And do I automatically think that he would have surpassed Gretzky injury free? Nope. I acknowledge it's not a sure bet he would have broken Gretzky's single season records had he been healthy in 92-93 or 88-89 - he missed about 6 games worth of possible ice time that season. But it sure as heck would have been close. My entire contention has ALWAYS been solely about the sheer absolute peak of abilities. And on that note there is absolutely a debate and I happen to enjoy debating in case you didn't notice, especially ones involving stats.

Yeah Gretzky did his best 5 or 6 or 7 times, and that's why(to me at least) he's the Goat. It's not about his career totals or the single season records, but the fact that he maintained that super high pace for so long that I rank him as number 1. Lemieux did it about half as many times. Could he have done it as much or more? Maybe, but like some of the guys on here love to say; "woulda, coulda, shoulda" And that's absolutely correct - FOR CAREER VALUE/OVERALL RANKINGS.

But was Gretzky's 83-84 SO much better than 81-82? Or was 85-86 SO much better than either? Nope. There all around the same general - extremely high to be sure - level and Lemieux's 88-89 and 92-93 seasons matched that extremely high level. And considering the differing environments(seasons and variables) they did it in, I believe there absolutely is a debate to be had about which one might have been the best, at their best. Lemieux's my guy, so of course I'm going to present facts supporting him and the fact that he did some things better than Gretzky did when he was older lends further credence to the idea that his absolute peak was perhaps also slightly higher. That's it. I'm not involved in any goat argument that some people might be going on about, that was settled a long time ago.

 

[TheStatican]

I'll acknowledge that maybe I was being a little too critical of Gretzky in regards to 93-94. It was still definitely a great year for him especially considering his age.

 

[McPoyle]

And I don't know about you but this sure looks like a pretty tight race overall to me.

You keep showing this graph to highlight how "close" the Ross race was. Sure from a scale of 0-130, 120 is pretty close. But It looks like Gretzky was ahead of Federov except for game 1 and from around game 35-40. Looks like Gretzky had around a double digit lead most of the season as well. This wasn't a tight race. Closests of Greztky's career likely, but in the history of the Art Ross, this one hardly came down to the wire as you are trying to indicate.

 

[McPoyle]

Or perhaps you were also calling McDavid's 8-point margin of victory over Gaudreau and Huberdeau back in 2021-22 an "impressive" victory as well. Pretty sure if I went through your posts I'd fail to find one like that.

The age of the player winning is an important piece you seem to omit. Had Crosby won an Art Ross trophy by 8 points in 21-22 I have a feeling you would be calling it impressive.

 

[McPoyle]

It really kills you that Gretzky will always be known as the greatest player ever over Lemieux, doesn’t it?

I can respect the depth of detail Stats puts into their posts, but they clearly have an axe to grind on certain subjects.

 

[Machinehead]

I love the big-braining every time this comes up.

Peak Gretzky had 1,036 points in five years.

To put "five years" in perspective, this is Kaapo Kakko and Jack Hughes' 5th year. It's not that long.

Here are some Hall of Famers who are in that neighborhood for their entre careers: Martin St. Louis (1,033), Daniel Sedin (1,041), Henrik Sedin (1,070), Henri Richard (1,046), Joe Mullen (1,063), Patrice Bergeron (1,040), Rod Gilbert (1,021).

Other guys who dealt with significant injuries like Pat LaFontaine and Paul Kariya don't have 1,036 points.

Wayne Gretzky had a whole ass Hall of Fame career in the time since Rasmus Dahlin was drafted. If he drove off a cliff in the summer of '86, he's in the Hall of Fame, first ballot. He had 1,500 points after that.

 

[TheStatican]

Had Crosby won an Art Ross trophy by 8 points in 21-22 I have a feeling you would be calling it impressive.

Nope. But if Malkin did it that's a different story

No but seriously, in a higher scoring year with basically no difference in games played its not what I consider an impressive 'win' and by that I mean margin of victory/how much better someone was than everyone else.

I don't know about you guys but here's my list of impressive Ross wins in the last 40 years:
'23 McDavid
'21 McDavid
'16 Kane
'14 Crosby
'12 Malkin
'99 Jagr
'93 Lemieux
'91 Gretzky
'89 Lemieux
And then Gretzky all those times in the 80's

It's something that should be considered very exclusive, because we actually have plenty of examples of impressive wins.


Was Gretzky winning a Ross at age 33 impressive? Sure. But thats not what I'm speaking about and he wasn't actually the best player in the world at that time. And if were just talking about winning a Ross and age then Martin St Louis of all people kills him and everyone else in that regard - he and not Gretzky nor Howe is actually the legendary Old Age Goat of all time.

Would you rank St Louis ahead of Gretzky in any regard? See, context matters here.