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Better Goal Scorer.....66 or 8?

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Who's the better goal scorer, Mario Lemieux or Alex Ovechkin

  • Alex Ovechkin

  • Mario Lemieux

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kevsh said:
And the unfair part of the comparison is that a critical point (just judging on this thread alone) in the argument for Ovi is his longevity of scoring at a high/elite level and of course Lemieux can't compare because his career was cut short due to injuries.

So on one hand we know Ovi was an elite scorer for a very long time but can only assume Lemieux would have (or wouldn't), so there's really no fair comparison there.
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Indeed it all boils down to whether you value things that happened in real life here on planet Earth (which some say is unfair) or if you want to credit Mario Lemieux with player attributes that he clearly did not have (which some say is totally legit).
 
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cneely said:
You would actually think the opposite should be true. Most of Mario's career was played in a 21 team league, meaning 30% fewer NHLer's. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th liners of the 80's would be much better than today.

That's one of the big reasons I take issue with era adjusted stats. I'm old enough to have seen the entire career for both players. It's close, but with each at their prime, for one game, I pretty comfortably take Mario.
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In accordance with the best estimate I've seen, you are not correct.

The talent per roster spot was likely higher in the 2010s and 2020s relative to the 80s and 90s:

Hockey Outsider

Thread 'Estimating the size of the NHL's talent pool (1950-2023)'

There have been hundreds (and probably thousands) of posts on HOH that discuss the size of the NHL's talent pool. The data that's needed to determine the talent pool (youths actively involved in organized hockey) has never been maintained with any rigour or consistency, across countries and decades. As a result, people have had very different opinions on the topic. Some have argued that the NHL was at its pinnacle during the Original Six era (where only the ~100 best players in the world made the league). Others have argued that the fifties and sixties had a shallow talent pool, because...
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Caps8112 said:
lemieux scored over half his goals in the 80s. all of the leagues all time leading scorers come from the 80s. Ovi played in the peak of goaltending, defensive strategy and training. Someone said above that Ovi didnt have an all time great to compete with for rockets but thats really because of how much better he was than the next group of goal scorers. Havent looked at any of the "adjusted" stats websites but I would imagine playing in the 80s has to be a big detractor for players of that era. The goaltending was subpar. Players on the 3rd and 4th lines were not in the same world as 3rd and 4th liners of today.
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Yeah lemieux only played against brodeur hasek and Roy clearly easy pickings.
 
Lemieux has over an assist a game in his career in addition to having one of the best GPG ever.
 
Toby91ca said:
I see this kind of stuff all the time with Lemieux and it just doesn't make a lot of sense. He isn't going to score that that rate if he played all the games. By the way, Gretzky scored more in his first 745 games (while playing full seasons)....I get it, higher scoring years for the most part....there is some overlap though.

Also, Mario didn't miss those 3 years fighting cancer, he was retired during that time, cancer was years earlier. He basically missed 68 games because of cancer, the vast majority of the games he missed was because of his body, mostly his back. He probably could have avoided some of that if he took care of himself better.
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I agree, he probably wasn't going to score at 0.82 goals over a 1400 game sample, but if he stays healthy and gets to 1500+ games, 1100 career goals is not out of the question.

Gretzky scored 616 goals in his first 745 NHL games. Lemieux scored 613 goals over his first 745 games, with some lower scoring years in his sample. With the difference in scoring rates, that's somewhere between a wash and a slight edge to Lemieux in my book.

I also googled "Mario Lemieux cancer treatment" to refresh my memory on the sequence of events, and was directed to this sentence from his Wikipedia article, which sort of lined up with my memories from almost 30 years ago.

He retired on two occasions due to these health issues, first in 1997 after battling lymphoma before returning in 2000, and then a second and final time in 2006 after being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Lemieux also missed the entire 1994–95 season due to Hodgkin's lymphoma
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Had I read the entire article, that would have reminded me about his back issues. Of course, I can't help but wonder what 20 years of advances in sports science and medicine could have done for all of his various ailments. In other words, would he have been able to stay healthier had he been drafted in 2004?
 
Realgud said:
Lemieux has over an assist a game in his career in addition to having one of the best GPG ever.
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I don't think many, if any, people would argue Ovechkin is a better player overall. To be fair though, assists per game doesn't mean much when trying to decide who the better goal scorer is.
 
Toby91ca said:
I don't think many, if any, people would argue Ovechkin is a better player overall. To be fair though, assists per game doesn't mean much when trying to decide who the better goal scorer is.
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I think it does. I would argue this would be a much easier discussion if Lemieux focused on goalscoring as much as Ovechkin did his entire career.
 
Toby91ca said:
I don't think many, if any, people would argue Ovechkin is a better player overall. To be fair though, assists per game doesn't mean much when trying to decide who the better goal scorer is.
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That honestly would help because then we'd know who to add to our ignore lists.
 
Realgud said:
I think it does. I would argue this would be a much easier discussion if Lemieux focused on goalscoring as much as Ovechkin did his entire career.
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Yeah, there is a bit of a point to that, but probably going too deep into hypothetical land to be worth the discussion.
 
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Toby91ca said:
Yeah, there is a bit of a point to that, but probably going too deep into hypothetical land to be worth the discussion.
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Btw I have no issue with people voting Ovi as I think they both have strong arguments in their favour. Ovi doing with he did in the era he was in is something that will always be heavily considered. Tough to choose but I decided to dip my toes into hypothetical land for this one.
 
CokenoPepsi said:
Lemieux is always coulda, woulda, shoulda here.
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He played 1,022 games and DID have the highest goals per game ever. He DID have 69, 70, and 85 goal seasons, and WAS the greatest one-on-one player of all time. Surely is too bad he didn't play more games, but what he did play, he created a LOT of tangible stuff.
 
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It's a weird question. Shot? Obviously Ovi. But goal scorer in general? I think I'd go Mario. Missed a bunch of time + the sheer volume of Ovi's shots. To me it's like LeBron being the all time leading scorer in NBA. Is he a better pure scorer than MJ or Kareem or Kobe? Maybe not, but he's that rare scorer, and stayed healthy and he took the most shots.
 
paracord said:
Maybe no argument for overall career totals.

But to say there is "no argument" is crazy. Lemieux, again, scored goals at a higher rate than Ovi in both the regular season and playoffs, he scored in more ways than Ovi, he was a better one on one player against a goalie than Ovi, etc.

He also scored more goals in the the most clutch situations.

Of course there is an argument for Lemieux to be a better goal scorer than Ovechkin. He had 13 short handed goals one year!
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"Lemieux, again, scored goals at a higher rate than Ovi in both the regular season and playoffs,"
Irrelevant when you ignore massive difference in league-wide scoring environments. I mean - look at 1999. Did Yzerman and Bernie Nicholls peak higher than any player has in the last 25 years? Was Joe Mullens 110 points in 79 games (7th in the league) equivalent to Ovi's 112 point Art Ross win?

Look at 1993. Did Mark Recchi peak higher than Sidney Crosby because Recchi's 123 point season (10th in the league) exceed any raw number Crosby has ever done?

"he scored in more ways than Ovi"
Agreed, but scoring in more ways is largely completely irrelevant to overall scoring in this kind of argument. Crosby also scores his goals in a more variety of ways on average, but he is also nowhere near as good at goal scoring as Ovechkin.

"he was a better one on one player against a goalie than Ovi"
Agreed, but also largely irrelevant to this discussion since hockey is NOT played one-on-one for 95% of the game outside of breakaways.

"He also scored more goals in the the most clutch situations."
Do you have stats to back this up? I never bookmarked it, but someone posted clutch goals and Ovechkin is pretty much the league leader in all of them in NHL history LOL. Game winning goals, 1st goal of the game, game tying goals, etc.
 
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...I'll go to my deathbed saying that Mario Lemieux was the most talented player I've ever seen play in almost 50 years of watching hockey...that said, durability has to come in to the debate here and Ovi has that over Mario...
 
Washington doesn't even use Ovechkin in their shootouts anymore, because he can't beat a goalie one-on-one. :laugh:
 
filinski77 said:
"Lemieux, again, scored goals at a higher rate than Ovi in both the regular season and playoffs,"
Irrelevant when you ignore massive difference in league-wide scoring environments. I mean - look at 1999. Did Yzerman and Bernie Nicholls peak higher than any player has in the last 25 years? Was Joe Mullens 110 points in 79 games (7th in the league) equivalent to Ovi's 112 point Art Ross win?

Look at 1993. Did Mark Recchi peak higher than Sidney Crosby because Recchi's 123 point season (10th in the league) exceed any raw number Crosby has ever done?

"he scored in more ways than Ovi"
Agreed, but scoring in more ways is largely completely irrelevant to overall scoring in this kind of argument. Crosby also scores his goals in a more variety of ways on average, but he is also nowhere near as good at goal scoring as Ovechkin.

"he was a better one on one player against a goalie than Ovi"
Agreed, but also largely irrelevant to this discussion since hockey is NOT played one-on-one for 95% of the game outside of breakaways.

"He also scored more goals in the the most clutch situations."
Do you have stats to back this up? I never bookmarked it, but someone posted clutch goals and Ovechkin is pretty much the league leader in all of them in NHL history LOL. Game winning goals, 1st goal of the game, game tying goals, etc.
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You can change the numbers all you want. I'm just reading what's in the record books. According to the actual record books, Lemieux scored goals at a higher rate than Ovi, regular season, and playoffs.

Scoring in more ways, and being a better one on one player, in my opinion, lends credence to the fact that that player is a better goal scorer. I'm not talking about sheer career numbers. I'm talking about who the best person you've ever seen score goals is. It's the age-old Jordan vs. Lebron debate.

In terms of clutch: Lemieux has way more signature big goals in big situations. 87 Canada Cup, Game 2 goal vs. Minn in SCF in 91, Game 1 winner against the Blackhawks in SCF in 92, etc...Mario Lemieux goals are replayed over and over even now as highlight reels in huge situations and as history for entire countries.

I have no idea about game winning goals or whatever, but Ovi played in an era of 3 on 3 OT and he played a lot more games than Lemieux. But other than that falling on the ground goal in the regular season, I don't recall too many signature Ovi goals. Certainly not to the level of Lemieux. Ovi may very well have more game winners, though, given 3 on 3 and 500 more games. He certainly doesn't have as many winners in big games like SCF, World Cups, or Olympics.
 
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Mario Lemieux is "better". Best ever at goal-scoring.

But Ovechkin is greater because he's had a better career for goal-scoring.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that if Lemieux hadn't struggled with injuries - it wouldn't be Gretzky and 894 Ovechkin is chasing, but Lemieux with well over 1000 career goals.
 
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