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

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Carter only finished top 3 in goals once in the year OV won the Richard. In his 9 victories, there is only 2 players that finished top 3 twice.....no one was there 3 times. Carter wasn't of those 2, but Stamkos was and other, surprisingly enough, was Tavares.

Here's the list of top 3 finishers from OV's first 7 Richard winning seasons

Stamkos x2
Tavares
Jarome Iginla
Ilya Kovalchuk
Jeff Carter
Zach Parise
Joe Pavelski
Corey Perry
Rick Nash
Jamie Benn
Patrik Laine
William Karlsson

There's some very good players on that list, but how many would you call an elite goal scorer?

For his last 2, the list looks more impressive, until you remember Drai/Pasta/Matthews were just barely starting their primes (23/24 years old), and weren't quite the superstars they've grown into since.

 

[Regal]

It's one of many supporting facts. And Ovechkin's case doesn't rely entirely on a short pointy peak like Lemieux's does. So to be bested in the same era on the one thing the entire case relies on - that isn't great for the argument.

I think it can be used to suggest that there’s fewer questions about Ovechkin’s dominance, but I don’t think it really is much of an argument for how they compare unless someone is arguing Lemieux has the best peak season of all time or that Ovechkin’s best year was also better than Hull’s. Even then though, there’s an argument for Stamkos’ 60 goal season being on par or slightly above Ovechkin’s so it’s not clear cut Ovechkin’s best season was the best of his generation either.

I think Lemieux’s argument isn’t really about the one year though, it’s about his per game numbers over his best several years.

In terms of adjusted goals per game, Lemieux has the best three between the two:

Lemieux ‘96: 0.96
Lemieux ‘93: 0.93
Lemieux ‘89: 0.93
Ovechkin ‘08: 0.88

Lemieux’s need to be adjusted slightly due to the 80 and 84 game schedules but they still end up ahead.

Then Lemieux has his ‘01 season, which adjusts to 0.88 and then two more seasons in the 0.70s. That’s where the big difference for Ovechkin starts because he has a bunch of years in that range in the 0.70+ range. I think some people think Lemieux was regularly a better per game scorer but that really wasn’t the case after those top 3 years. Ovechkin was the better goalscorer per game most years of their careers if you compare them best to worst.

To me, I’d say Ovechkin has the best full season and the better prime and career, but that Lemieux played enough games at his best level, even if he missed games those years, that I think he was better per game at his very best. It’s a very small window though

 

[Slapshot Sultan]

Hull and to a lesser extent Neely, yes. Selanne and Robitaille aren't in the all time great category as goal scorers and Bure was after Mario's peak.

Ironic that you left out Ovechkin's biggest competition for Rockets...Stamkos, Kovalchuk, Malkin and Crosby, you know that slight step up from the names you chose?

Selanne lead the league 3 times as a goal scorer and almost 700 for career. He definitely is an all time great goal scorer and at worst top 15 all time. I'd say top 10.

 

[JoeSakic13]

Oooh that’s a tough one. I’d say Dobson over Ho-Sang though.

 

[paracord]

If Lemieux was the better goal scorer, he would have led the nhl in gpg more than Ovie. Ovie did it 9 times to Lemieux’s 6.

Or at least Lemieux would have had the highest single season goal total of his generation. Or at least the highest adjusted total. Or the highest playoff total. Or the highest career total. Or led the league the most times. Here in real life Mario Lemieux accomplished none of those key achievements. Ovechkin achieved all of them.

If any of us were creating metrics that would demonstrate who was better, these are first among them.

He has the highest career goals per game number in the history of the league.

 

[paracord]

Great players will be great in any era. Skate, stick, ice, equipment, training etc all impact each era. Hands and iq are the constant. Mario excelled at both.

Yeah this idea that Lemieux was just good because bad goalies is nuts.

He had a 75 foot stick, the softest hands in history, was 6'6' on skates, and the hockey IQ rivaling the Great Gretzky. I'm pretty sure he would have done okay in any era. He the most physical gifts of any offensive player in history.

He came back from 3 years off and led the league in points per game twice. I'm pretty sure they had butterfly goalies and Marty Brodeurs in 2001, 2, and 3.

He took over the best player in the world mantle from Gretzky. He played with Jagr, another all time great, and consistently and easily out-classed him, even as an older player.

I think a lot of the opinions here are younger people who didn't start watching hockey until the 21st century, maybe?

 

[Turin]

66 was the best at everything besides staying healthy and trying defensively

 

[paracord]

I think their peaks are comparable.

But from there Ovie has a big advantage in prime and a gargantuan advantage in longevity. Those things mean very little or nothing to many fans, but to a team they are the difference between winning and losing tons of games (which should be, but apparently isn't, part of the "better" criteria for Lemieux fans). Like seriously, we are not in agreement that contributing to more wins is "better." It's that dumb.

Here are their best adjusted seasons: Lemieux has a 3 goal advantage for the top 3. Ovechkin has a 6 goal advantage for the top 5. Then after the 5th season it becomes a total ass kicking.

So basically the only way Lemieux is better is if everything after the 3rd season means absolutely nothing.

	Ovie	Lemieux
1	72	71
2	62	67
3	60	59
4	59	56
5	58	52
6	58	46
7	57	39
8	55	38
9	52	38
10	52	37
11	50	34
12	49	32
13	48	17
14	43	15
15	42	7
16	40	7
17	35	1

No one is arguing that Ovi was more durable and played longer and put up great numbers for a long time.

But if I need a goal to save my life, I'm taking 66 over anyone that ever played.

 

[paracord]

Hull and to a lesser extent Neely, yes. Selanne and Robitaille aren't in the all time great category as goal scorers and Bure was after Mario's peak.

Ironic that you left out Ovechkin's biggest competition for Rockets...Stamkos, Kovalchuk, Malkin and Crosby, you know that slight step up from the names you chose?

In the areas of goal purely goal scoring, those guys are not Gretzky, Hull, Jagr, Yzerman, or Kurri.

 

[paracord]

It's one of many supporting facts. And Ovechkin's case doesn't rely entirely on a short pointy peak like Lemieux's does. So to be bested in the same era on the one thing the entire case relies on - that isn't great for the argument.

Lemieux didn't really have a "short peak." He was the best overall player in the league from the late 1980s when Gretzky handed it off to him, until the early 2000s when Jagr took the mantle.

He just didn't play very many full seasons. But every year he played he scored at a tremendous pace, until maybe his final year when he was way too old and just wanted to play a few games with Crosby.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Lemieux didn't really have a "short peak." He was the best overall player in the league from the late 1980s when Gretzky handed it off to him, until the early 2000s when Jagr took the mantle.

In four of those seasons you claim Lemieux was the "best overall player in the league" he matched Homer Simpson in goals and assists.

 

[Midnight Judges]

He just didn't play very many full seasons. But every year he played he scored at a tremendous pace, until maybe his final year when he was way too old and just wanted to play a few games with Crosby.

After age 31, Lemieux scored 77 more goals in his entire career.

"Tremendous" ain't the word here.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

3 v 3 OT has very minimal impact on total goals. The difference is defensemen now can actually skate. And goalies aren't flailing and falling down in front of giant nets playing stand up.

Again, Lemieux is a Mt Rushmore player but some of you need to get a grip on reality. Scoring was way way easier in his prime than in the modern era - the numbers make that very clear. There's no data to even remotely suggest otherwise.

No, the numbers only make it clear that players scored more. There is absolutely nothing in the numbers that answers the question why. Why is open to interpretation, and also the reason why there's lies, damn lies, and statistics was one of my math teacher's favorite sayings.

To me, the drop in scoring is because, after the Lindros draft in 1991 until about 2013, there was a noticeable lack of elite level offensive talent in the draft most years. At best, you'd maybe get a couple of very good forwards at the top of the draft, before the talent level drastically fell off, with only a handful of guys being truly elite (Thornton, OV, Malkin, Crosby, maybe Stamkos and/or Kane). As the elite guys from pre-91 retired or got injured, there were fewer and fewer elite scorers around the league dragging the averages up, so the numbers did the predictable thing and the averages fell. Those averages started coming back up around 2017-18, as the elite guys from the 2013 and 2015 drafts started hitting their strides and more elite offensive talent kept coming through the draft.

Yes, the league did tweak rules here and there to try to help scoring, but I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that they actually had an real effect. I don't have any problems seeing the impact a guy capable of scoring 199 points would have on the scoring averages.

 

[paracord]

After age 31, Lemieux scored 77 more goals in his entire career.

"Tremendous" ain't the word here.

He retired for 3 years in 1997.