Bossy vs. Brett Hull

[Staniowski]

Sure, that's why he led the league in goals FIVE TIMES (as much as Bossy and Hull combined) and had FOUR 70+ goal seasons. You mean there is no way you can NOT justify Gretzky as one of the top THREE best goalscorers ever. I don't care if he had zero "talents as a goalscorer (whatever the hell that means). He scored. An order of magnitude more than anybody else.

Good Gawd...

I thinkthat, during Gretzky's prime, Bossy, Makarov, Krutov, Lemieux, and Hull were better goal-scorers, and the best in hockey. I'd say Makarov was the least of the five, and the only one that would be debatable.

I'm basing my opinion on watching them play.

Gretzky's five goal-scoring titles, for the most part, weren't competing against these players.

Gretzky shared the ice with all of these players, and he never looked like he could score goals as well as them.

I actually really like some of Gretzky's goal-scoring abilities, especially his taking full advantage of defensive weakness; his confidence to walk in and rip slapshots from the slot; and especially his bad-angle shots, which he did better than anybody at the time.

But, still, his goal-scoring talents were more limited than the greatest goal-scorers, and that's the main reason why he had relatively poor longevity as a goal-scorer.

 

[Staniowski]

The only people I would put definitively above Gretzky are Lemieux, Bossy and of course Bobby Hull.

Scoring 92, 87...ect goals in a season somehow isn't good enough for the top 10?

I don't think he's even in the conversation for top-10. His goal-scoring was too era-dependent. In some (weak defensive) eras, he could score a lot; in other eras, he couldn't.