Did Jagr benefit of bad competition at forward during his peak to stack up Art Ross trophies?

[Crosby2010]

It was not a strong era, no, but someone had to win it, and winning 4 in a row and 5 in total is pretty amazing. Only Gretzky, Howe, Esposito and Jagr have ever won 4 scoring titles in a row. Not even McDavid. And let's face it, he had some pretty good dominance. 1999 and 2000 come to mind. While there wasn't a prime Lemieux kicking around anymore, you still had Kariya, Lindros when healthy, Selanne, Forsberg, Sakic, etc. Jagr beat these guys by 20+ points in 1999. And was on just as good of a pace in 2000 before getting hurt but still won the scoring title with 63 games. 2000 was one of those years with plenty of injuries to star players but Jagr had 1.52 PPG to Sakic's 1.35 in 2000.

There are eras with better competition for sure but I still think the years Jagr won his Art Rosses are better than the 2001-'04 competition. Or the 2010-'16 competition.

 

[The Panther]

Maybe Jagr is good enough to justify that treatment, but the way his play dipped in Washington, which doesn't mean he was awful, is a black mark.

"Black mark" is too strong. Jagr had one pretty great, and two good-ish seasons in Washington (the last being his 14th NHL season, so maybe he should get a mulligan). To wit:

2002 PPG
3rd -- Jagr (higher than Sakic, Bure, Lindros, etc.)
2003 PPG
14th -- Jagr (higher than Sakic, Kariya)
2004 PPG
12th -- Jagr (higher than Thornton, Sundin, etc.)

People act like Jagr's Washington years saw him fall into a hole and struggle for oxygen. Not so. Overall, in his Washington period, Jagr was (min. 150GP) fifth-best in the NHL in points-per-game, and fifth overall in points.

 

[daver]

Literally the weakest era of forwards since the 1940s. Gretzky peaked just a few years after Lafleur averaging 80 points more per season.

By the time Lafleur had become a 80 pts player, Gretzky was already having 160 pts seasons.

This is an incredibly inaccurate potrayal of Lafleur and of the '70s.

There was zero reason to believe Lafleur's dominance in the last half of the '70s was not worthy of appropriate placement among the all-time greats. He had taken the mantle from Esposito/Orr who had taken the mantle from the best of the O6 (Howe/Beliveau/Mikita and Hull). Why would you think his relative dominance was not on the same level as them?

He was still right there with the best in 1979/80 (peak Dionne and a rookie Wayne) and among the best in both 80/81 and 81/82 before injuries derailed both seasons early on. He was age 32 by the time he played another full season and an obvious shell of himself.

And comparing raw points from seasons where league GPG were significantly different makes no sense either.

 

[Overrated]

This is an incredibly inaccurate potrayal of Lafleur and of the '70s.

There was zero reason to believe Lafleur's dominance in the last half of the '70s was not worthy of appropriate placement among the all-time greats. He had taken the mantle from Esposito/Orr who had taken the mantle from the best of the O6 (Howe/Beliveau/Mikita and Hull). Why would you think his relative dominance was not on the same level as them?

He was still right there with the best in 1979/80 (peak Dionne and a rookie Wayne) and among the best in both 80/81 and 81/82 before injuries derailed both seasons early on. He was age 32 by the time he played another full season and an obvious shell of himself.

And comparing raw points from seasons where league GPG were significantly different makes no sense either.

Lafleur was likely in the same tier offensively as some of the greats from the O6 but I am pretty low on all O6 players in comparison to most in here. There are a lot of posters here who would place all Howe, Richard, Beliveau & Hull in the top10 which I definitely wouldn't. I'd place Howe in the top10 and Hull in the top20. Esposito and Beliveau would make the top30 for sure. Lafleur had some major weaknesses though. Poor longevity due to injuries and was very weak defensively. He'd make my top100 but likely not my top50. I view Dionne in the Stastny tier firmly below the best Soviets of the era and of course below Lafleur and he'd not make my top100.

The dead puck era players had poor longevity due to the extreme physicality of the league coupled with the increased speed of the game but peak on peak players like Bure, Lindros and Forsberg were on a whole another level when compared to players like Marcel Dionne.

 

[daver]

Lafleur was likely in the same tier offensively as some of the greats from the O6 but I am pretty low on all O6 players in comparison to most in here. There are a lot of posters here who would place all Howe, Richard, Beliveau & Hull in the top10 which I definitely wouldn't.

Other than being born 50 years later, what more could these players have done to reach your Top Ten?

 

[Overrated]

Other than being born 50 years later, what more could these players have done to reach your Top Ten?

They would have to dominate more. The Lafleur Gretzky disparity is quite telling and I keep mentioning it. They peaked just a few years apart and yes Gretzky's era was slightly higher scoring than the already high scoring late 70s but it was slightly tougher to play in due to the large influx of talent from the hockey boom so I assume the two factors cancel each other out so the numbers can be taken more or less at face value.

If you take Jagr's best 5 seasons and compare them to Lemieux's best 5 seasons and then era adjust their points Jagr would be scoring about 30 points less than Lemieux per 80 games assuming Gretzky and Lemieux were offensive equals. Lafleur scored about 80 points less than Gretzky. That is an unbelievable disparity which clearly indicates these guys were not on the same level.

 

[rmartin65]

They would have to dominate more. The Lafleur Gretzky disparity is quite telling and I keep mentioning it. They peaked just a few years apart and yes Gretzky's era was slightly higher scoring than the already high scoring late 70s but it was slightly tougher to play in due to the large influx of talent from the hockey boom so I assume the two factors cancel each other out so the numbers can be taken more or less at face value.

I'm hardly the biggest Lafleur fan on these boards, but I'm not sure about this argument. Lafleur was born in 1951; Gretzky was born in 1961. Ten years is a lot of time.

 

[Overrated]

I'm hardly the biggest Lafleur fan on these boards, but I'm not sure about this argument. Lafleur was born in 1951; Gretzky was born in 1961. Ten years is a lot of time.

It is but Lafleur had a slower start and his peak was in the mid late 70s while Gretzky had an early 20s peak in the early 80s so peak vs peak they were a lot closer than 10 years apart. In fact Lafleur's last elite season was in 79/80 while Gretzky's first prime season was 81/82 and that's just 2 years apart.

 

[daver]

If McDavid faced

They would have to dominate more. The Lafleur Gretzky disparity is quite telling and I keep mentioning it. They peaked just a few years apart and yes Gretzky's era was slightly higher scoring than the already high scoring late 70s but it was slightly tougher to play in due to the large influx of talent from the hockey boom so I assume the two factors cancel each other out so the numbers can be taken more or less at face value.

Let's go through an exercise:

Let's take Lafleur's peak season, 76/77. There were 22 PPG players in the Top 50 in a 16 team league. League GPG was 3.32. The average point total of the other Top Ten scorers was 98. Lafleur's point total of 136 was 39% better.

In 81/82, Wayne's first peak season, there were 47 PPG players in the Top 50 in a 21 team league. League GPG was 4.01. The average point total of the other Top Thirteen scorers was 117 (used 13 vs. 10 as the league had expanded). Wayne's point total was 81% better.

Place Lafleur in in 81/82, he puts up 162 points (117 times 1.39). Put Wayne in 76/77, he puts up 177 points (98 times 1.81).

Any issues with this?

 

[rmartin65]

It is but Lafleur had a slower start and his peak was in the mid late 70s while Gretzky had an early 20s peak in the early 80s so peak vs peak they were a lot closer than 10 years apart. In fact Lafleur's last elite season was in 79/80 while Gretzky's first prime season was 81/82 and that's just 2 years apart.

Do you give credit for the earlier players beating Lafleur by large amounts?

In 73-74 (the year before Lafleur's 6 year spree), for example, Lafleur had 56 points, tied for 57th in the league. Esposito had 145. In other words, Esposito had 258% of the points that Lafleur did.

In 1980-81 (the year after Lafleur's 6 year spree) Lafleur had 70 points, tied for 48th in the league. Gretzky had 164. In other words, Gretzky had 234% of the points that Lafleur did.

 

[daver]

If you take Jagr's best 5 seasons and compare them to Lemieux's best 5 seasons and then era adjust their points Jagr would be scoring about 30 points less than Lemieux per 80 games assuming Gretzky and Lemieux were offensive equals. Lafleur scored about 80 points less than Gretzky. That is an unbelievable disparity which clearly indicates these guys were not on the same level.

Adjusting using league GPG is useless. Just compare their relative dominance.

I will say that a deeper dive is needed into how Orr, Wayne and Mario would fare if their primes started during the DPE or later but that is it not what the OP is about.

 

[Overrated]

Let's go through an exercise:

Let's take Lafleur's peak season, 76/77. There were 22 PPG players in the Top 50 in a 16 team league. League GPG was 3.32. The average point total of the other Top Ten scorers was 98. Lafleur's point total of 136 was 39% better.

In 81/82, Wayne's first peak season, there were 47 PPG players in the Top 50 in a 21 team league. League GPG was 4.01. The average point total of the other Top Thirteen scorers was 117 (used 13 vs. 10 as the league had expanded). Wayne's point total was 81% better.

Place Lafleur in in 81/82, he puts up 162 points (117 times 1.39). Put Wayne in 76/77, he puts up 177 points (98 times 1.81).

Any issues with this?

That's why merely adjusting points by scoring is not the only thing that should be looked upon. The idea that Gretzky would be scoring significantly less 5 years earlier in the terrible 1970s NHL is ridiculous. The amount of PPG players increased largely due to the massive influx of young talent. The league overall became much younger. None of the late 70s stars saw a major growth in their scoring output in the 1980s. If anything their scoring was trending down.

 

[Overrated]

Adjusting using league GPG is useless. Just compare their relative dominance.

I will say that a deeper dive is needed into how Orr, Wayne and Mario would fare if their primes started during the DPE or later but that is it not what the OP is about.

Yet you yourself will admit it matters who are we comparing them to. I've seen many times people using your methodology saying stuff like "Lemieux was 58% better than the 2nd best (non-Gretzky) opponent!"

Why non-Gretzky? If we don't take into consideration the quality of players in other eras there is no reason to eliminate Gretzky from when looking at Lemieux's dominance. Yet none of you have a problem with saying "Wow Howe was 58% better than the second best 35 year old Richard, that proves he's the goat!"

How dominant would Dionne be in a league with the Soviets? He happened to play international hockey almost every year and every year he did he'd get outscored by them.

In my opinion this relative dominance vs the 2nd or 5th highest scorer is much worse than even the faulty GPG adjusting.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yet you yourself will admit it matters who are we comparing them to. I've seen many times people using your methodology saying stuff like "Lemieux was 58% better than the 2nd best (non-Gretzky) opponent!"

Why non-Gretzky? If we don't take into consideration the quality of players in other eras there is no reason to eliminate Gretzky from when looking at Lemieux's dominance. Yet none of you have a problem with saying "Wow Howe was 58% better than the second best 35 year old Richard, that proves he's the goat!"

How dominant would Dionne be in a league with the Soviets? He happened to play international hockey almost every year and every year he did he'd get outscored by them.

In my opinion this relative dominance vs the 2nd or 5th highest scorer is much worse than even the faulty GPG adjusting.

All roads with Daver lead back to Crosby's partial season PPGs mean he was McDavid's equal.

 

[daver]

Yet you yourself will admit it matters who are we comparing them to. I've seen many times people using your methodology saying stuff like "Lemieux was 58% better than the 2nd best (non-Gretzky) opponent!"

Why non-Gretzky? If we don't take into consideration the quality of players in other eras there is no reason to eliminate Gretzky from when looking at Lemieux's dominance. Yet none of you have a problem with saying "Wow Howe was 58% better than the second best 35 year old Richard, that proves he's the goat!"

How dominant would Dionne be in a league with the Soviets? He happened to play international hockey almost every year and every year he did he'd get outscored by them.

In my opinion this relative dominance vs the 2nd or 5th highest scorer is much worse than even the faulty GPG adjusting.

If you want to add context to actual stats, go right ahead. I have no time for hypothetical scenarios that places players in other eras that have been shown to be faulty to the point of meaningless.

 

[Overrated]

If you want to add context to actual stats, go right ahead. I have no time for hypothetical scenarios that places players in other eras that have been shown to be faulty to the point of meaningless.

Well I already explained my logic which was that there was a large influx of young talent which can be seen in how young the league has gotten and also by the fact how the NHL embraced the top end foreign talent from Scandinavia and the growth of the sport within the USA. Even within Canada youth hockey was at its absolute peak in the 70s and all coincided with very high birth rates the late 50s early 60s Canada. It's also corroborated by the fact the late 70s stars in general didn't seem to have their scoring go up in the 80s so it wasn't that scoring become easier.

All these factors mitigated the increased scoring to such a point we don't need to adjust by goals and can look at the numbers at face value. Yes I think peak Gretzky would score 200+ in 1977 and peak Lafleur wouldn't get much past 130 even in 1983.

You might disagree and that's ok but there is logic to my thinking.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Well I already explained my logic which was that there was a large influx of young talent which can be seen in how young the league has gotten and also by the fact how the NHL embraced the top end foreign talent from Scandinavia and the growth of the sport within the USA. Even within Canada youth hockey was at its absolute peak in the 70s and all coincided with very high birth rates the late 50s early 60s Canada. It's also corroborated by the fact the late 70s stars in general didn't seem to have their scoring go up in the 80s so it wasn't that scoring become easier.

All these factors mitigated the increased scoring to such a point we don't need to adjust by goals and can look at the numbers at face value. Yes I think peak Gretzky would score 200+ in 1977 and peak Lafleur wouldn't get much past 130 even in 1983.

You might disagree and that's ok but there is logic to my thinking.

You do have to wonder why more players born in the mid-1950s didn't see monster career totals as they were still pretty young scoring took off. Random example would be someone like Ryan Walter goes 2nd in the draft in 1978, makes Washington in his D+1 and posts a respectable 55 points in 69 games. You'd expect playing through the 80s to see some monster raw point totals but he has one season of 87 points, one season of 75 points and otherwise just ok seasons.

1952-1958 births gave us Dennis Potvin, Lanny McDonald, Dave Taylor, Bryan Trottier, Bernie Federko, Peter Stastny, Mike Bossy, Joe Mullen, Bobby Smith in terms of career 1,000 point scorers (of which there are 100 all time, and more will come next season). I think you'd expect both more and of a higher quality based on the era they played in.

Definitely feels like a talent lull.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Erosion/dilution of proper development channels and loss of the sponsorship era...

 

[jigglysquishy]

Erosion/dilution of proper development channels and loss of the sponsorship era...

Hot take

The disorganization and big money of the WHA also fueled a recreational drug boom that was largely absent from hockey pre 1970 and post 1985. Also ties into general society drug trends. Alcoholism has always been a problem in hockey (Harvey, Sawchuk), but is treated more like a problem to be dealt with rather than the party atmosphere of the WHA.

Guys couldn't be party animals in 1960. They didn't make enough and society didn't enable it. Team support networks were too strong. But young and dumb guys were getting money thrown at them in a party happy world in 1975.

Hockey turned Lafleur from a teetotaler into a party animal.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I think there's probably something to that in some form or another. You can sort of see in the caliber of athlete in a number of ways too...I don't want to paint in too broad of brush strokes, but that would be an interesting topic to follow up on for someone with inside sources...

 

[JackSlater]

Hot take

The disorganization and big money of the WHA also fueled a recreational drug boom that was largely absent from hockey pre 1970 and post 1985. Also ties into general society drug trends. Alcoholism has always been a problem in hockey (Harvey, Sawchuk), but is treated more like a problem to be dealt with rather than the party atmosphere of the WHA.

Guys couldn't be party animals in 1960. They didn't make enough and society didn't enable it. Team support networks were too strong. But young and dumb guys were getting money thrown at them in a party happy world in 1975.

Hockey turned Lafleur from a teetotaler into a party animal.

Basketball had a more severe problem along these lines in the 1970s (also into the 1980s, though the NHL quietly did as well). Potential big stars (David Thompson for example) who never fulfilled their potential, guys who never made it out of NCAA and so on. You also have a rival league (the ABA) that largely mirrors the WHA, but bigger. I think it's a societal problem, but the WHA/ABA parellel is there. The 1970s is almost a lost decade for the NBA, a very clear step back from the massive progress in the 1960s and a far cry from the heights of the 1980s.

 

[MadLuke]

In my opinion this relative dominance vs the 2nd

And I am not sure if people actually do it in the real world, there is not one really building an argument that

Voracek 6% less than second place in 2015 > Yzerman 8% less than second place in 1989

When we know the year very well, we tend to see how noisy it can be, 149 pts Jagr in 1996, 140 pts MacKinnon in 2024 are really different measuring stick than 94 pts Bure in 2000 or 87 pts Getzlaf in 2014.

According to that system Pastrnak made a big jump this year going from 110/140 (79%) last year to 91% (106/116)

5 could be less noisy, but it is hard to see the advantage of looking at a particular finish instead of an average of the top finish (once you do it with a code and not by hands, which was the reason to do it simply like that).

 

[WarriorofTime]

Basketball had a more severe problem along these lines in the 1970s (also into the 1980s, though the NHL quietly did as well). Potential big stars (David Thompson for example) who never fulfilled their potential, guys who never made it out of NCAA and so on. You also have a rival league (the ABA) that largely mirrors the WHA, but bigger. I think it's a societal problem, but the WHA/ABA parellel is there. The 1970s is almost a lost decade for the NBA, a very clear step back from the massive progress in the 1960s and a far cry from the heights of the 1980s.

The Last Dance really paints a good picture of how Michael Jordan walked into a locker room his rookie year that was a cocaine circus.

Len Bias dying from a cocaine overdose two days after being selected in the NBA Draft opened up a lot of eyes.

 

[Mr grumpy]

only the first year. the other years he won out right

 

[JackSlater]

The Last Dance really paints a good picture of how Michael Jordan walked into a locker room his rookie year that was a cocaine circus.

Len Bias dying from a cocaine overdose two days after being selected in the NBA Draft opened up a lot of eyes.

Very true. Even then, things had cooled off since the 1970s in terms of drugs. If you look at the quality of basketball on video the 1970s suck, despite the league having moved beyond its racial gatekeeping, and in any kind of look at historic players the 1970s is poor. You have Abdul-Jabbar, Erving in the ABA, and otherwise very lacklustre. Even the championship teams are a lot lesser than what came before and came after.