Gretzky's goals against Hasek, Roy, Brodeur...

[tazzy19]

The main argument against Gretzky for many detractors seems to be that Gretzky would have a difficult time scoring against the elite goalies of today. So I thought we could post some of Gretzky's goals against the best goalies of the 90s and 2000s to see if there is enough evidence against this claim. Here are 3 big names to get the ball rolling...

Hasek:

Scores his 2nd of the night on a blistering and accurate slap shot. The announcer initially thought it hit the post, as it was in and out so fast, and Hasek doesn't even know which side of the net the puck went in, lol...


Roy:

Scores the tying goal in game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Just as in the goal against Hasek, everyone, including Bob Cole, thought it hit the post as it was in and out even faster than the goal against Hasek. Very cool goal. "What a bullet this was; Patrick couldn't get his arm up," Bob Cole mercifully notes. Also cool to see Janet and Mark Messier cheering it on at the end...


Brodeur:

Scores shorthanded against an impressive Devil's powerplay unit consisting of Housley, Niedermayer, Thomas, Rolston, and Guerin, after blowing by Guerin and picking the corner on Brodeur like he was some junior goalie...


If anyone else has any clips against these goalies or others, please post them.

Click to read more...

 

[Sentinel]

Thank you. These are three phenomenal goals. Especially the last one. What was Gretzky doing out there on PK? Scoring goals, as usual.

 

[Dissonance Jr]

*deleted* oops, never mind, I got the players wrong. Anyway, fun videos!

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

On the all-time list of greatest slapshot scorers (specifically taking a slapper, not one timers, so no Brett Hull), who does Gretzky rank behind?

Bobby Hull, Al Macinnis, possibly Yzerman, Bossy, Lafleur, Geoffrion, Cournoyer, Larson, Lemaire, Ovechkin. Who else am I missing?

I struggle to think of a player in the post-lockout era who regularly scores in non-one timer, non-powerplay situations with a slapshot the way Gretzky does on Roy and Hasek above.

 

[The Panther]

Well, Brodeur and Hasek aren't even NHL regulars until Gretzky is noticeably past his prime and way past his goal-scoring years, so it's not surprising he didn't score many against them. I don't think he had any trouble beating Patrick Roy, generally speaking.

His first two goals of the 1986-87 season were against Patrick at the Forum.

1st is here...


2nd here...


By the way, Hasek appeared at the '84 Canada Cup. Did Wayne beat him there?

 

[Theokritos]

By the way, Hasek appeared at the '84 Canada Cup. Did Wayne beat him there?

Gretzky didn't score in that game.

He scored one on Hašek in a pre-tournament exhibition game on August 25th though.

 

[The Panther]

Gretzky's goals vs. Patty Roy appear to be as follows:

-- 1 goal: Feb.24, 1986 @ Edmonton
-- 2 goals: Oct. 11, 1986 @ Montreal (in my embedded video clips, above)
Gretzky traded to L.A....
-- 1 goal: March 7, 1990 @ LA Forum
-- 1 goal: June 5, 1993 @ LA Forum (Cup Finals) (in @tazzy19's video clips, above)
Roy traded to Colorado; Gretzky (briefly) traded to St. Louis....
-- 1 goal: April 3, 1996 @ McNichols in Colorado

Unless I missed one, that's it, only 6 goals. In general, Roy clearly did well against Gretzky's shots, but then again they rarely faced one another -- only 1 to 3 times per season, at most. (There's a period around '93 to '95 where they didn't meet at all for two or three years.)

Of course, Patrick's best play vs. Wayne was this:

 

[filinski77]

The main argument against Gretzky for many detractors seems to be that Gretzky would have a difficult time scoring against the elite goalies of today. So I thought we could post some of Gretzky's goals against the best goalies of the 90s and 2000s to see if there is enough evidence against this claim. Here are 3 big names to get the ball rolling...

Hasek:

Scores his 2nd of the night on a blistering and accurate slap shot. The announcer initially thought it hit the post, as it was in and out so fast, and Hasek doesn't even know which side of the net the puck went in, lol...


Roy:

Scores the tying goal in game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Just as in the goal against Hasek, everyone, including Bob Cole, thought it hit the post as it was in and out even faster than the goal against Hasek. Very cool goal. "Patrick couldn't even get his arm up," Bob Cole mercifully notes. Also cool to see Janet and Mark Messier cheering it on at the end...


Brodeur:

Scores shorthanded against an impressive Devil's powerplay unit consisting of Housley, Niedermayer, Thomas, Rolston, and Guerin, after blowing by Guerin and picking the corner on Brodeur like he was some junior goalie...


If anyone else has any clips against these goalies or others, please post them.

The main argument is that it was factually easier to score in Gretzkys era (when league wide scoring was significantly higher than it is today). Hasek/Roy/Brodeur had very little impact on Gretzkys career goalscoring, since they didn't really play in his prime at all.

2 Career goals against Hasek (when he was 36 years+ old)
5 career goals against Brodeur (When he was 35-37 years old)
5 Career goals against Roy (4 from 25-29 and 1 from 35 years old)

 

[vikash1987]

I did a quick tabulation of the stats: Brodeur had a lifetime Sv% of .877 (50 saves on 57 shots) against Gretz, when you combine Gretz's one game with LA, one game with St. Louis, and 16 games + 5 playoff games with the Rangers all against Brodeur. Brodeur shut him out in 16 of these games.

All of these were, of course, in the 1990s and well past Gretz's prime, as others have noted. How the numbers would've looked had their primes overlapped, whether in the 1980s or 1990s, is an interesting question. But I'd be curious whether Hasek's and Roy's lifetime Sv%'s against Gretz were any better?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

From what I can tell, here are the games Gretzky played against Hasek:

Date	Goals	Shots
12-Mar-94	0	3
17-Dec-94	0	2
13-Dec-96	0	4
01-Apr-97	0	5
04-Apr-97	1	2
28-Nov-97	1	1
21-Dec-97	0	5
26-Dec-97	0	3
02-Mar-98	0	0
27-Oct-98	0	1
25-Nov-98	0	0
11-Dec-98	0	1
Total	2	27

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

That's a 92.6% save percentage overall.

 

[JianYang]

I love those slappers off the rush. You never see that anymore. I think the one in 93 on Patrick may have went off a stick though.

 

[Crosstraffic]

I did Gretzky's 28 games against Roy (7 with Oilers, 15 (10 reg season, 5 playoffs) with Kings, 1 with Blues, 5 with Rangers), he had 6 goals on 59 shots for a save percentage of .898

I accidentally counted 3 EN goals...oops!

 

[Kranix]

On the all-time list of greatest slapshot scorers (specifically taking a slapper, not one timers, so no Brett Hull), who does Gretzky rank behind?

Bobby Hull, Al Macinnis, possibly Yzerman, Bossy, Lafleur, Geoffrion, Cournoyer, Larson, Lemaire, Ovechkin. Who else am I missing?

I struggle to think of a player in the post-lockout era who regularly scores in non-one timer, non-powerplay situations with a slapshot the way Gretzky does on Roy and Hasek above.

He probably scored more goals by slap shot than any of those guys though

 

[vikash1987]

Interesting....

Brodeur: .877
Roy: .898
Hasek: .926

Has Gretzky ever gone on record as saying whether he had an especially tough time against any of these three?

Also, he apparently scored against Belfour only one time.

 

[MadLuke]

Because of sample size and how important in which season (changing the quality of equipment) the shot occurs I am not sure how interesting it is it would need to be compared to the average stars as well, I would imagine that almost all players with a high volume of shoots have lower shooting percentage against the league elite vs league average.

Goaltender has a .830 save percentage against Gretzky during is career regular season and .825 during the playoffs, but it move from .733 to .932 depending of the season, for 2 of the 3 goaltender in the sample they had very few games against Gretzky before 1992 when is shooting percetange got a trend down (goaltender had a .886 save percentage after that, making Brodeur numbers look quite standard there).

I don't think the claim about Gretzky playing today goalscoring potential is about the fews game againt today elite goaltender, but would he need to change is favorite way to score goal because of today amount of time and average goaltending, considering it was still working in the late 90s playoff maybe not that much.

If the claim is that he would probably not score 92 today in a season because of those element, I am not sure how popular it is to disagree with that.

 

[JianYang]

Interesting....

Brodeur: .877
Roy: .898
Hasek: .926

Has Gretzky ever gone on record as saying whether he had an especially tough time against any of these three?

Also, he apparently scored against Belfour only one time.

Hasek's prime didn't overlap with Gretzky's goal scoring prime.

And if Gretzky did most of his damage on roy around 86-88ish, that wasn't Roy's prime either. I think it took a year or two for roy to actually become a workhorse starter in the league.

I did hear Wayne say recently that Roy was pretty tough to score on, but I don't know who he considered the toughest.

It is interesting to see brodeur's numbers so low against him. I'm not sure how to explain that.

 

[Stephen]

It’s not so much that he would have “a difficult time” as the evolution of goaltending throughout the 80s and into the 90s would have taken away a percentage of those typical goals scored in earlier eras proportionately. A howitzer from the side boards, beating a goalie low to the post on a canned kicked save simply happened less as we got further into the butterfly goaltending era of the early 90s. Those 50/50 scramble plays in front of the net would see more saves with goalies paddling down. This bears out across the decades with a general rise in save percentage and drop in goals against average. Add that up over a season, maybe he’s scoring 76 goals in a career high instead of 92. Maybe it’s 150 points instead of 215. Over the course of a career maybe he’s a 100-200 points clear of 2000 points instead of almost hitting 3000.

Also, Brodeur, Roy and Hasek largely didn’t play in the same conference as Gretzky, so if their numbers are very poor the sample size is also not high.

 

[Stephen]

I love those slappers off the rush. You never see that anymore. I think the one in 93 on Patrick may have went off a stick though.

To my mind a slapped from the boards was quite a routine play back in the day and depending on your speed and angles you could really fool a smaller goalie relying on his own angles, slight frame, poor equipment and unreliable reflexes. A lot of the evolution in goaltending had to do with playing those high percentage plays with some systematic technique, blocking off the lower portion of the net, etc.

 

[vikash1987]

Hasek's prime didn't overlap with Gretzky's goal scoring prime.

And if Gretzky did most of his damage on roy around 86-88ish, that wasn't Roy's prime either. I think it took a year or two for roy to actually become a workhorse starter in the league.

I did hear Wayne say recently that Roy was pretty tough to score on, but I don't know who he considered the toughest.

It is interesting to see brodeur's numbers so low against him. I'm not sure how to explain that.

Right. As mentioned earlier, Gretzky’s prime didn’t overlap with Brodeur’s. Ditto with Roy’s and Hasek’s primes: no overlap with Gretzky’s.

I don’t know how to explain the differences in those Sv %s across the three. Not sure how significant those differences are.

I can’t believe Gretzky went 23 games before finally scoring on Belfour. When Belfour was in Chicago and Gretzky was in LA and St. Louis, he never scored on him.

 

[MadLuke]

It is interesting to see brodeur's numbers so low against him. I'm not sure how to explain that.

If this is true:
2 Career goals against Hasek (when he was 36 years+ old)
5 career goals against Brodeur (When he was 35-37 years old)
5 Career goals against Roy (4 from 25-29 and 1 from 35 years old)


Brodeur let in 5 goals apperently meaning that is .877 was agsinst 41 shots or so (not sure if the numbers are correct because 41 shots would be .878, maybe there is a playoff + regular season vs regular season going on)

But if that about right.

Imagine the effect of just one more goal or one less goal
4 goal on 41 shots: .902
6 goal on 41 shot: .857

 

[plusandminus]

I'm a bit surprised to see save percentage taken into such a consireration. The samples really are too small to be able to basically tell anything. It's like randomly picking a game to look at a goalies save percentage for that particular game.

Interesting video clips though.

 

[tazzy19]

The main argument is that it was factually easier to score in Gretzkys era (when league wide scoring was significantly higher than it is today). Hasek/Roy/Brodeur had very little impact on Gretzkys career goalscoring, since they didn't really play in his prime at all.

2 Career goals against Hasek (when he was 36 years+ old)
5 career goals against Brodeur (When he was 35-37 years old)
5 Career goals against Roy (4 from 25-29 and 1 from 35 years old)

Again, as I stated in the rest of my OP, this isn't about Hasek, Roy, and Brodeur per say (though I'd welcome more footage of Gretzky scoring against those guys as well), but rather to show some examples of Gretzky scoring goals against elite goalies in which he clearly beats them in a manner that shows he could pretty much score against anyone. I used these guys as they are considered to be as good (or better) than anyone playing today. And if Gretzky can beat them handedly (as seen in these clips) then the logic would follow that he could handedly score against today's goalies as well.

 

[tazzy19]

It is interesting to see brodeur's numbers so low against him. I'm not sure how to explain that.

I have a feeling that it was a mental thing. Brodeur had (and still has) a huge respect for Gretzky as a player. And Gretzky just seemed to have his number. I remember Gretzky on the Rangers scoring on Brodeur on breakaways and even banked in a goal off Brodeur from behind the net in 1998. He also scored a couple nice goals on him in the 1997 playoffs if I remember (at least one really nice goal that comes to mind), not to mention dismantled the entire Devil's trap defense that year and ousted them from the playoffs.

Note: I believe this was the game that Gretzky scored the tying goal late in the game by banking the puck off Brodeur from behind the net. It was pretty amazing to watch him pull the rabbit out of the hat on that. If anyone has a video clip of it, please do share: New Jersey Devils at New York Rangers Box Score — March 9, 1998 | Hockey-Reference.com

 

[Stephen]

Again, as I stated in the rest of my OP, this isn't about Hasek, Roy, and Brodeur per say (though I'd welcome more footage of Gretzky scoring against those guys as well), but rather to show some examples of Gretzky scoring goals against elite goalies in which he clearly beats them in a manner that shows he could pretty much score against anyone. I used these guys as they are considered to be as good (or better) than anyone playing today. And if Gretzky can beat them handedly (as seen in these clips) then the logic would follow that he could handedly score against today's goalies as well.

It's hyperbole to suggest Gretzky couldn't beat a high end 90s goals, or a 2000s high end goalie, or Andrei Vasilevskiy on a hot streak today. Of course he can score on them, and of course those goalies can stop him.

When I talk about poor goaltending earlier in the 1980s, and maybe this speaks to others, I'm talking about the quality of the average goaltender on any given night and what the bottom end of the goaltending talent pool in the NHL was likely to hold up against Gretzky.

Just thinking about how goalies like Bester, Beaupre, Millen, Pang, Lemelin, Garrett, Gosselin, Richard Brodeur, Terreri, Healy, Krudey, Riggin, Sauve, Sevigny, Jensen would have played a Gretzky routine shot vs a sampling of average goalies in the 90s, including names like Casey, Tugnutt, Thibault, Fiset, Irbe, Hebert, whomever. And how all those routine shots are played factors into Gretzky's level of statistical dominance.

 

[Minar]

I think when looking at Gretzkys dominance the quality of goaltending is irrelevent. Those were the BEST goaltenders of that time. All the players played against those same goaltenders. Nobody came remotley close to scoring the amount of goals and points Gretzky did btw 1980 and 1987. I think you could argue that Gretzky had an easier time if others of that time were also in his neighbourhood. But that is not the case. You could say that if he was playing against the goalies of today that he would have 150 pts instead of 215. But that is irrelevent because if that were the case everyone else would be getting less goals/points as well. Imagine 30 years from now when the goaltenders are much better than today and people are saying that Ovi is not as good as his stats suggest because the goaltenders weren't very good.... What an insult!