How conceivable was it that someone could break Gretzky's goal record?

[Hasbro]

 

[WarriorofTime]

Between Ovechkin (likely similar conversation with Crosby in two years), LeBron, Tom Brady, Ronaldo (same as with Ovie/Crosby, likely similar convo about Messi in two years) it does seem like the circumstances in the present day do allow for the GOAT level talents to stay at an extremely high level deep into old age as long as they don't get too affected by injuries. Any pure longevity stuff in sports is certainly in more danger than may have used to be conceived. So things like most times doing X could all certainly fall.

Gretzky point/assists is so tough though specifically because it takes the combination of an amazing talent that is a standard deviation ahead as well as leaguewide circumstances that are so favorable for such a player to really run up massive totals.

 

[rmartin65]

Between Ovechkin (likely similar conversation with Crosby in two years), LeBron, Tom Brady, Ronaldo (same as with Ovie/Crosby, likely similar convo about Messi in two years) it does seem like the circumstances in the present day do allow for the GOAT level talents to stay at an extremely high level deep into old age as long as they don't get too affected by injuries. Any pure longevity stuff in sports is certainly in more danger than may have used to be conceived. So things like most times doing X could all certainly fall.

I think there is probably also a bias towards modern greats- player X is the greatest I've seen, so he's the greatest ever because stuff always gets better with time, something like that.

 

[MadLuke]

In the current environment it would take a generational talent to likely play from 18 to at least 40. So 22 seasons.

Probably must be a playing until 45 like Jagr (nearly 46 his last game I think), Chelios was a bit over 48, necessary to sniff it.

Jagr scored 268 points his 40-45 seasons, there was a lock out year in that, it was some of the lowest scoring season for almost all the relevant years, less say that a Gretzky level record breaker score 325 points his 40-45 years old season.

18 to 39 years old is 22 seasons to score (2858 - 325) 2533 points an average of 115 pts a year.

Maybe we can look if would be possible to build such career from player that exist...

McDavid 18-28 will score about 1080 pts (could have been 80 more without rookie injury, covid and in general a bit more luck injuries in general) that's 1160pts.

Adams Oates scored 941 points between 29 and 39 we are at 2101, scoring got quite low from 98 to 2002, lock-out year, could have scored 80 mores, 2181. Oates had is 93 and 94 seasons in there, was a late bloomer.

Still 452 points short of the mark....

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Between Ovechkin (likely similar conversation with Crosby in two years), LeBron, Tom Brady, Ronaldo (same as with Ovie/Crosby, likely similar convo about Messi in two years) it does seem like the circumstances in the present day do allow for the GOAT level talents to stay at an extremely high level deep into old age as long as they don't get too affected by injuries. Any pure longevity stuff in sports is certainly in more danger than may have used to be conceived. So things like most times doing X could all certainly fall.

Gretzky point/assists is so tough though specifically because it takes the combination of an amazing talent that is a standard deviation ahead as well as leaguewide circumstances that are so favorable for such a player to really run up massive totals.

I believe you're right. Given enough time, medical and longevity advances will allow somebody to play at a high enough level for long enough to surpass the career totals records. It won't necessarily take a Gretzky-level player to eventually do it.

I've always maintained that 163 assists in a season is the most unbreakable of all the records. This is an outlier on top of an outlier.

If Gretzky had never existed, Mario Lemieux holds the record at 114. This itself is a mark that has never really been threatened by anyone else, Orr, McDavid, and Kucherov just managing to hit 100. We'd probably agree that this record would be almost unbreakable, but within reach enough that a once-in-a-century playmaker could come along and break it.

In our real timeline, that player did show up, Gretzky. He surpassed 114 several times, with seasons over 120 and even a season of 135, which would absolutely be seen as an incredible outlier compared to 114. 135 would be considered effectively unbreakable if that was the record Gretzky left us with.

And that record still somehow got absolutely smashed by the 1985-86 version of Gretzky. A bigger gap up from 135 to 163 than there is down to 114. Even that "once-in-a-century" level playmaker was unable to come close to that total under very similar conditions in the surrounding years.

In the years where Gretzky exceeded 120 assists, the distribution is reasonably similar from year to year. More against bad teams, fewer against strong teams, fairly similar numbers of games with 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 assists. The difference in 1986 is that you see a 6 and two 7-assist games, ostensibly in place of 0-assist games (several less than surrounding years). Gretzky only had a few such games in his whole career; three of them being clustered in this one season (that doesn't appear to have any special circumstances attached to it) is itself a statistical outlier.

I think it's fairly well acknowledged that Gretzky put a greater focus on playmaking over goal scoring starting with this season, but his assist totals never again exceeded 122 after 1986 (he did pace for 136 in his 64-game 1988 season, but still a very far cry from 163).

There's no other statistical category I can think of where the #1 result so utterly blows away the #2 result. And the #2 (and 3, and 4, etc) results belong to that same player, who would undoubtedly be considered the greatest ever in that category on their strength alone.

For however long the NHL continues to operate in a comparable manner to today (schedule length doesn't exceed 84 or 86 games, scoring levels never exceed those seen in the 80s, star players play half the game at most, usually well less), 163 assists will be the record. It will outlast the NHL, or at least our conception of it.

 

[The Panther]

I think most of us agree that the 894 goals-record was at least conceivable to break. Getting a bit off-topic, but in terms of more difficult (and more obscure) Gretzky official and unofficial records, which of the following do you think is the hardest to break?:

a) 163 assists in one season
b) 49 points scored in one calendar month
c) 147 even-strength points in one season
d) 164 non-PP points in one season
e) 181 primary points (i.e., no secondary assists) in one season
f) 104 points on the road in one season (done twice by Wayne)
g) 255 total points one season (RS + playoffs)
h) Art Ross trophy "won" by playing only 42 games of the season
i) +54 on the road only, one season
j) Fastest to reach 400 goals = 436 games played

There are other crazy ones, of course, but I think these are some of the very toughest to break. Of these, I think (a) and (h) are pretty much "fuh-get about it!".

 

[LightningStorm]

I think most of us agree that the 894 goals-record was at least conceivable to break. Getting a bit off-topic, but in terms of more difficult (and more obscure) Gretzky official and unofficial records, which of the following do you think is the hardest to break?:

a) 163 assists in one season
b) 49 points scored in one calendar month
c) 147 even-strength points in one season
d) 164 non-PP points in one season
e) 181 primary points (i.e., no secondary assists) in one season
f) 104 points on the road in one season (done twice by Wayne)
g) 255 total points one season (RS + playoffs)
h) Art Ross trophy "won" by playing only 42 games of the season
i) +54 on the road only, one season
j) Fastest to reach 400 goals = 436 games played

There are other crazy ones, of course, but I think these are some of the very toughest to break. Of these, I think (a) and (h) are pretty much "fuh-get about it!".

For what you said about A & H, I'd add G to that too.

 

[Stephen]

I think the points record remains the high bar. Just for a player to hit 2000 points they would have to consistently hit 100 points for 28 years.

Connor McDavid has 1072 points in 700 plus games. He’s just over the 1/3 mark.

So yeah, didn’t see goals coming down but points is going to be impossible-ish.

 

[Blue and Green]

I think the points record remains the high bar. Just for a player to hit 2000 points they would have to consistently hit 100 points for 28 years.

Connor McDavid has 1072 points in 700 plus games. He’s just over the 1/3 mark.

So yeah, didn’t see goals coming down but points is going to be impossible-ish.

Points and assists both. Gretzky had more than twice as many assists as goals and it took a terrific goal scorer who has also been very durable until age 39 to break his goals record.

 

[Stephen]

Points and assists both. Gretzky had more than twice as many assists as goals and it took a terrific goal scorer who has also been very durable until age 39 to break his goals record.

Assists us less glamorous so I just lump it as a secondary milestone to raw points but yeah it would be hard… basically you would need McDavid to continue at his pace for another 20 years.

 

[Blue and Green]

Assists us less glamorous so I just lump it as a secondary milestone to raw points but yeah it would be hard… basically you would need McDavid to continue at his pace for another 20 years.

Yep, it would require a repeat not only of Gretzky's brilliance as a playmaker but also of the very high-scoring era in which he played the majority of his career. Ovechkin breaking his goals record is a pretty amazing feat; the assists and points are, as you said, effectively impossible under present circumstances.

 

[LightningStorm]

My recollection in 1999 was that the 894 was actually considered close to unbreakable given the nature of the game at that point. Any suggestion of it being eventually broken was accompanied by the caveat of major rule changes being required that would increase overall offense (or 100 game seasons, etc). Very few people would have believed the record would fall as soon as 2025 without such conditions occurring.

What I find most fascinating about Ovechkin's path to 895 is how unlikely his chances of breaking this record appeared to be for most of his career.

The first five years of his career were absolutely great, 269 goals in the bank. That's enough to at least entertain the question, but it seemed that the lack of a "super season" (think Gretzky's 92 and 87 goal seasons) made his chances remote, even at this superb pace.

Then putting up seasons of 32-38-32 in what are normally a player's absolute peak years (age 25-27 seasons) reduced the chances of breaking this record to like 1%. At only 371 goals he was seemingly already in decline as a scorer.

Then three straight 50 goal years. Ok he's back, but we're still only at 525 after 11 seasons. Those slump seasons weren't offset strongly enough to make up for the assumed decline as he entered his 30s. Chances of breaking the record are still probably only around 5% at this point. And then a dip to 33 goals in year 12, still well over 300 to go, and he's probably not putting up 50 again, right?

Then 3 straight Rockets in his 30s...Ok now we're seeing something unique. 706 goals through 15 seasons and looking strong. This brought back serious discussion of the record falling...except the third of those seasons got cancelled, and who the hell knows when the next one is getting played and how many games it will be. A non-hockey related black swan event is going to prevent him from truly making a run at it by the looks of things. Normalcy eventually resumes, but at 730 through 16 seasons, with all those miles now on his body, cancelled games, and his team strength declining, it still looked remote.

50 and 42 in the next two years was a stunning resurgence, and incredibly the "decline" years actually made up for the "lost" years in his late 20s. There's now a serious chance the record falls with 822 through 18 seasons; it's suddenly at least a 50/50 bet!

And then the mother of all slumps! Pacing for a 15-goal season halfway through 2023-24...he looks cooked. Is he going to Dave Andreychuk it for four more years to cross the finish line? I'm *still* thinking Gretzky is probably going to hang onto the record by the skin of his teeth...this was only 15 months ago!

The last season and a half might be the craziest feat of all. Who on earth suddenly turns it right back up to prime-level goal output at age 39?! Only one guy, and that's why he's going to set the record.

In my mind, it really wasn't until the start of this very season that we could confidently say the record was going to fall, barring significant injury. I always said that Ovechkin seemed like a near-lock for 800 years before he reached that plateau, but the last 95 were going to be incredibly tough to achieve...but here we are, just 5 to go, and he's going to surge through the finish line to boot! Transcendent achievement for sure.

The next 25 years will tell us whether the general belief of Gretzky's 894 being "almost unbreakable" upon his retirement was a true pronouncement, or if too much recency bias (early years of the DPE) had us too convinced that the NHL was never going to see a scoring environment conducive to breaking offensive records again. If three other guys pass him by 2050, probably the latter. If he's still #2 though, I'd say we were correct in our general belief, and Ovechkin was simply great enough to be the one guy that defied any reasonable expectations.

Thanks for this timeline. I'm old enough to have watched Ovechkin's career, and you summarized it perfectly from start to finish how, ironically, his chances of breaking the record were viewed as slim.