Is there really a case for Lemieux as the GOAT?

[buffalowing88]

I think that there's a fascinating piece of media to be made. Not the Boys On the Bus propaganda, but something very interesting about where the biggest stars on the planet were living and hanging out in Pittsburgh and Edmonton. Just some real lousy cities in terms of going out. Edmonton has...improved but it's weird to think 3 of the top 100 players lived their in their primes but we don't know anything about it.

With Pittsburgh, there's a much seedier element. But for a time they had 3 of the top 100 players ever living their in their twenties as well.

I guess my question is where these dudes hung out. If I'm in Edmonton in 1984, do I just run into Messier at a bar? There's ZERO on where the guys went after games.

 

[Troubadour]

Individual head to head comparison in a team game makes no sense whatsoever imo

Im sure i can find an example of a random 4th liner doing better head to head against a star player. Doesn't mean anything

The fact that you're sure you can find an example of :insert: does not really render the H2H stats useless. Any stat can be misleading when misinterpreted, and any stat can be helpful when comprehended and applied properly. In the context of this thread though, reading the post I replied to would help you understand why it was even brought up.

 

[TANK200]

I've never seen any compelling evidence to support the idea that Gretzky's goal scoring declined at a different rate than the rest of his offensive performance, which is what would have happened if he was truly unable to adapt his goal scoring to a different environment. The theory that Gretzky declined as an overall offensive player after the Suter hit is obviously better at explaining the relevant data.

If you look at every season of Gretzky's career, and calculate the percentage of his even strength points that were goals, the lowest was naturally his last, where he scored just 6 even strength goals in 70 games. The season with the second-lowest percentage, though? Surprisingly it was 1985-86, the year he hit his career high in points. How does that make any sense, if old Gretzky apparently couldn't score on the newfangled butterfly goalies? It actually turns out that his rate of even strength points that were goals was surprisingly stable over his career after 1984-85.

It was a similar story on the power play, where at age 24 in 1984-85 Gretzky was already at only 18% of his PPP being PPG, reflecting his usage changing from being a shooter to a outright playmaker. He would maintain that role for the rest of his career (from 1986 to 1999 combined his PPG/PPP rate was 19%).

See this chart of Gretzky's ESG% and PPG% from age 25 (1985-86) to age 37 (1997-98), excluding his final campaign where he did legitimately decline in terms of goal scoring. The trend line for his even strength rate is perfectly flat. Again, if there was something about the improving league defensive structure or improved goaltending that impacted his goal scoring more than the rest of his game, that simply would not be the case, especially given that these major changes mostly took place when Gretzky was in his early thirties.

View attachment 606939

Gretzky was already an out-and-out playmaker by the mid-'80s, and he continued to be the same type of player for the remainder of his career. He was just so good at creating offence, and league scoring was still relatively high, that he ended up with a lot of goals anyway. But when he got Sutered and league scoring started to drop, it had a huge impact on his overall scoring totals, but certainly not his goal scoring uniquely. This is why it is a misinterpretation of the data to say that he couldn't maintain his goal scoring (he did in fact maintain his goal scoring just as consistently as he maintained any other aspect of his offensive game).

If you want to question any part of Gretzky's goal scoring resume, question whether his peak would translate to other eras, because there you actually have good arguments to bring to the table (the "Bossy was a better goal scorer than Gretzky" thread has most of the good ones).

In contrast, if you want to know what it looks like when a player actually hits a wall in terms of even strength goal scoring, Mario Lemieux is a great example. Mario had a super hot streak of 10 even strength goals in 13 games to start off the 2000-01 season, and then he fell off a cliff for the entire rest of his career:

Year	Type	Age	GP	ESG	ESA	ESG%	#10 in NHL	Adj ESG	Adj ESG/GP
1996​	REG	30​	70​	31​	43​	42%​	0.341​	27.3​	31.9​
1996​	PO	30​	18​	7​	7​	50%​	0.341​	6.2​	28.1​
1997​	REG	31​	76​	32​	47​	41%​	0.341​	28.1​	30.3​
1997​	PO	31​	5​	3​	1​	75%​	0.341​	2.6​	43.2​
2001​	REG (1st 13 GP)	35​	13​	10​	6​	63%​	0.317​	9.5​	59.7​
2001​	REG (Rest)	35​	30​	6​	19​	24%​	0.317​	5.7​	15.5​
2001​	PO	35​	18​	5​	5​	50%​	0.317​	4.7​	21.6​
2002​	REG	36​	24​	4​	13​	24%​	0.317​	3.8​	12.9​
2003​	REG	37​	67​	14​	32​	30%​	0.293​	14.4​	17.6​
2004​	REG	38​	10​	1​	4​	20%​	0.268​	1.1​	9.2​
2006​	REG	40​	26​	4​	12​	25%​	0.293​	4.1​	12.9​
1996-Jan 2001	Both	30-35	182​	83​	104​	44%​		73.6​	33.2​
Jan 2001-2006	Both	35-40	175​	34​	85​	29%​		33.8​	15.8​

For Lemieux, we see not only his overall rates drop, but his percentage of goals drops from 44% to 29%, something that never happened to late-career Gretzky other than during his final season. Era-adjusted, those last 175 games for Lemieux are barely better than old Gretzky (age 35-38, Gretzky had 14.7 adjusted even strength goals per 82 based on the same calculations as above).

The "Mario was better at adapting as a DPE goal scorer" seems to handwave away a lot of evidence (particularly playoff evidence), while really boiling down to a theory that is almost entirely based on a half-season of play in 2000-01. It's probably still a defensible claim to some degree, but I think it's vastly overstated in most cases and definitely not something that gets Lemieux even remotely close to a GOAT case.

Is there a reason that we are only talking about even strength goals? One of Lemieux's strengths was his ability to score on the powerplay. He brought a one-timer on the powerplay that Gretzky really never had, and that is party of why he was able to remain an effective goal scorer in an increasingly defensive league.

I have seen no evidence to suggest that Suter's hit had anything to do with Gretzky's decline. I have seen this point raised often, but it seems purely speculative. Do you have any statistics that would support this?

 

[barbu]

I have seen no evidence to suggest that Suter's hit had anything to do with Gretzky's decline. I have seen this point raised often, but it seems purely speculative. Do you have any statistics that would support this?

he was coming off a 163 pts season, then a Canada cup during which he easily stood out as the best player, at the end of which the Suter hit happened. And that was the end of his superhuman dominance. That seems pretty clear to me.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Is there a reason that we are only talking about even strength goals? One of Lemieux's strengths was his ability to score on the powerplay. He brought a one-timer on the powerplay that Gretzky really never had, and that is party of why he was able to remain an effective goal scorer in an increasingly defensive league.

I have seen no evidence to suggest that Suter's hit had anything to do with Gretzky's decline. I have seen this point raised often, but it seems purely speculative. Do you have any statistics that would support this?

The purpose of my Lemieux even strength example there was to show what it actually looks like when a player hits a goal scoring decline, rather than an overall offensive decline (i.e. there is both a stat drop and a tradeoff towards playmaking). The fact that this pattern does not appear at any point in post-prime Gretzky's career prior to his final season shows that his goal scoring was not uniquely impacted by the changing league environment.

Everyone agrees that Lemieux was a much more prolific goal scorer than Gretzky on the power play (in the regular season at least, Mario's 5 power play goals in his final 47 career playoff games is honestly more than a little awkward for many of the claims made about his unparalleled late-career goal scoring adaptability though). People are going to have widely different opinions on how much that matters. For example, unlike you I don't make a significant distinction between goals and assists on the power play when we're talking about star players.

As for Gretzky and Suter, the link has definitely been shown on these boards previously, but I can run the numbers again if you haven't seen it. The first table is just to show my work (I'm using my own adjustment system using the 10th place finisher in both even strength and power play points per season, since that is a better estimate of the scoring environment for top players than overall goals per game). The second table gives the quick-and-dirty summary of how the greatest even strength scorer of all time became a mere mortal over the course of just one summer:

Wayne Gretzky, Adjusted Scoring, 1986-87 to 1998-99:

Age	Season	GP	ESP	PPP	#10 ESP	#10 PPP	#10 ESP/GP	#10 PPP/GP	Adj ESP	Adj PPP
26​	1987​	79​	124​	46​	61​	35​	0.76​	0.44​	120.3​	51.5​
27​	1988​	64​	91​	49​	59​	45​	0.74​	0.56​	91.3​	42.7​
28​	1989​	78​	100​	53​	59​	44​	0.74​	0.55​	100.3​	47.2​
29​	1990​	73​	96​	40​	65​	43​	0.81​	0.54​	87.4​	36.5​
30​	1991​	78​	103​	59​	61​	40​	0.76​	0.50​	100.0​	57.8​
31​	1992​	74​	63​	54​	61​	46​	0.76​	0.58​	61.1​	46.0​
32​	1993​	45​	38​	24​	71​	51​	0.85​	0.61​	33.3​	19.4​
33​	1994​	81​	62​	61​	59​	41​	0.70​	0.49​	65.3​	61.2​
34​	1995​	48​	23​	22​	35​	23​	0.73​	0.48​	23.3​	22.5​
35​	1996​	80​	54​	47​	61​	41​	0.74​	0.50​	53.7​	46.1​
36​	1997​	82​	65​	31​	59​	31​	0.72​	0.38​	66.9​	40.2​
37​	1998​	82​	60​	30​	52​	30​	0.63​	0.37​	70.0​	40.2​
38​	1999​	70​	32​	30​	55​	34​	0.67​	0.41​	35.3​	35.5​

Wayne Gretzky, Summary of Adjusted Scoring Per 82 Games (1986-87 to 1998-99):

Age	Season	Adj ESP/82	Adj PPP/82
26​	1987​	124.9​	53.5​
27​	1988​	117.0​	54.7​
28​	1989​	105.5​	49.6​
29​	1990​	98.2​	41.0​
30​	1991​	105.1​	60.8​
31​	1992​	67.8​	51.0​
32​	1993​	60.6​	35.3​
33​	1994​	66.1​	62.0​
34​	1995​	39.9​	38.4​
35​	1996​	55.1​	47.2​
36​	1997​	66.9​	40.2​
37​	1998​	70.0​	40.2​
38​	1999​	41.4​	41.5​

What this clearly shows is that Gretzky's even strength offence fell off a cliff in the summer of 1991, to a pretty similar range for the next 7 seasons (with the exception of lockout-shortened 1994-95). It doesn't make sense that this could be attributed to environmental factors, since the league defensive and goaltending environments didn't change much at all from 1991 to 1992, and for typical age-related decline we'd likely see a much more gradual curve (as in his power play stats, for example).

Furthermore, if this decline was because Gretzky stopped being able to score goals then we'd see his goals/assists ratio change significantly, but as I already showed previously it did not:

1988-89 to 1990-91: 32% of ESP are goals, 19% of PPP are goals
1991-92 to 1993-94: 31% of ESP are goals, 19% of PPP are goals

If you have a better explanation then I'd love to hear it, but the Suter injury theory basically fits all the quantitative and qualitative evidence surrounding Gretzky's post-1991 performance.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Quoting myself from another thread re Gretzky and the Suter hit:

Sometimes it's easier to see things with graphs:

This shows Gretzky's era-adjusted ES production (pro-rated to 82 games) by season. (It's a crude/basic adjustment and can be refined further, but it's good enough for a general discussion).

His ES scoring nosedives immediately after the Suter hit. In 1991, Gretzky, at age 30, was still a really good ES scorer. He was scoring at about 82% of his peak level (again, in terms of adjusted ES production). 1992 was by far the worst of his career in terms of ES production to that point. In 1991 he was closer to his absolute peak than he was to 1992. And his production never recovered.

The problem when discussing Gretzky is league-wide scoring dropped significantly as his career progressed, so his decline, on paper, looks worse than it really was. It's clear that after the Suter hit, he was never the same player. Adjusting for the league-wide scoring environment (or, of course, watching his games from 1991 vs 1992) makes that obvious.

(Three points. First, I agree that Lemieux aged better as a goal-scorer than Gretkzy, that seems obvious. Second, Gretzky shouldn't get credit for what he might have done had he not been injured. But it's useful to show that there was specific reason for his sudden drop-off in his production. If it was something broader, ie a difficulty playing against butterfly goalies, it would have been a slow and steady decrease, not a sudden decline, since butterfly goaltending gradually became more common over the course of more than a decade. Third, Gretzky's PP production, adjusted for era, was surprisingly flat over the course of his career - the Suter hit ruined his explosive quickness which, as expected, had a much bigger impact at ES).

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

I love the gretzky Sutter hit stuff but mario dealing with far worse back problems n other ailments from the age of 24 until he retired is used against him. All the super stats mario put up he was dealing with far worse and he Wasent 31

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

I love the gretzky Sutter hit stuff but mario dealing with far worse back problems n other ailments from the age of 24 until he retired is used against him. All the super stats mario put up he was dealing with far worse and he Wasent 31

This is such a barely coherent post.

It’s like you didn’t read the well thought out and put together post above yours just to go “nuh huh Lemieux better”.

But Gretzky won more cups so he’s better. Just using your logic.

 

[TANK200]

Quoting myself from another thread re Gretzky and the Suter hit:

Sometimes it's easier to see things with graphs:

This shows Gretzky's era-adjusted ES production (pro-rated to 82 games) by season. (It's a crude/basic adjustment and can be refined further, but it's good enough for a general discussion).

His ES scoring nosedives immediately after the Suter hit. In 1991, Gretzky, at age 30, was still a really good ES scorer. He was scoring at about 82% of his peak level (again, in terms of adjusted ES production). 1992 was by far the worst of his career in terms of ES production to that point. In 1991 he was closer to his absolute peak than he was to 1992. And his production never recovered.

The problem when discussing Gretzky is league-wide scoring dropped significantly as his career progressed, so his decline, on paper, looks worse than it really was. It's clear that after the Suter hit, he was never the same player. Adjusting for the league-wide scoring environment (or, of course, watching his games from 1991 vs 1992) makes that obvious.

(Three points. First, I agree that Lemieux aged better as a goal-scorer than Gretkzy, that seems obvious. Second, Gretzky shouldn't get credit for what he might have done had he not been injured. But it's useful to show that there was specific reason for his sudden drop-off in his production. If it was something broader, ie a difficulty playing against butterfly goalies, it would have been a slow and steady decrease, not a sudden decline, since butterfly goaltending gradually became more common over the course of more than a decade. Third, Gretzky's PP production, adjusted for era, was surprisingly flat over the course of his career - the Suter hit ruined his explosive quickness which, as expected, had a much bigger impact at ES).

I think that if anything, this plot suggests Gretzky’s 1990-91 season was somewhat of an outlier in a career that was otherwise already declining, which would make sense for a player in his early 30s. I don’t recall ever hearing Gretzky suggest that he could no longer play at a similar level due to the hit by Suter. This whole idea seems fabricated in retrospect to explain why Gretzky was no longer the same player.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I think that if anything, this plot suggests Gretzky’s 1990-91 season was somewhat of an outlier in a career that was otherwise already declining, which would make sense for a player in his early 30s. I don’t recall ever hearing Gretzky suggest that he could no longer play at a similar level due to the hit by Suter. This whole idea seems fabricated in retrospect to explain why Gretzky was no longer the same player.

Here's a link to a December 1991 article from Sports Illustrated. Some quotes:

"This is the end," he told his wife after another in an assembly line of odorous performances. "This is the end of the end. I never, ever dreamed I could play this bad."

Gretzky was just slightly above horrid and just below rotten. Here it was the 10th game of the season, and he had no goals. Wayne's World without goals? No way! In Canada people checked their calendars to be sure it was hockey season. The Great One had become the Great None. In one 0-4-2 stretch for the Kings in November, Gretzky contributed three whole points. The greatest player in hockey history suddenly couldn't dump a puck into a swimming pool. "I'm the weak link on this team," he told reporters.

In Game 1 of the best-of-three finals in Montreal on Sept. 14, Gretzky took a dubious shot in his legendarily tender back from Team USA's Gary Suter, who made a run for the border while Gretzky, the eventual tournament MVP, went home crumpled over like Felix Unger

He rushed his poor lumbar into action to help his boss fill the outdoor arena at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for an exhibition game against the New York Rangers... And so it was that Gretzky's back started the regular season in about the same shape that JFK's left the war. By the fourth game the back was less painful, but his game was still hurting.

I agree that Gretzky would have started slowing down around 1992 anyway. It's just that we probably would have seen a slower and more gradual decline, rather than a sudden drop in his ES production.

(As I said above, Gretzky should not be given credit for what he would've done without the Suter hit. But it was immediately obvious that something was wrong with him after the 1991 Canada Cup tournament - it's not hindsight if people were talking about it at the time).

 

[The Panther]

I think that if anything, this plot suggests Gretzky’s 1990-91 season was somewhat of an outlier in a career that was otherwise already declining, which would make sense for a player in his early 30s. I don’t recall ever hearing Gretzky suggest that he could no longer play at a similar level due to the hit by Suter. This whole idea seems fabricated in retrospect to explain why Gretzky was no longer the same player.

You possibly aren't paying enough attention. Gretzky missed significant games in 1988 and 1990, also.

He routinely scored 100+ ES points every season of his career... until 1991-92 when he completely sagged by a massive proportion.

The Suter-hit was certainly a key moment (combined with his father's injury the following month), but the Suter hit was actually the third hit to his back during 1990-1991. It seems to have taken a year for Gretzky and doctors to realize the severity of the combined injuries, to the point where he was discussing his career possibly being over in the autumn of 1992.

 

[MadLuke]

I think the graph make a season just before the drop look like an outlier while there is a plateau in there.

Maybe the drop is clearer with numbers and 82 games even strength pace:

1979-80	19​	EDM	103.8​
1980-81	20​	EDM	106.6​
1981-82	21​	EDM	150.7​
1982-83	22​	EDM	135.3​
1983-84	23​	EDM	149.6​
1984-85	24​	EDM	149.7​
1985-86	25​	EDM	146.6​
1986-87	26​	EDM	128.7​
1987-88	27​	EDM	116.6​
1988-89	28​	LAK	105.1​
1989-90	29​	LAK	107.8​
1990-91	30​	LAK	108.3​
1991-92	31​	LAK	69.8​
1992-93	32​	LAK	69.2​
1993-94	33​	LAK	62.8​
1994-95	34​	LAK	39.3​
1995-96	35​	TOT	55.4​

Like mentioned Gretzky went from never below 100 (which when you think about it, how monstrous is that) to suddenly 70. I doubt many players were so consistent in their career, 105-107-108 sesaon, 147 to 150 3 season in arow during peak Gretkzy, 3 season 105-108 season in row for prime post first time missed 88 injury Gretzky, etc... 3 62-70 season in row post Sutter injury.

One other factor could be the league wide at the same time goes more pp production heavy for stars ? Gretzky keeping a similar ratio I think, which maybe make it less clear and I am not sure if it is specially goals or not just less points.

Power play points stayed exactly the sames, which would go well with a lost of explosion-skating-agility but not loosing playmaking-passing during a static power play situation.

 

[TANK200]

Here's a link to a December 1991 article from Sports Illustrated. Some quotes:

"This is the end," he told his wife after another in an assembly line of odorous performances. "This is the end of the end. I never, ever dreamed I could play this bad."

Gretzky was just slightly above horrid and just below rotten. Here it was the 10th game of the season, and he had no goals. Wayne's World without goals? No way! In Canada people checked their calendars to be sure it was hockey season. The Great One had become the Great None. In one 0-4-2 stretch for the Kings in November, Gretzky contributed three whole points. The greatest player in hockey history suddenly couldn't dump a puck into a swimming pool. "I'm the weak link on this team," he told reporters.

In Game 1 of the best-of-three finals in Montreal on Sept. 14, Gretzky took a dubious shot in his legendarily tender back from Team USA's Gary Suter, who made a run for the border while Gretzky, the eventual tournament MVP, went home crumpled over like Felix Unger

He rushed his poor lumbar into action to help his boss fill the outdoor arena at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for an exhibition game against the New York Rangers... And so it was that Gretzky's back started the regular season in about the same shape that JFK's left the war. By the fourth game the back was less painful, but his game was still hurting.

I agree that Gretzky would have started slowing down around 1992 anyway. It's just that we probably would have seen a slower and more gradual decline, rather than a sudden drop in his ES production.

(As I said above, Gretzky should not be given credit for what he would've done without the Suter hit. But it was immediately obvious that something was wrong with him after the 1991 Canada Cup tournament - it's not hindsight if people were talking about it at the time).

Per the bolded text... so since his back was sore for a few games, we're saying that he was a totally different player for the rest of his career because of this hit?

 

[jigglysquishy]

HOCKEY; Gretzky Is Sidelined Indefinitely (Published 1992)

www.nytimes.com

Wayne Gretzky did not retire today, but the announcement by the Los Angeles Kings that he will be out indefinitely -- possibly the entire season -- because of a herniated disk in his upper back could be the first step in that direction. Gretzky, hockey's career-leading scorer and the Kings' captain, will not undergo surgery at this time, according to Dr. Robert Watkins, the team's spine specialist. But Watkins did term the injury "one in a million" and said that Gretzky would be treated with medication and exercise.[...] There had been rumors circulating throughout the National Hockey League that Gretzky, hospitalized since last Wednesday after complaining of chest pain, might announce his retirement. But Gretzky said that he had not given consideration to leaving the game. "The only thing I'm dealing with now is getting rid of this pain," said Gretzky, who was accompanied by his wife, the actress Janet Jones. "I haven't thought of anything past that." [...] About the possibility that Gretzky might never return, Watkins said: "It has the possibility of being a career- ending injury, but we're optimistic that the prognosis is good for his recovery."

Retirement rumours swirled around Gretzky from fall 1991 until he actually announced it in 1999.

 

[WarriorofTime]

No, he was too reliant on powerplay points which are less impactful by design because replacement level is higher, and he had bad conditioning leading to a short career.

 

[Overrated]

No, he was too reliant on powerplay points which are less impactful by design because replacement level is higher, and he had bad conditioning leading to a short career.

What if the drew more penalties? Could just about anyone replace that?

 

[daver]

No, he was too reliant on powerplay points which are less impactful by design because replacement level is higher, and he had bad conditioning leading to a short career.

Scoring on the PP =/= "reliant on the PP".

Mario was the dominant ES scorer in 92/93 when the Pens were middle of the pack in PP opportunities. There is no evidence to prove he was "reliant" on PP points to dominate offensively.

I may be putting myself on a limb here but I think a PP goal is as "impactful" as an ES goal on the scoresheet.

In his two Cup wins, Mario was as dominant offensively as Wayne was in his Cup runs.

In short, Mario got his points regardless,

All that being said, I think Wayne had the "it" factor that puts him ahead of Mario.

 

[Mohar Ikram]

I will put a subjective perspective and context on the case why Lemieux is a GOAT candidate. Because objectively his stats and accolades are bonkers only next to The Great One.

- His outrageous out of the chart determination in playing this sport where he denies any obstacles over and over and over and over again.
- Diagnosed with cancer - Getting treatment - came back - still won the scoring title
- Retired due to his injuries - came back to save the teams - still the best player on that said team after 3 years layover - have a deep final last dance in playoffs (17 points in 18 games) - Mind to you, he is already in HOF and 3 years off but still that good - Get his name as the moniker of his playing arena.
- Save the teams by buying it - have a lucky strike in 04 and 05 on next generational player - build new home for his beloved team - gives the new place a new moniker from one of those two generational player.

Ice hockey is a team sports, Yet nothing can simplify or separate the love story between Pittsburgh Penguins and Mario Lemieux itself.

All 4 tier 1 GOAT candidates have one thing that make them the permanent Mount Rushmore that they invent, create and build.

Gretzky (Unbeatable Dominance)
Lemieux (Determination and Perserverance)
Orr (Creativity and Visionary)
Howe (Longevity and Endurance)

Either those 4 can be the GOAT and no one will argue about it.

 

[Voight]

This is such a barely coherent post.

It’s like you didn’t read the well thought out and put together post above yours just to go “nuh huh Lemieux better”.

But Gretzky won more cups so he’s better. Just using your logic.

Wouldn't be the first time.

 

[Kranix]

No contest Wayne was by far better. Mario had better dangles by my eye though.