Lemieux vs Gretzky - who had the Highest Offensive Peak? A thorough statistical analysis

[alko]

Wtf. How much did Hfboards paid for this analysis?

 

[daver]

The eye test sees Mario needing a longer time to reach his peak than Wayne and that they clearly had overlapping seasons where pre-peak Mario was clearly inferior to peak Wayne.

In 87/88, a 23 year old Mario in his 4th season matches Wayne (or close enough) when Wayne was on his way down from his peak.

If Mario was objectively a better player than Wayne, he exploits the "easier" scoring environments that peak Wayne played in a lot more than what his numbers show. Instead, what the numbers show is Mario taking a more normal route to his peak that historically has been shown by other greats; hitting it by age 23/24 and/or after four to five seasons.

His two "peak" seasons match Wayne's relative dominance. As do his two Cup runs.

Other than the unknown of whether Wayne is Wayne if he starts in 84/85, there isn't a reasonable argument to place Mario above. "Adjusting" using league GPG is too flawed to be useful and what we do know, as outlined above, makes it far more reasonable to take treat their relative league dominance at face value.

 

[bobholly39]

It's kind of shitty how many posters are making fun of the length of posts. I wouldn't usually expect that on HOH.

I think for me the biggest knock on Lemieuxs 93 season is that - as horrible as it sounds - his cancer contributed to it. If he plays all year with no major injury - not sure he matches/exceeds his per game pace. It probably goes down a bit.

He was on an absolute mission when he came back and i think thats part of it. If somehow the season extended to 20 more games at the end of 93 (so somehow 104 regular season games with Mario playing 80 total) i think he keeps his per game pace - but if he had played the games in between, he probably doesnt finish season quite as strong.

I think i have his 92-93 season as the greatest season ever, because of the comeback.

Absolute best ever? I don't know i go back and forth. Gretzky and Orr are definitely up there too.

 

[bobholly39]

I voted 85-86. 215 points, and i always find it ridiculous how Gretzky called his shot ahead of season "hey ill score 2 assists per game now...." and then did it. Its such a ridiculous number no one had gotten close to ever, and he does it just because he said he would.

It'd be equivalent to McDavid coming out and saying this summer "hey ill score 120 goals next season"....and then actually doing it.

But 83-84, and Lemieux in 93 are my top 3 in some order. I go back and fort, ask me tomorrow i might change my vote. 81-82 and 88-89 not far behind

 

[Midnight Judges]

It's a lot of good data. Thanks for that.

That said, the purpose of an offensive peak is to contribute to the team, NOT to demonstrate a per-game capability. The emphasis on per game makes this close. But in reality, it is not.

 

[Overrated]

Note that no massive expansions occurred during Gretzky's prime. None. He entered the NHL in a 21-team League, and when his prime ended it was a 21-team League (although Calgary moved in 1980 and Colorado in 1982).

Of course, the League had hugely expanded since 1967, but 1967 expansion was long overdue. Even the NHL doubling in size from six to twelve clubs probably didn't water-down the product very much, after the first few seasons. But what did water-down the product was the WHA, as by 1975 there were 32 professional teams in North America, divvying-up the same pool of players (nor were all the bottom-level ones in the WHA -- see the 1974-75 Washington Capitals).

When Gretzky entered the NHL, the number of major professional clubs had contracted -- not expanded -- from 32 clubs in 1975 to 21 in 1979 (a 34% contraction). And that number of team held steady for twelve years, during which the numbers of American and European players gradually increased.

I don't deny that the 70s were even more watered down. Early 80s, though definitely tougher than the 70s were still quite watered down and the quality of the game was lower than even in the 60s. I think it is redundant to say that the league was more watered down before Gretzky came in. I am not making a pro-Lafleur anti-Gretzky case after all.

The late 80s still had the same amount of teams yet the league talent pool grew considerably. Even the Canadian talent pool did. Didn't the participation peak around the year ~1980? Since most of the players of the game are kids they would enter the league roughly 5-10 years later. There was a whole evolution of goaltending as people often note when looking at the goaltenders of the 80s and prior. Formerly irrelevant hockey countries like USA or Finland became true hockey powerhouses by the early 90s not to mention all of the talent from the USSR and CSSR coming in.

Lemieux played in a different league. Looking at just PPG or GPG is misleading.

 

[The Panther]

Lemieux played in a different league.

Umm... Lemieux is only 4.5 years younger than Gretzky, and "retired" two years before Wayne.

Do Stamkos and Ovechkin play in different leagues?

(Besides this, your comment seems to concur with what I posted.)

 

[Overrated]

Umm... Lemieux is only 4.5 years younger than Gretzky, and "retired" two years before Wayne.

Do Stamkos and Ovechkin play in different leagues?

(Besides this, your comment seems to concur with what I posted.)

He might be just 4.5 years younger but if his statistical peak was let's say from 87/88 to 92/93 and Gretzky's let's say from 81/82 to 85/86 these are basically two different eras all things considered.

 

[daver]

He might be just 4.5 years younger but if his statistical peak was let's say from 87/88 to 92/93 and Gretzky's let's say from 81/82 to 85/86 these are basically two different eras all things considered.

Mario had plenty of opportunity to show his stuff during "Wayne's" era, and Wayne showed enough post-peak to indicate he had no issue with producing at the expected rate for his age.

There is no statistical anomaly i.e. the smoking gun, that points to a reasonable narrative that peak Mario dominates "Wayne's era" more than Wayne or Wayne would not have been equally as dominant in "Mario's era".

 

[bobholly39]

Mario had plenty of opportunity to show his stuff during "Wayne's" era, and Wayne showed enough post-peak to indicate he had no issue with producing at the expected rate for his age.

There is no statistical anomaly i.e. the smoking gun, that points to a reasonable narrative that peak Mario dominates "Wayne's era" more than Wayne or Wayne would not have been equally as dominant in "Mario's era".

Mario took a few years to get going and hit his peak. That's one big advantage Gretzky has.

If you import 1988 version of Mario Lemieux into the league in 1981, does he do better than Mario actually did from 88 to 93? Does he do better head to head vs Gretzky?

I dont know - but its disingenuous to claim Mario already played in Wayne's era and didn't dominate since it wasn't peak Lemieux, so its not the same.

Similarly - Gretzky obviously did fantastic in the 90s - but nowhere near as good as early 80s. If you import peak 81 Gretzky into 1990 does he do as well as he did in the 80s? Does he score as many goals in particular?

Again - i dont know. But it's worth considering.

 

[Overrated]

Mario had plenty of opportunity to show his stuff during "Wayne's" era

People peak in different ages. Look at Crosby's teen years. That could lead you to believe he was on Gretzky's and Lemieux's level. Plenty of stars had a slower start. Jagr, Lafleur. Some guys were considered so bad they were put into minors (Hull) and then came to score 80 goals in a season. Lemieux's team was also much worse than Gretzky's which became one of the cup contenders within 3 years of him playing in the league. Mario even in his first two seasons showed a lot (100 & 141 points).

Wayne showed enough post-peak to indicate he had no issue with producing at the expected rate for his age.

Not even post-prime. Gretzky in his mid-late 20s !!! showed a level inferior to Lemieux where he scored roughly 55 goals per 80 games while Lemieux did about 75. That is the smoking gun. Yeah Wayne assisted more but as we all should know the value of an assist on average is never gonna be the same as the value of a goal.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

The 1992-93 Penguins meanwhile were a great team fully capable of blowing out other teams just as often as the Oilers did and yet for some reason... they didn't.

It's true that the 1993 Penguins had fewer blowout wins than Gretzky's Oilers - because Lemieux missed a quarter of the season. Comparing the 1993 Penguins when Lemieux was in the lineup to the Oilers shows that they had blowout wins at (more or less) the same rates.

Based on the numbers you posted, the Oilers (across those six seasons) won by 3+ goals 36% of the time. The 1993 Pens did that 40% of the time when Lemieux was playing (24 of 60 games) vs only 25% when he wasn't (6 of 21 games).

I agree that Gretzky appears to have gotten more "garbage time" points during his prime, than Lemieux did in 1993. Without posting all the calculations, the difference works out to (roughly) one extra point every 20 games. Is it worth considering if we're going to obsess (I mean that in a good way) about every detail? Yes - but an extra ~4 points over the course of the season isn't significant when we're talking about ~200 point paces.

 

[daver]

Mario took a few years to get going and hit his peak. That's one big advantage Gretzky has.

If you import 1988 version of Mario Lemieux into the league in 1981, does he do better than Mario actually did from 88 to 93? Does he do better head to head vs Gretzky?

I dont know - but its disingenuous to claim Mario already played in Wayne's era and didn't dominate since it wasn't peak Lemieux, so its not the same.

Similarly - Gretzky obviously did fantastic in the 90s - but nowhere near as good as early 80s. If you import peak 81 Gretzky into 1990 does he do as well as he did in the 80s? Does he score as many goals in particular?

Again - i dont know. But it's worth considering.

My claim is that we didn't see Mario doing anything other than progressing towards his peak in a way that showed zero signs that he was heading towards a superior peak than Wayne's.

What the "peak Mario > peak Wayne" crowd would want us to believe is that Mario took a larger jump in 88/89 than simply reaching the 200 point level to match Wayne's peak; that the league was harder than it was literally a year before when Mario was still being outproduced by Wayne (albeit at somewhat small rate) therefore we need to value Mario's 88/89 season higher.

"We just don't know what a peak Mario does in the early '80s or a peak Wayne in the early '90s" is not an argument, IMO, it is throwing something against the wall to see what sticks.

 

[daver]

People peak in different ages. Look at Crosby's teen years. That could lead you to believe he was on Gretzky's and Lemieux's level. Plenty of stars had a slower start. Jagr, Lafleur. Some guys were considered so bad they were put into minors (Hull) and then came to score 80 goals in a season. Lemieux's team was also much worse than Gretzky's which became one of the cup contenders within 3 years of him playing in the league. Mario even in his first two seasons showed a lot (100 & 141 points).

Mario was objectively behind Wayne in their age 18 season (79/80 for Wayne, 84/85 for Mario), their age 19 season, their age 20 and their age 21 season. This is not debatable.

In Mario's 5th season, he hit his peak as one would have expected as he was 23 years old by the time the season started.

Now instead of looking at point totals to compare, we are supposed to see something so obvious that Mario has not only matched Wayne but surpassed him that we now have to dig deeper for an explanation.

This doesn't pass the smell test.

A clearly superior Mario doesn't lose the battle to Wayne when comparing their career progressions thru their first four seasons. Mario should have been better in at least one or two of those ages.

You are projecting a peak onto Mario that is outside of the expected norm.

Crosby was as NHL ready a prospect as any before. Same with McDavid. A product of superior player development. We both saw them hit their primes in their 2nd season and both took it up a notch at their peak.

 

[JackSlater]

Admittedly, I didn't read the entire OP(s) but I am a firm believer that... at their absolute best... Mario was the scariest forward in hockey history. I once asked Flyers and HHOF defenseman Mark Howe who was the greatest player he ever faced and he said it was between Lemieux and Gretzky.

Then added, "what made Lemieux probably better than Gretz is that he simply could not be stopped when he was on." Howe said Keenan once started to tear into him on the bench for Mario toying with the Flyers and he turned to him and said, "there's nothing we can do... we need him to tire himself out."

He said Gretzky was frustrating to play against because you would spend a period defending him and you thought you had him all figured out but in the next period he'd completely change up what he was doing and it would give you fits. But he said Mario couldn't physically be stopped, and at his best, he couldn't be defended like other players could.

Interesting, I think what Howe describes is also the thinking behind Bowman, who knows far more about these players than any of us do, ranking Lemieux over Gretzky. I imagine that he figures he could come up with plans for Gretzky and see if those plans work, even though Gretzky is going to come out ahead most of the time no matter what you do. There might not be a plan for Lemieux, at his best, short of injury. Gretzky still ended up contributing more than Lemieux did for a variety of reasons but I can see why a player (or coach) might fear going against Lemieux more.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

The only way comparing Lemieux's 60-game season to any of Gretzky's seasons makes sense is if you take Gretzky's strongest 60-game streak and put it against Lemieux's '93 season. We've already been through this song and dance with Crosby's shortened seasons and Ovechkin's pre-Olympics 2010 streak.

Also, it has never, ever been proven that linemates affect a superstar player's point totals. Literally nowhere. It is very clearly evident that a superstar linemate will inflate their lesser linemates' scores, but not the inverse.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Lemieux's 60 games in 1992-93 = 160 pts
Lemieux's 15 games in 1992 playoffs = 34 pts
Lemieux's last 7 games of the 1991-92 season = 21 pts.

82 games, 215 pts.

*Miss America wave* Thank you, thank you

 

[daver]

People peak in different ages. Look at Crosby's teen years. That could lead you to believe he was on Gretzky's and Lemieux's level. Plenty of stars had a slower start. Jagr, Lafleur. Some guys were considered so bad they were put into minors (Hull) and then came to score 80 goals in a season. Lemieux's team was also much worse than Gretzky's which became one of the cup contenders within 3 years of him playing in the league. Mario even in his first two seasons showed a lot (100 & 141 points).


Not even post-prime. Gretzky in his mid-late 20s !!! showed a level inferior to Lemieux where he scored roughly 55 goals per 80 games while Lemieux did about 75. That is the smoking gun. Yeah Wayne assisted more but as we all should know the value of an assist on average is never gonna be the same as the value of a goal.

So you open with people "peak at different ages" then close with "peak" Wayne was inferior.

After 1986, what did Wayne have left to accomplish in the regular season? Absolutely nothing. It was all about winning Cups by then. Wayne was certainly still in his peak once the playoffs started.

You are throwing out all of the well worn narratives that are easily debunked:

Better team, better linemates etc.... Goals mean more than assists.

A peak Wayne puts up 92 goals while outscoring the next best Oiler by over a 100%. And he outscored the next best Oiler by an even bigger % the season before.

Mario cannot say this in either of his peak seasons.

 

[wetcoast]

What was so soft about 1965 ?

It was the year Brit Selby won the Calder and frankly I can't even remember ever hearing about this guy.

Wasn't exactly a stellar year for the NHL really.

But the early 80s isn't as bad as some, looking at you Mike Farkas, make it out to be either.

Sure in 79-80 the NHL has 4 additional teams but the rival league is gone and the % and real number of non Canadians in the NHL more than makes up for the diluted 70s and somewhat lackluster 06 60s where basically the same 4 teams are in the playoffs every year and Boston and the NYR are just hanging out basically waiting until Orr and Park respectively change their franchises fortunes.

The OP makes some interesting points but once again the number 502 from baseball is 100% arbitrary as are some of the points made about line mates and who is in the NHL HHOF and who isn't (Rob Brown wasn't a HHOFer but he certainly had offensive puck skills for example) and the absolute peak argument isn't exactly my cup of tea and one wonders if the video game numbers or both guys in their absolute peak seasons and the metrics derived to get to that conclusion aren't mitigated a bit if we look at say Gilmour in his incredible 2 way peak with the Maple Leafs?

Mario certainly has a bit of an eye test "advantage" over Gretzky but at the end getting it done more consistently and more often sometimes does matter more right?

 

[Overrated]

So you open with people "peak at different ages" then close with "peak" Wayne was inferior.

After 1986, what did Wayne have left to accomplish in the regular season? Absolutely nothing. It was all about winning Cups by then. Wayne was certainly still in his peak once the playoffs started.

You are throwing out all of the well worn narratives that are easily debunked:

Better team, better linemates etc.... Goals mean more than assists.

A peak Wayne puts up 92 goals while outscoring the next best Oiler by over a 100%. And he outscored the next best Oiler by an even bigger % the season before.

Mario cannot say this in either of his peak seasons.

Nothing you've said seems to indicate you've debunked me. Whether he was better at 18 or worse is irrelevant. Jagr scored 57 points in his first season yet he peaked higher than Ovechkin or Crosby. And Lemieux didn't really have a slow start he just wasn't as good as he eventually became. That can be said about plenty of players. It's the same across sports. Messi didn't score as much as Mbappe in his first 4 seasons but he peaked significantly higher.

I personally believe Lemieux's peak was higher as he did it against a much better opposition with better goaltending. If we use adjusted PPG Lemieux gets the best adjusted season and also 3 seasons in the top 4 seasons and that's just taking the inflated scoring across the league into consideration and not the other important fact which is that he did it in a tougher era.

 

[authentic]

Lemieux's 60 games in 1992-93 = 160 pts
Lemieux's 15 games in 1992 playoffs = 34 pts
Lemieux's last 7 games of the 1991-92 season = 21 pts.

82 games, 215 pts.

*Miss America wave* Thank you, thank you

The 1992 playoffs had a goals per game average of 3.22, and in Gretzky's best season in 1985 it was 3.74

Gretzky had a points per game of 2.61 and Lemieux 2.27

Adjusting Lemieux's points per game to the goals per game average in 1985 comes out to 2.64

I think it's pretty clear at this point Lemieux at his best equals Gretzky at the least

 

[authentic]

Nothing you've said seems to indicate you've debunked me. Whether he was better at 18 or worse is irrelevant. Jagr scored 57 points in his first season yet he peaked higher than Ovechkin or Crosby. And Lemieux didn't really have a slow start he just wasn't as good as he eventually became. That can be said about plenty of players. It's the same across sports. Messi didn't score as much as Mbappe in his first 4 seasons but he peaked significantly higher.

I personally believe Lemieux's peak was higher as he did it against a much better opposition with better goaltending. If we use adjusted PPG Lemieux gets the best adjusted season and also 3 seasons in the top 4 seasons and that's just taking the inflated scoring across the league into consideration and not the other important fact which is that he did it in a tougher era.

Plus check my post above ^. Lemieux's best playoff run comes out slightly ahead of Gretzky's on a per game basis if you adjust to equal goals per game averages. The fact that he did this after Europeans entered the league and goalies weren't completely from another universe (not a good universe either) compared to today is always why I've felt Lemieux > Gretzky at his best.

 

[authentic]

Lemieux's 60 games in 1992-93 = 160 pts
Lemieux's 15 games in 1992 playoffs = 34 pts
Lemieux's last 7 games of the 1991-92 season = 21 pts.

82 games, 215 pts.

*Miss America wave* Thank you, thank you

Also you forgot to mention 93 goals

 

[The Panther]

Similarly - Gretzky obviously did fantastic in the 90s - but nowhere near as good as early 80s. If you import peak 81 Gretzky into 1990 does he do as well as he did in the 80s? Does he score as many goals in particular?

Well:
1980-81 = 164 points (first full season of Gretzky's prime)
1990-91 = 163 points (last season of Gretzky's prime)

So, it would seem so.

 

[The Panther]

Lemieux's 60 games in 1992-93 = 160 pts
Lemieux's 15 games in 1992 playoffs = 34 pts
Lemieux's last 7 games of the 1991-92 season = 21 pts.

82 games, 215 pts.

*Miss America wave* Thank you, thank you

You realize if we start cherry-picking games across seasons like this, that Gretzky is going to come out ahead again, with more than 215 points (which he did in an actual season of 80 games, not 82)?

Also, since Lemieux 1992-93 is the gold standard for his career 'peak' argument, why are you skipping the 1993 playoffs? Lemieux dressed for 71 games in 1992-93 in total, scoring 178 points. His final 11 games of the previous season (1991-92), he scored 24 points.
So, 1992 spring to 1993 spring = 202 points in 80 games

Or, you can take the first 11 games he played in 1993-94, in which he scored 17 points. Then, it's:
Oct. 1992 to March 1994 = 195 points in 80 games

However, all of this means jack squat. A one-season peak is not significant. We can start talking about peaks if we want to get into two-to-three consecutive seasons, at minimum.

Mario Lemieux at his best may well equate with Gretzky in terms of offensive peak ability, but... so what? Unless you can bring it for 10 years in a row, without time off, it's hardly the same thing.