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

[bobholly39]

Also, the pool of AHL-level players was larger with the new expansion teams.

Are you just going to ignore that 1992-93 was the easiest season ever to score 100+ points in when you're barking about "harder era"?

Are you adjusting Gretzky's points-per-game also when adjusting Lemieux's?

Is all of this really purposeful to form a statistically negligible conclusion about a 60-regular-season game stretch from the ancient past?

Was the 1992-1993 season the easiest ever to score 100+ points in? Or does it just so happen to be the season where the most players ever scored 100+ points?

The two aren't necessarily the same thing.

3 150+ point scorers in 1989. Is that the easiest season ever to score 150+? Or does it just so happen to be the season with the most 150+ point players?

 

[Overrated]

But the PPGs of the first line/Top 6 forwards was just as high or higher than seasons during Wayne's peak because PP opportunities were at their 3rd highest rate ever: NHL League Averages | Hockey-Reference.com Compare the PP points by the top forwards in 90/91 to 93/94 and you will see 92/93 clearly sticks out as an anomaly.

Again, you keep throwing out theories as facts in the face of statistical evidence.

Your are basically arguing for a revisionist history to try to make your argument reasonable. Noone was questioning Wayne's greatness as, after being the original child prodigy, he obliterated scoring records and won four Cups.

He was outstanding on a bad Oilers team in his rookie season tying for first in league scoring, then at age 20, broke the NHL scoring record, again on a bad Oilers team.

In 81/82, he sets the all-time record for goals while, again, noone on the Oilers is within 50% of his point totals. The Oilers have improved to #2 in the league as the defense improves and future NHL stars start to come into their own.

In 82/83, the Oiler start their first of five SCFs in six seasons with Wayne doing exactly what you expect of him, continuing to put up video game numbers the whole time.

He continues with 200 point plus season seasons until 85/86 then drops down to 180 point pace seasons the next two years. He wins two more Cups during this time and has his 2nd highest playoff point total in 1988.

You can also throw in a legendary Canada Cup performance in 1987.

Noone looks at this resume after the 1988 season and starts digging deeper to see if it is should not be taken completely as face value. Noone is questioning that if Wayne played on any other team, he doesn't do exactly what he did; put up video game numbers and win championships.


What do you think? Is there anything in this summary that you want to dispute?

First of all, I am not questioning Wayne's greatness at all. I am not putting Crosby above him for God's sake. I put Wayne's peak above Orr's simply because Orr did it even in a weaker era. I put his peak at #2.

Second of all, I think you are grasping at straws. For example, you claim that due to the fact that power play opportunities were as you call it 3rd highest ever it inflated the scoring for the best players which made them stand out against the median more. As evidence you showed how a record 21 people scored above a 100 points that season. The season prior it was just 9 people crazy. It's almost that we see a pattern right... The problem is that the season prior the power play opportunities were just 5% lower. What about the fact that the second lowest season in power play opportunities in the 80s 84/85 brought in the absolute most triple digit scorers of the 1980s - 16? The correlation either isn't there or it's minimal.

Or maybe it was just Lemieux who had these opportunities and not others. The thing is, the only thing that makes PP goals less valuable is that they are more replaceable. It's easier for just about anyone to get points on a PP. The problem with this is however that Lemieux was drawing a disproportional amount of these penalties. He was a tank people hooked nonstop after all. That means he wasn't merely getting a free ride in these PPs. He was actively creating them so I see no reason why should his PP points be viewed as less than his (or anyone's) ES points.

 

[daver]

T

Second of all, I think you are grasping at straws. For example, you claim that due to the fact that power play opportunities were as you call it 3rd highest ever it inflated the scoring for the best players which made them stand out against the median more. As evidence you showed how a record 21 people scored above a 100 points that season. The season prior it was just 9 people crazy. It's almost that we see a pattern right... The problem is that the season prior the power play opportunities were just 5% lower. What about the fact that the second lowest season in power play opportunities in the 80s 84/85 brought in the absolute most triple digit scorers of the 1980s - 16? The correlation either isn't there or it's minimal.

You missed the point. Using league GPG to "adjust" is flawed as it primarily brings in hypothetical scenarios. Judging players by the gap between them and their peers is much more reasonable as it doesn't make any presumptions.

 

[Overrated]

You missed the point. Using league GPG to "adjust" is flawed as it primarily brings in hypothetical scenarios. Judging players by the gap between them and their peers is much more reasonable as it doesn't make any presumptions.

Using league GPG to adjust is judging players against their peers though. In fact all of the peers. That is unlike the nonsense judging based on the gap against the 10th best scorer which some of the people do here.

Yeah because Lemieux wasn't able to create a gap between himself and Sergei Fedorov larger than Gordie could between himself and Kenny Mosdell it proves he wasn't as good.

edit: of course it's flawed (way less flawed than the vs 10th best scorer nonsense though) because it doesn't take into consideration the depth of the talent pool divided by the number of teams in the league. The problem here is that Lemieux's prime was in a deeper talent pool than Gretzky's prime and yet he comes ahead in adjusted PPG despite having it harder

 

[daver]

First of all, I am not questioning Wayne's greatness at all. I am not putting Crosby above him for God's sake. I put Wayne's peak above Orr's simply because Orr did it even in a weaker era. I put his peak at #2.

No need for the drama.

So if you are fine with the narrative about Wayne through 1988, let's look at Mario.

He was the best prospect out of the Q setting CHL records for point and goals. He had a decent rookie year then stepped things up in his 2nd year and separated himself from everyone else in the league except for Wayne. By 1988, he close to Wayne in PPG who was "only" putting up a 180 point pace for the past two seasons.

In 88/89, he hits his peak season and dominates the rest of the league like Wayne did at his best. There is nothing about that season that screams a need to "adjust"; he matched Wayne's peak level of play on a Pens team that had slowly gotten better since his rookie year. There was no major change in the dynamics of the league and no reason to think that Wayne, at his peak, would not have hit 200 points in 88/89.

Do you agree with this?

 

[daver]

Using league GPG to adjust is judging players against their peers though. In fact all of the peers. That is unlike the nonsense judging based on the gap against the 10th best scorer which some of the people do here.

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Yeah because Lemieux wasn't able to create a gap between himself and Sergei Fedorov larger than Gordie could between himself and Kenny Mosdell it proves he wasn't as good.

edit: of course it's flawed (way less flawed than the vs 10th best scorer nonsense though) because it doesn't take into consideration the depth of the talent pool divided by the number of teams in the league. The problem here is that Lemieux's prime was in a deeper talent pool than Gretzky's prime and yet he comes ahead in adjusted PPG despite having it harder

There is no way to measure the "depth of talent pool". Of course it makes sense to adjust "peers" based on league size but I presume that strength of peers is the same year after year save for some unusual periods of the league like WW!!.

We have zero idea what to happens to Wayne if he was five years younger. It is "nonsense" to assume anything once we get into the hypothetical realm of placing players in other seasons and eras.

 

[daver]

In a straight statistical analysis, Mario's 92/93 season isn't as dominant as his 88/89 season based on PPG dominance over the Top 10/20.

I don't think it is unreasonable to presume there were a few more "elite scorers" in 92/93 as the league had expanded so I have no issue with placing it alongside 88/89. You can throw in two Cup runs that were right there with Wayne's best to also make that argument.

 

[Overrated]

There is no way to measure the "depth of talent pool". Of course it makes sense to adjust "peers" based on league size but I presume that strength of peers is the same year after year save for some unusual periods of the league like WW!!.

It's possible but we'd have to have all the numbers regarding player participation in all of the countries which have players in the NHL. It would be a difficult task but certainly not impossible. It's possible to make rough estimates though. We all know the US wasn't a hockey powerhouse in prior to the 90s and the sport was growing rapidly all throughout the 80s/90s within the US. We also know many of the great players played in the communist east and only joined the NHL after 89. I don't know about the Canadian numbers but I've read somewhere hockey participation peaked in the late 70s early 80s and since most players are children and teens the depth of the Canadian talent pool within the NHL was likely still growing until at least the year 1990.

So even though it's impossible to know how much the talent pool increased it definitely increased from 83/84 to 92/93. I personally would think beyond the extra 3 team expansion. So more than 14%.

We have zero idea what to happens to Wayne if he was five years younger. It is "nonsense" to assume anything once we get into the hypothetical realm of placing players in other seasons and eras.

Sure we also don't know what happens if Lemieux were born earlier. Or if McDavid played back then. Or if Gretzky played now. Would Richard be still impressive today? We can only assume and estimate. That's the whole point of these discussions. Of course we don't really know. for sure.

 

[Kimota]

Great work OP. I did not read the whole thing, though. lol Felt like Mario was a superior hockey machine than most. Like if other hockey players were of this level, Mario and they would be in another league just right above the NHL. Whereas Wayne's superiority was based on his incredible intelligence. And he also was a hockey nut who trained so much so that things became an habit for him so his body mecanically did things cause he did them so often. Pretty similar to AO vs Sid.

 

[daver]

It's possible but we'd have to have all the numbers regarding player participation in all of the countries which have players in the NHL. It would be a difficult task but certainly not impossible. It's possible to make rough estimates though. We all know the US wasn't a hockey powerhouse in prior to the 90s and the sport was growing rapidly all throughout the 80s/90s within the US. We also know many of the great players played in the communist east and only joined the NHL after 89. I don't know about the Canadian numbers but I've read somewhere hockey participation peaked in the late 70s early 80s and since most players are children and teens the depth of the Canadian talent pool within the NHL was likely still growing until at least the year 1990.

So even though it's impossible to know how much the talent pool increased it definitely increased from 83/84 to 92/93. I personally would think beyond the extra 3 team expansion. So more than 14%.

I do not have too much issue with expanding the peer group in 92/93. What this means is that we take that into consideration when comparing their relative dominance over their peers.

Read Post #82. Still not overwhelming evidence, if any, that we should treat Mario's 92/93 as being better than Wayne's best.

 

[Boxscore]

Great work OP. I did not read the whole thing, though. lol Felt like Mario was a superior hockey machine than most. Like if other hockey players were of this level, Mario and they would be in another league just right above the NHL. Whereas Wayne's superiority was based on his incredible intelligence. And he also was a hockey nut who trained so much so that things became an habit for him so his body mecanically did things cause he did them so often. Pretty similar to AO vs Sid.

Indeed. Mario also had the style points. Dude was 6-4 with Hollywood looks and finesse for days. He was a true artist. The rest of the NHL was generic well whiskey and Lemieux was a fine, aged bourbon.

He simply looked so much better than anyone else... ever. You'd watch the Oil machine win 8-2 and you'd be amazed that Gretz had 6 points. Then you'd watch the Pens... Mario would score 2 and 2 and make your chin bounce off the floor every time he stepped on the ice.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

It's very interesting and you only see this in Gretzky vs lemieux debates that raw stats are seemingly only taken into accounts and that is proof who had the higher peak. In contrast when it comes to Howe adjusting etc is used all the time to concede that his peak matched marios and Wayne's. Look at the difference in a couple years from 14-15 to 18-19. In 4 years the ross winner went from 87 points to 128. Was that because the nhlers got that much better in 4 years? No its that league scoring can change due to multiple factors which we are continuing to see with 100 points likely not even getting you into the top 10 in scoring. Crosby was 27 years old and scored 84 points in 77 games and now at 35 is on pace for 100 in 81 games. Things change on a dime. I'm not gonna pretend that 212 in 80 gp in 81-82 is better than 199 in 76 in 88-89. Check the league scoring levels. Matter of fact watch a game from both seasons and you can visually see the difference. Lemieux scored 161 in 70 gp in a league with about or lower scoring than today's nhl. But Gretzky fans will tell you it's not as good as his 200 years. Ridiculous. Like someone pointed out lemieux has the highest adjusted seasons ever something Gretzky fans will toss to the side. Then they should concede that Joe thornton scored 13 more points than someone like ovechkin has ever scored just 2 years prior in fact he also scored 114 the season before ovechkins 112. So I guess that's peak thornton over ovechkin

 

[blueandgoldguy]

I wonder if people ever consider how impressive Gretzky's performances were coming off year after year of lengthy playoff runs (and subsequent shorter off-seasons and rest) whereas Lemieux's first half of his career was marked by year after year of no playoff games (and subsequent long off-season and rest). I think this gave Lemieux a decided advantage when putting together seasons comparable to Wayne's best statistical years.

I think it's entirely reasonable to assume Wayne would would have put up even more impressive seasons than his best years AND there would have been even more of those 200 point seasons had he had the advantage of missing the playoffs for the first 4 years of his career and no lengthy playoff runs until his 6th year like Lemieux. All those extra months of rest and less wear and tear on the body no doubt played a role increasing Lemieux's stats.

As it stands, Wayne's playoff performances put him head and shoulders above Lemieux and places a greater separation between the two when just factoring in regular season performances.

 

[authentic]

I wonder if people ever consider how impressive Gretzky's performances were coming off year after year of lengthy playoff runs (and subsequent shorter off-seasons and rest) whereas Lemieux's first half of his career was marked by year after year of no playoff games (and subsequent long off-season and rest). I think this gave Lemieux a decided advantage when putting together seasons comparable to Wayne's best statistical years.

I think it's entirely reasonable to assume Wayne would would have put up even more impressive seasons than his best years AND there would have been even more of those 200 point seasons had he had the advantage of missing the playoffs for the first 4 years of his career and no lengthy playoff runs until his 6th year like Lemieux. All those extra months of rest and less wear and tear on the body no doubt played a role increasing Lemieux's stats.

As it stands, Wayne's playoff performances put him head and shoulders above Lemieux and places a greater separation between the two when just factoring in regular season performances.

Yes, if you completely ignore scoring levels.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

Yes, if you completely ignore scoring levels.

No, and besides that the sheer number of great playoff runs by Wayne vastly outnumber Lemieux's.

 

[authentic]

No, and besides that the sheer number of great playoff runs by Wayne vastly outnumber Lemieux's.

Well yeah, playing on Edmonton instead of Pittsburgh in the 80s would definitely allow for that...

 

[daver]

Sure we also don't know what happens if Lemieux were born earlier. Or if McDavid played back then. Or if Gretzky played now. Would Richard be still impressive today? We can only assume and estimate. That's the whole point of these discussions. Of course we don't really know. for sure.

Right, so we agree that "adjusting" stats using league GPG" enters the world of the hypothetical; a comparison of how each player performed vs. their peers does not.

That you think the latter is "nonsense" doesn't make the hypothetical any less hypothetical and, IMO, shows you are not open to any discussion on it as it doesn't fit with your opinion.

 

[BraveCanadian]

92/93 season had less average scoring than any of the years of Gretzky's peak. The only way then for this argument to have any validity is basically claiming that the talent pool diluted so much that the league became softer. Kind of like the league in the early 70s did when the league tripled in size in a few short years whereas the talent pool obviously didn't triple in a span of 5 years.

The problem here is that when Gretzky had his insane 87 goal in 74 games season the league was just 14% smaller than in 92/93. So are you saying that the NHL hockey talent pool didn't grow more than 14% in those 9 years? Despite the fact that the talent pool of the US almost doubled in that period, the entire Eastern Bloc invasion where by the way the league mostly got only the upper end of the talent pool as the Canadian coaches would always prefer a North American 4th liner to a European of equal skill fearing they wouldn't adjust to the different way of playing. And I am not even taking into consideration the pool of talent within Canada was slightly deeper in 92/93 as well.

I call bs on the idea that 92/93 was the softest year to score 100+ points. All of the 1970s and 1980s were easier to accomplish this,

92-93 is a perfect, and incredibly obvious, example where adjusting by average scoring is just plain wrong.

 

[Overrated]

Right, so we agree that "adjusting" stats using league GPG" enters the world of the hypothetical; a comparison of how each player performed vs. their peers does not.

We're not comparing Wayne to his peers here. We're comparing Wayne to Mario. Whether Wayne dominated Rick Middleton more than Mario dominated Sergei Fedorov is completely irrelevant to the question who was the better player at his respective peak.

 

[Overrated]

I also changed my vote to 95/96 regular season if we're talking strictly statistically. Although Mario was not as fast anymore and had some visible wear and tear the season was such a statistical outlier for him. It was also a year more competitive than maybe any year in hockey history., It featured prime Lindros, Sakic, Jagr, Selanne, Kariya, Forsberg, Mogilny, Fedorov, Chelios, Konstantinov, Lidström & Hasek. Veterans of the game like Messier, Francis, Gretzky, Lafontaine, Yzerman, Bourque, Coffey still had monster seasons. Scoring was also down 15% from 92/93. Strictly statistically that was the biggest outlier ever and it was done against the deepest talent pool ever. I am aware many of his points came from PPs but I don't think that really matters when we're talking numbers.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I also changed my vote to 95/96 regular season if we're talking strictly statistically. Although Mario was not as fast anymore and had some visible wear and tear the season was such a statistical outlier for him. It was also a year more competitive than maybe any year in hockey history., It featured prime Lindros, Sakic, Jagr, Selanne, Kariya, Forsberg, Mogilny, Fedorov, Chelios, Konstantinov, Lidström & Hasek. Veterans of the game like Messier, Francis, Gretzky, Lafontaine, Yzerman, Bourque, Coffey still had monster seasons. Scoring was also down 15% from 92/93. Strictly statistically that was the biggest outlier ever and it was done against the deepest talent pool ever. I am aware many of his points came from PPs but I don't think that really matters when we're talking numbers.

It definitely does matter in a year that was featuring a ton of PPs due to a crackdown.

Again, this greatly affects the distribution of scoring throughout the lineup and makes adjustment by average scoring inflate these seasons.

 

[Overrated]

It definitely does matter in a year that was featuring a ton of PPs due to a crackdown.

Again, this greatly affects the distribution of scoring throughout the lineup and makes adjustment by average scoring inflate these seasons.

Power-play opportunities league wide were still lower than in the 92/93 season though and on par with the 91/92 season. Purely statistically it's the most impressive season. Of course there are different factors and it's entirely possible Mario was not at his absolute best anymore. There are so many factors that come to play. Who was drawing these penalties? Since that was the first season of Jagr's real peak I bet he was drawing a big chuck of those too. Unfortunately this important statistic is something I've never been able to find however if you're drawing the penalties yourself then you're at least partially responsible for all of the points scored in those PPs. Hypothetically if Mario drew significantly more penalties than Wayne throughout his prime him scoring more points on PPs can't be used against him.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Power-play opportunities league wide were still lower than in the 92/93 season though and on par with the 91/92 season. Purely statistically it's the most impressive season. Of course there are different factors and it's entirely possible Mario was not at his absolute best anymore. There are so many factors that come to play. Who was drawing these penalties? Since that was the first season of Jagr's real peak I bet he was drawing a big chuck of those too. Unfortunately this important statistic is something I've never been able to find however if you're drawing the penalties yourself then you're at least partially responsible for all of the points scored in those PPs. Hypothetically if Mario drew significantly more penalties than Wayne throughout his prime him scoring more points on PPs can't be used against him.

You're completely missing the point about the reasons why adjusting by average scoring for outliers is problematic. Additonally, the "Mario drew more penalties" thing has been looked at 1000 times on this board and there is not much correlation on that.

 

[Overrated]

You're completely missing the point about the reasons why adjusting by average scoring for outliers is problematic.

Sure but since Mario has 3 out of the best 4 adjusted seasons in terms of PPG I think it does mean something. I could see how it could be problematic for that one Selanne's and Mogilny's season. That is why when looking at a peak of a player we probably should look at a continuous streak of games spanning throughout several seasons or at least like 250 games. Since this thread is about a single statistically strongest season ever I don't think there is anything wrong by picking even outlier seasons.

Additonally, the "Mario drew more penalties" thing has been looked at 1000 times on this board and there is not much correlation on that.

So both Mario and Wayne drew about the same amount of penalties? Then Wayne should also get props for that. I would assume Mario drew more because of his style where he would barrage through like a tank getting hooked by several guys trying to stop him.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Sure but since Mario has 3 out of the best 4 adjusted seasons in terms of PPG I think it does mean something.

Yes, it does mean something. It means you are ignoring what I am saying, and continuing to return to numbers adjusted to average scoring while completely disregarding the context around those numbers or the problems of looking at the top (outlier) players while doing so.. carry on, I don't have time to waste on the 10,000th prop up Mario thread here.