Regardless of everything you are saying here, players simply scored much more goals, and goalies let in much more goals back in the 80's and 90's than they did in the cap-era. That's a straight up fact - that outweighs any of your perceptions.
There may have been more 'standout' or 'star' goalies back then, but the overall average group of goalies are simply saving more shots. I'd argue that better positioning (butterfly styles being improved and implemented) and bigger pads are definitely reasons why (so likely less individual skill), but it still resulted in easier scoring back then.
You mention goalies like Fuhr (.887 sv%), Vernon (.889%), Liut (.883 sv%) - these stats are AHL level in the modern NHL. But they were totally acceptable back then because scoring was higher and easier, and goalies let in more pucks.
Ovechkin played more against Brodeur than Gretzky did, and although Roy did exist back then, Ovechkin had Price, Lundqvist, Vasilevsky etc.
Agree to a point. But people are starting to figure out that scoring was up in part to 4 or 5 players. If you remove 99, Mario, Bure, Stevens etc in any given season, that drops the scoring percentage way down. Scoring was up because Gretzky scored 92 goals one year.
For instance, in the 88/89 season Gretzky scored 54 and Lemieux scored 85, Yzerman scored 65 and Nichols scored 70. Mullen scored 51. Then it drops down to 49. Then there was lots of players score into the 40's. So 5 guys scored 325 goals. Those were superstar goals at the time. But when you remove those goals from the league then, the percentage drops 13.4 percent. Scoring was up because at the time, the league had some freak of nature players.
Having lived through hockey from 1963 to now, the talent is the same with some exceptions. Now we have McKinnon, McDavid, Crosby Malkin and Matthews. I'd take the 5 from the 80's compared to now. Having Gretzky was like having two 40 goal players in one body.
In Gretzky's first 10 years he scored 582 regular season goals. Ovechkin scored 354 in his first 10 years. Gretzky's average playing weight was 168 pounds while Ovi is well over 230. 99 was 5'11 and Ovi is 6'3. Ovi could take more damage because of his size and also dish out a lot of damage.
In 1991 Gary Suter hit Gretzky from behind and 99's production continued to decline after that.
Gretzky also assisted on 1963 goals while Ovi only assisted on 663 goals.
If Gretzky only assisted on 663 goals and shot the puck the other 1300 assists, how many more goals would Gretzky score? I think it would be well over 1300 and this topic would be moot. Obviously not every shot taken would go in but a good portion would especially with Gretzky's shooting percentage in the 80's.
Ovi's best season was 65 goals at 14.57 shooting percentage. Gretzky's best season was 92 goals with a 24.86 shooting percentage. And when you take into account the first 10 seasons of both players Gretzky dominates this stat by a huge margin. Not even in the same stratosphere. In the 1988/89 season Wayne's shooting percentage was 17.82. Over their career Grezky's shooting percentage was 17.6 and Ovi's so far is 12.9.
As a Colorado, Leaf and Flames fan, I hated the guy, and that's because he was good at singlehandedly destroying my favourite teams.
I'm sorry folks but this isn't even close. Gretzky would obliterate Ovi as an overall player. But yes, Ovi will take down 99's record for most goals in a career. But Gretzky was the far better goal scorer when you take everything in to context. And a side note. Gretzky scored 122 playoff games compared to ovi's 72.