ricky0034
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yeah it's difficult to calculate just how many more goals Gretzky would have put up if not for Lundqvist and it remains one of the bigger what-ifs in the past few decades
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yeah it's difficult to calculate just how many more goals Gretzky would have put up if not for Lundqvist and it remains one of the bigger what-ifs in the past few decades
Mike C
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Actually I think Wayne is secure in his achievements and the only people who think about him are those who attempt to disparage him
The point was there were tons of good goalies in the 80's and 90's. Does that clear it up for you?
Rob Brown
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Doesn't change the fact that the game is way faster and more difficult now, and that the average player is just better.
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You're looking at the past like you actually were alive then. There were fewer teams and the talent level was huge. A team could have a great player at every position. Now the league is so watered down. And equipment is way more protective. Some of the best goalies to ever play the game were from the 80's and 90's with the likes of Fuhr, Vernon, Liut, Roy, Brodeur, Lindquist etc.
I don't disagree with some of this, there were far fewer teams, but those teams were 90% Canadians, the talent in the NHL didn't pull from the whole world like it does today, so I think level of competition across the board is better today and it was in the 80s, but not as much as some people would argue. In terms of goalies, I don't know....I remember the 80s and remember looking at a lot of spectacular saves a lot of goalies would make, but I think that's simply due to the difference in playing style then. You don't see those types of saves anymore due to the positioning of goalies now and how they are trained....suspect it may be less tiring to play goal these days than in the 80s, but no idea, I've never played net other than street hockey.
Regardless of any of that comparing eras is incredibly difficult, you can argue it was easier to score in the 80s because goalies were smaller, etc. and then counter with yeah but equipment was much different, blah blah....all of these are valid arguments, but the point is that there really is no way to accurately compare, so I don't tend to do too much of it. What I would do is say something like 100pt season last year isn't as good as 100pt season in 2014 for example, or if stats were very very close between player A and player B, I might point to Player A having played during a time when scoring was 30% higher, but I wouldn't try to refine it too much as math doesn't always work that way....to me, it's all about how you compared against your competition. NO ONE dominated like Gretzky in terms of offense, but in terms of goal scoring, Gretzky dominated that for a bit, but I don't think his goal scoring over his whole career is as good as Ovechkin's vs. Ovechkin's competition over his career.
filinski77
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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.
Rob Brown
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You have no idea how old I am, lol. And either way, you can still watch old games and highlights online.
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.
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WarriorofTime
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Lol you think LEAGUE scoring was that heavily impacted by one dude? That’s just not how these things work dude.
ricky0034
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1: there's like a 30% difference in league scoring between when Gretzky was at his best and when Ovechkin was at his
2: why are you removing all those goals without factoring in what other players would have done in those spots with the ice time? why are you removing guys like Yzerman and Mullen's goals?
3: lets remove those 325 goals just for fun, there were 6286 goals scored in the NHL in 1988-89 so your 13.4% number is just flat out wrong, that would only be a 5.2% drop
Video Nasty
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All the adjusted stats in the world can’t explain away Gretzky winning goal scoring crowns by 28 over Bossy (43.8% margin of victory) and 31 over Goulet (55.4% margin of victory) in his two highest scoring campaigns (top 2 all time as well) while still finding the time to hand out 1.55 APG.
Adjusted stats. Invented solely to try and make sense of Gretzky annihilating his peers when it can’t really be done.
Just enjoy Ovechkin almost certainly breaking the record. I think most had their mind made up around the time he scored his 600th whether they considered him the greatest goal scorer or not.
Adjusted stats have their place, but they can’t explain away what Gretzky did, no matter how much some want them too.
Adjusted stats. Invented solely to try and make sense of Gretzky annihilating his peers when it can’t really be done.
Just enjoy Ovechkin almost certainly breaking the record. I think most had their mind made up around the time he scored his 600th whether they considered him the greatest goal scorer or not.
Adjusted stats have their place, but they can’t explain away what Gretzky did, no matter how much some want them too.
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Alexander the Gr8
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You have a poor understanding of statistics if you think 4-5 guys single handedly increased the league average.
I agree. I always point out that while it was a high scoring era, nobody else did it to Gretzky's level. His dominance over his peers was unmatched.
If one does consider Ovechkin the greatest goal scorer (as I do), at has to be on the strength of his longevity of putting up goals at a high rate. For peak, however, it's Gretzky by a fair margin.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
The honor of the highest margin, in terms of raw totals, over second-place goes to Brett Hull over Fleury, Neely, Yzerman: 86-51=35. This was the 90-91 season.
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Fantomas
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LMAO. If you remove some of the highest scoring players from any given year, league scoring drops a significant amount. We have a real genius over here.
Oh sure. Huge talent levels. Bunch of goons who could barely skate on every team. No Russian/Soviet players. Fewer European players.
Huge talent levels.
filinski77
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Adjusted stats in NO way are saying that Gretzky wouldn't be equally as dominant in today's NHL. That's straight up false. See my analysis below.
For example: Let's compare Gretzky's dominance in his 92 goal season and try to adjust it to a DPE 2.0 season (2015).
1982 | Goals | % lead |
| Gretzky | 92 | |
| 2nd | 64 | 44% |
| 10th | 50 | 84% |
| 20th | 40 | 130% |
2015 | Goals | % lead |
| Ovechkin | 53 | |
| 2nd | 43 | 23% |
| 10th | 33 | 61% |
| 20th | 28 | 89% |
| Gretzky 2015 goals based on equal % lead from his 1982: | ||
| Gretzky vs. 2nd | 62 | (ie. 44% lead over 43 goals) |
| Gretzky vs. 10th | 61 | (ie. 84% lead over 33 goals) |
| Gretzky vs 20th | 64 | (ie. 130% lead over 28 goals) |
What adjusting for stats IS: Having the common sense to understand that league-wide scoring has changed significantly over decades, and that comparing raw stats from very different environments is not very meaningful without this context (just like comparing someone with a net worth of $1,000,000 in 1980 is not even remotely the same as in 2020).
-> It is saying that Gretzky statistically wouldn't score 92 goals if his peak season was in 2015 (due to the significantly lower scoring LEAGUE-WIDE environment). But it IS saying, Gretzky would likely have scored around ~62 goals given the exact same goalscoring dominance. And that on a RELATIVE basis, 62 goals in the 2015 NHL = 92 goals in the 1982 NHL.
Ignoring the difference in league-wide scoring (and refusing to look at things on a RELATIVE basis) would then lead you to the conclusion that peak Gretzky would be TWICE as dominant in the 2015 NHL as he was in the 1982 NHL (by assuming that he would still score 92 goals despite the significantly lower scoring environment - leading to double the dominance over his peers).
2015 | Goals | % lead | 1982 | Goals | % lead | |||
| Gretzky | 92 | Gretzky | 92 | |||||
| 2nd | 43 | 114% | 2nd | 64 | 44% | 2.60 | ||
| 10th | 33 | 179% | 10th | 50 | 84% | 2.13 | ||
| 20th | 28 | 229% | 20th | 40 | 130% | 1.76 |
THIS ^ is a terrible argument, and perfectly illustrates why adjusting for stats is important.
filinski77
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His dominance over peers for single season has been matched (as pointed out otherwise, I believe Hull had a better single season). And then when you go on to compare full career, Other than Gretzky having the 2 best years between him and Ovechkin, Ovechkin is much better relative to his peers.
N/A in the charts below indicate that the player did not have more goals than 2nd/10th/20th etc.
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Ovi | 52 | 46 | 65 | 56 | 50 | 32 | 38 | 32 | 51 | 53 | 50 | 33 | 49 | 51 | 48 |
| 2nd | N/A | N/A | 52 | 46 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 29 | 43 | 43 | 46 | N/A | 44 | 50 | 48 |
| 10th | 40 | 40 | 40 | 39 | 35 | N/A | 36 | 21 | 34 | 33 | 33 | N/A | 39 | 41 | 34 |
| 20th | 35 | 36 | 32 | 33 | 30 | 32 | 31 | 18 | 30 | 28 | 30 | 32 | 34 | 36 | 29 |
| % over 2nd | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | 25% | 22% | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | 10% | 19% | 23% | 9% | #VALUE! | 11% | 2% | 0% |
| % over 10th | 30% | 15% | 63% | 44% | 43% | #VALUE! | 6% | 52% | 50% | 61% | 52% | #VALUE! | 26% | 24% | 41% |
| % over 20th | 49% | 28% | 103% | 70% | 67% | 0% | 23% | 78% | 70% | 89% | 67% | 3% | 44% | 42% | 66% |
| 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | ||||
| Gretzky | 51 | 55 | 92 | 71 | 87 | 73 | 52 | 62 | 40 | 54 | 40 | 41 | |||
| 2nd | N/A | N/A | 64 | 66 | 56 | 71 | N/A | 58 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |||
| 10th | 47 | 48 | 50 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 46 | 42 | N/A | 46 | N/A | N/A | |||
| 20th | 40 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 40 | 41 | 41 | 38 | N/A | 41 | 40 | 40 | |||
| % over 2nd | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | 44% | 8% | 55% | 3% | #VALUE! | 7% | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | |||
| % over 10th | 9% | 15% | 84% | 48% | 85% | 59% | 13% | 48% | #VALUE! | 17% | #VALUE! | #VALUE! | |||
| % over 20th | 28% | 41% | 130% | 73% | 118% | 78% | 27% | 63% | #VALUE! | 32% | 0 % | #VALUE! |
And then sorting brings you to this:
| Over 2nd | Over 10th | Over 20th | |||||
| Gretzky | 55% | Gretzky | 85% | Gretzky | 130% | ||
| Gretzky | 44% | Gretzky | 84% | Gretzky | 118% | ||
| Ovi | 25% | Ovi | 63% | Ovi | 103% | ||
| Ovi | 23% | Ovi | 61% | Ovi | 89% | ||
| Ovi | 22% | Gretzky | 59% | Gretzky | 78% | ||
| Ovi | 19% | Ovi | 52% | Ovi | 78% | ||
| Ovi | 11% | Ovi | 52% | Gretzky | 73% | ||
| Ovi | 10% | Ovi | 50% | Ovi | 70% | ||
| Ovi | 9% | Gretzky | 48% | Ovi | 70% | ||
| Gretzky | 8% | Gretzky | 48% | Ovi | 67% | ||
| Gretzky | 7% | Ovi | 44% | Ovi | 67% | ||
| Gretzky | 3% | Ovi | 43% | Ovi | 66% | ||
| Ovi | 2% | Ovi | 41% | Gretzky | 63% | ||
| Ovi | 0% | Ovi | 30% | Ovi | 49% | ||
| Ovi | 26% | Ovi | 44% | ||||
| Ovi | 24% | Ovi | 42% | ||||
| Gretzky | 17% | Gretzky | 41% | ||||
| Ovi | 15% | Gretzky | 32% | ||||
| Gretzky | 15% | Ovi | 28% | ||||
| Gretzky | 13% | Gretzky | 28% | ||||
| Gretzky | 9% | Gretzky | 27% | ||||
| Ovi | 6% | Ovi | 23% | ||||
| Ovi | 3% | ||||||
| Ovi | 0% |
Video Nasty
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Yet adjusted stats don't have answers for a player like Bure who scored at a similar rate in his late 20s in a lower scoring era as he did in his early 20s in a higher scoring era (insert obvious retort about ice time).
If we didn't know his real life results, adjusted stats would try to tell us that if Bure at age 28 and 29 potted 58 in 74 and 59 in 82 in a scoring environment that was half a goal to a quarter of a goal lower per team, then surely he would have 80+ goals during his prime goal scoring years played out in a higher scoring environment...instead of the 60 in 83 and 60 in 76 that he actually did.
Or Lemieux producing at a similar rate at age 30 as he did at age 22 when scoring was half a goal lower. Goal scoring being up 0.4 GPG compared to 5 years ago can't explain away why we just saw McDavid finish 40 points clear of his closest non-Oiler peer. Or a hundred other examples.
Adjusted stats can be useful, but they're heavily flawed. When they're used to try and place lesser players in the same realm as a player who ripped the game to pieces, they're relegated to little more than an curio interesting at first glance, but quickly put back on the shelf.
Like I said, Ovechkin is nearly 99.9% likely to break the overall record, so why is it necessary to play make believe and pretend his 65 goals in 2007-2008 are the equivalent of 92 goals or more?
filinski77
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Due to anomalies... a couple of random examples does not override the whole set of data. It's really that simple. Some players have random ups and downs.
Video Nasty
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It’s mystifying how you can say this, but not recognize that 65 in 2007-2008 does not equal or exceed 92 or even 87 for that matter 25 years prior.
With adjusted stats, a player (e.g. whoever one is trying to compare to Gretzky) is given the benefit of the doubt (partial seasons are projected out as full ones) and a straight line calculation without the random up and downs you just pointed out being taken into account whatsoever.
filinski77
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The point is that we DO know the real life results. Adjusted stats are simply looking at dominance vs. the league and vs. the peers and comparing them to other seasons where there were real stats. If Bure scored more goals in a lower scoring season, it would indeed make the context/dominance much more impressive when comparing it to other seasons.
Adjusted stats are indeed heavily flawed, but LESS flawed than raw stats. Raw stats will tell us that TWENTY different players this past season had an equal or better year than the number 1 point scorer in the NHL in 2015. Anyone with a brain will know that the raw stats do not tell an accurate story with that assertion.
Look at the list of the top 20 point scorers this year and compare it to the 2015 NHL point leaders. Did Clayton Keller (21st in points with 86 points) REALLY have an equivalent season to prime Sidney Crosby (3rd in points with 84) in 2015?
-> Answer this question to me honestly, and then that will tell me everything I need to know.
There is a fine-line with adjusted stats vs. performance relative to peers (since adjusted stats use league-wide scoring, which can vary based on depth scoring etc.), whereas performance relative to 10th/20th place looks only at the best of the best, but can also have more one-off outliers. But BOTH are much more useful than raw stats (especially across SIGNIFICANTLY different scoring levels/eras).
1) Straight adjusted stats will tell you that Ovechkin's 65 is very slightly better than Gretzky's 92. (Ovechkin adjusted to Gretzky's league wide scoring that year is 94 goals)
2) Performance vs. peers will tell you that Gretzky's peak season is a fair bit better than Ovechkin's
| Ovechkin | 65 | Gretzky | 92 | ||
| 2nd | 52 | 25% | 2nd | 64 | 44% |
| 10th | 40 | 63% | 10th | 50 | 84% |
| 20th | 32 | 103% | 20th | 40 | 130% |
3) Raw stats will tell you that Gretzky's peak season is significantly better than Ovechkin's (92 vs. 65)
I have already asserted that Gretzky's top-2 seasons are better than anything Ovechkin has done (due to the fine-line between #1 and #2 above. But as I've illustrated with my underlined question above, raw stats are terrible to use as an indicator for comparison. If we want to use straight adjusted, Ovechkin comes out really ahead, if we use performance vs. peers (as I showed), after those 2 seasons, Ovechkin catches up to Gretzky QUICK, and is better as soon as you start looking at best-4/5 seasons or more.
nothingbeatshockey
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The last few pages of this thread are exactly why comparing different eras is pointless. It's hard enough to compare players in the same generation.
Gretzky was very, very good. You might even say he was "The Great One".
Ovie is very, very good. You might even call him "The Great 8".
Gretzky was very, very good. You might even say he was "The Great One".
Ovie is very, very good. You might even call him "The Great 8".
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