Thoughts - Gr8 to beat #99 in goals scored?

[MessierII]

Not sure it's a fact. Gordie Howe had his first 100-point season at 40 in 1968-69. Ovie is clearly a genetic anomaly, even with modern medicine.

Raw totals are more a reflection of the league at the time though. Howe’s 100 point season was technically his highest but he didn’t even lead the league in points that year where as he did lead the league 6 times previously.

 

[MessierThanThou]

Raw totals are more a reflection of the league at the time though. Howe’s 100 point season was technically his highest but he didn’t even lead the league in points that year where as he did lead the league 6 times previously.

Except Howe finished third in scoring that season and was one of only three players to notch 100 plus points.

Ovechkin is technically third in goal scoring (second in goals per game).

So even contextually it's a similar situation.

 

[Soundwave]

Congrats to him, that's an incredible feat to pull off, a little lost in everything is he's just scored at 40 goals while missing 5 weeks at age 39, lol.

I don't know how many 39 year olds have ever scored at a 50+ rate.

 

[AM]

Ovi is the best one dimensional goal scorer of all time. These been a lot of them and he’s at the top. Been there for a while in my opinion.

Gretzky doesn’t factor into any of it. They are totally different players.

And I could care less about Gretzky. He moved on from my consideration when he left Edmonton.

 

[brentashton]

I’m probably stepping on @bellagiobob s toes by posting X links but I thought was a cool animation for people who study the history of the NHL, or people like @Drivesaitl and I who have lived a lot of it.

Congrats to Ovi even though he overtook a great Oiler to do so.

 

[brentashton]

That's pretty much where I'm at. For years I was hoping that OV wouldn't catch him, and now I'm fine with it, he deserves the record, he's been an incredibly consistent goalscorer his entire career. I try not to think about Wayne too much lately, it honestly just makes me sad. I just go to my Oiler happy place and remember all the great moments he had on the ice.

Bob
I try to look further than what some see as a “misstep” of late (which I don’t subscribe to), to that of the human being that he has always been: the young boy mesmerized with his idol, Gordie; being in the public eye since he was 7, being interviewed by Earl Macrae for the The Canadian Saturday newspaper insert when he was a youth; befriending the Moss family, Joey Moss and working with the Oiler org to find Joe a meaningful spot in the org; being invited as member of the Order of Canada for his contributions to his nation; a man who did what he had to, so he could come to Canada to say goodbye to his dad during a global pandemic.

Maybe these things you can’t stomach, but Wayne has been a wonderful Canadian and Ovie is an equally proud Russian (). Both are outstanding goal scorers and ambassadors of hockey and of their home countries.

 

[MessierThanThou]

 

[Drivesaitl]

Hey all, Isles fan snooping and coming in peace. All credit to Ovi for the great accomplishment, but Gretzky's overall offensive production is still the most insane in NHL history and it's not close. I mean, here we are and everyone is celebrating someone coming along a few decades later and breaking his goal scoring record, and goal scoring wasn't even the best part of his game - it was like his side gig.

[BTW, appreciate the nice Bossy posts - I agree with them, but I'm biased!]

I love great players. I had a healthy respect for the Islanders and I was there at the games at the time. Bossy to me was like a sniper, an assassin. The most nightmare shot for goalies ever seen. Its a shame that tech back then didn't have a handle on velocity of his shots or anything like that. Also to mention Bossy did that out of this world shooting with lumber. Not with the Carbon graphite sticks of today. Imagine what he could do with those.

Back to Gretz I'd mentioned earlier that Gretz got to his goal total with 120 LESS PP goals than OV. Some factors in that is that the Oilers of the time had shared PP, units, and Gretz didn't get close to the PP time OVI had. When Gretz played as well the faceoff was where the play stopped. There was no advantage like OVI had of it being an Offensive Zone faceoff.

Ovi also had 9more ENG than Gretzky. Ovi also has 30 more 3 on3 goals than Gretzky. Why are all these relevant in comparison? Obviously PP, 3on3, and ENG are easier to score. Many more goals/minute occur as if to demonstrate that.

The one thing nobody else has brought up is how Gretz had 73 Shorthanded goals. Ovi had 5 (but again a contrast in usage of players and what they were particularly good at. But it is testimony to Gretz that he excelled much more than Ovi at EV and pk and of course pts.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Saying Gretzky didn’t have as many advantages as Ovechkin is a bit off to me. Gretzkys goal scoring peak was in by far the highest scoring era in modern NHL history.

And in terms of goals scored per game, Ovechkin just tied the record in one fewer game played.

And I’m sorry, but I just don’t give credit to Gretzky for goals he could have scored. Whether that’s because of injuries he suffered, or he just decided he didn’t want to score goals anymore or whatever, that’s an argument against greatest goal scorer of all time for me. Not for.

I can't really credit this point as OV had 120MORE PP goals, he had around 30 30n3 goals (Gretz didn't play in an era with that) and 9 more ENG.

As I'd mentioned Gretz also scored WHA goals which the NHL didn't consider in its unique and inconsistent view. To wit the NHL added none of the WHA stats but also didn't consider Gretz as a rookie. They did acknowledge he was playing pro hockey, they just did that where it suited them. Gretz absorbed the punishment of playng against men in pro hockey as underager at age of 16. That might have impacted him and his career lonegvity as well and I'd say it was adverse impact. It would be for most.

But in anycase pay attention to what a subtle play on words does and where it deviates. Somebody could say "Greatest goal scorer of anytime" and it falls immediately to Gretz or Bossy, or Lemieux and people could argue that position successfully. But obviously OVI has now the most career goals. So that fits Most career goals alltime without looking at how those goals were scored, what type they were.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer of all time, the only guy who comes close is Bossy but he didn't have the longevity, If Bossy played in this era he might have had the longevity but would he have scored as much? Who knows, you can only speculate much like Gretzky vs Lemieux.

Well I'd say obviously Gretz is close. How could you say Gretz isn't close, and come on here on this board to say that?

 

[Drivesaitl]

Also modern medicine and recovery which allows a guy like Ovechkin to score 40 goals at 39 years old.

OV also has a monster physique, is a big bear of a man which has factored into arguably both longevity and ability to withstand NHL punishment. To this end OVI more like Howe with all the size and strength advantage. Gretz had to do all he did with diminutive size, reach, and of course less physical stature to withstand punishment. That said Gretz didn't miss many games and was pretty high pain threshold.

 

[Spawn]

I can't really credit this point as OV had 120MORE PP goals, he had around 30 30n3 goals (Gretz didn't play in an era with that) and 9 more ENG.

As I'd mentioned Gretz also scored WHA goals which the NHL didn't consider in its unique and inconsistent view. To wit the NHL added none of the WHA stats but also didn't consider Gretz as a rookie. They did acknowledge he was playing pro hockey, they just did that where it suited them. Gretz absorbed the punishment of playng against men in pro hockey as underager at age of 16. That might have impacted him and his career lonegvity as well and I'd say it was adverse impact. It would be for most.

But in anycase pay attention to what a subtle play on words does and where it deviates. Somebody could say "Greatest goal scorer of anytime" and it falls immediately to Gretz or Bossy, or Lemieux and people could argue that position successfully. But obviously OVI has now the most career goals. So that fits Most career goals alltime without looking at how those goals were scored, what type they were.

Ovechkin in my mind has been the greatest goal scorer of all time for awhile now. Breaking Gretzkys record doesn’t really factor into it.

To me it’s not the raw totals. It’s the 9 Rocket Richard trophies. It’s the 20 years of elite goal scoring. It’s that he’s done it in a significantly harder to score era.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I’m probably stepping on @bellagiobob s toes by posting X links but I thought was a cool animation for people who study the history of the NHL, or people like @Drivesaitl and I who have lived a lot of it.

Congrats to Ovi even though he overtook a great Oiler to do so.

Despite popular opinion I'm under a Century Old.

My takeaways from the graph is it demonstrates the achievement of Wayne specifically vs all other contemporaries in that he held the most career goals total for such an incredibly long time. From 93-94 season to present, a full 31yrs. Plus of course Howe who held it for 30yrs. The Others on that chart none of them had most goals for a long time duration. But thats also do to totals being much lower.

The weird thing in that is across the last 100yrs I've heard historically of all of those players except one, Nels Stewart. So odd that he's the only one that didn't get talked about. Never heard of him. He had the goal scoring title for several years.

I felt like looking it up so Nels Stewart played initially for the Montreal Maroons and it seemed always as exploits of that club get dimmed in historical view in relation to the Canadiens. Stewart had an amazing 34G in 36GP as a rookie and put up another near G/G season in his career. It also doesn't help him that his era preceded Television, but we've heard of many other stars from earlier hockey.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Ovechkin in my mind has been the greatest goal scorer of all time for awhile now. Breaking Gretzkys record doesn’t really factor into it.

To me it’s not the raw totals. It’s the 9 Rocket Richard trophies. It’s the 20 years of elite goal scoring. It’s that he’s done it in a significantly harder to score era.

The Rocket Richard trophies is not the greatest indicator of personal achievement. It is the greatest indicator of how many contemporaries exist in any one time. OV had a whole dozen yrs where he had little competition. Gretz on the other hand had elite generational superstars like Lemieux.

A chief rebuttal here is that Gretz had an equal 9 seasons where he was well over 50 goals and in range of what OV would later be getting for his Rocket Richard trophies.

Gretz had 4 goal scoring seasons greater than anything OV could even imagine.

Gretz for a full 8 seasons startng from rookie season that AVERAGED 68 goals per season, higher than any single total season from OV ever.

This also shakes up the convo on greatest goal scorer ever. OV isn't close to being the highest scorer any particular season, among highest scoring seasons ever. OV is in this view the longevity scorer. He's only 25 on this chart.

Skater Records - Most Goals, Season | NHL Records

Explore the records for Skater Records, Most Goals, Season

records.nhl.com

In Contrast Gretz has 1,2 and 8, 11 of the greatest scoring seasons ever.

OV only had the 65 goal season that was particularly high and the only one he potted among the top50 NHL scoring seasons alltime.

 

[9GWG9]

And there yo have it. Ovi is the greatest goal scorer in the games history.

I do believe the if the Great One envisioned this day he would have pumped a few more in the net.

 

[bellagiobob]

 

[bellagiobob]

Bob
I try to look further than what some see as a “misstep” of late (which I don’t subscribe to), to that of the human being that he has always been: the young boy mesmerized with his idol, Gordie; being in the public eye since he was 7, being interviewed by Earl Macrae for the The Canadian Saturday newspaper insert when he was a youth; befriending the Moss family, Joey Moss and working with the Oiler org to find Joe a meaningful spot in the org; being invited as member of the Order of Canada for his contributions to his nation; a man who did what he had to, so he could come to Canada to say goodbye to his dad during a global pandemic.

Maybe these things you can’t stomach, but Wayne has been a wonderful Canadian and Ovie is an equally proud Russian (). Both are outstanding goal scorers and ambassadors of hockey and of their home countries.

No worries, you know that I always respect your opinion Brent, even when we disagree, which is rarely.

 

[brentashton]

No worries, you know that I always respect your opinion Brent, even when we disagree, which is rarely.

Bob, thanks for the reply. That’s why you are a well regarded member in this community.

People can disagree with you, but you remain courteous and respectful in your discourse.

Cheers and Go Oilers!

 

[brentashton]

Hey @tardigrade81 did you get yours in the mail?

Probably sad that they are non-alcoholic though.

 

[AM]

If the nhl doubles the amount of nhl teams maybe drai will break the record.

 

[tardigrade81]

Hey @tardigrade81 did you get yours in the mail?

Probably sad that they are non-alcoholic though.

If they sent non alcoholic beer, I would have sent it back lmao

 

[russ99]

Kinda bummed that Wayne doesn’t have the record anymore, but records always get broken.

Also took some satisfaction that Wayne tailed off during the journeyman part of his career, and the Oilers got his best.

With fitness, diet and medical advances, it was only time before someone put together a solid run of later career results to beat him. Heck if Connor or Drai play to age 40 with decent health they may get there too.

 

[Mr Positive]

Gretzky's 46 WHA goals should count!