He showed that he couldn't adjust when he stopped being an elite goalscorer in the 90s. So yes, there is a precedence for this. To say he would have adjusted is not based on reality. He didn't adjust because he couldn't. I don't think the comparison to Crosby is very good either. Crosby scored 10 more goals at age 35 than Gretzky did. Gretzky's bread and butter got taken away and there was little he could do to compensate. He shot under 10% in the final 5 seasons of his career despite being a low volume shooter. He was lucky people focus on the early part of his career when it was possible to score many goals based on his skillset.
Gretzky was always a playmaker first. This became more pronounced over time, as he shot fewer shots on the powerplay.
As Gretzky also scored 23 goals in 1998 (and we have shot data for 1998), we can compare Crosby's age 35 season to Gretzky's age 37 season.
| Gretzky '98 | Crosby '23 |
PP Goals | 6 | 9 |
PP Shots | 46 | 68 |
PP SH% | 13.0% | 13.2% |
Lg. Avg | 12.6% | 13.9% |
This is one of the few era comparisons where scoring in Gretzky's day is a goal a game below the the other guy. Gretzky was still a solid finisher, especially for his age. In this same season, Jagr was shooting 10.1% on the powerplay.
But Gretzky was still one of the best passers of all time. That's why his PPP/60 in 1998 is higher than Crosby's in 2023, even though PP goals are more frequent in 2023, and the Rangers had no elite goal scorers.
Can't really fault the approach. During his time with New York, the Rangers were 1st, 5th, and 2nd on the PP, and 1st overall in aggregate, finishing a full percentage point over the 97-99 Avalanche. A 15-76-91 split isn't going to pad his personal goal totals though.
But if you are including the early 90s, Gretzky was solid, until 1991. 33 ES goals was 4th in the NHL, and though it's a 41 goal season, it's more ES goals than Lemieux scored in 1996 (69 goals) or Bure scored in 1994 (60 goals). Gretzky also scored 10 even strength goals in 1993's playoffs. For reference, Lemieux peaked at 8, in 1991.
Also, few people his age were great goal scorers, but Gretzky had some big playoff performances:
Oldest NHL Player To Get Playoff A Hat Trick | StatMuse