TheStatican
Registered User
- Mar 14, 2012
- 1,731
- 1,512
I'm working on a long thread and I had a question that needs to be answered before I can move forward. I'm sure there will never be an absolute consensus but I would at least like to know the majority thinks. The problem I've run into is determining if certain seasons were still part of the player's peak or if it occurred when they were past their peak, but still obviously in their prime years.
Mario Lemieux is one of the players in question. What he did in 2000-01 was incredibly considering the era and how long he hadn't played for, but at age 35 he was most certainly past his peak so this season is a non-issue. As for Lemieux's other seasons; 88-89 & 92-93 are the two where he obviously was at his peak performance, though some might only consider 1992-93 to be his absolute peak. Then we have 90-91, 93-94 & 94-95 which are the opposite and self-explanatory. 89-90 and 91-92 are a little strange in that clearly he was in the 'peak period' of his career but they are not his peak seasons, hamper largely by injuries. 1985 to 87 are clearly pre-peak and all seasons after 95-96 are clearly post-peak. Which leave us with just 87-88 and 1995-96.
First 87-88. While this was the year he finally broke through and won the Ross and Hart for the first time I don't believe he was in his peak yet and I believe that is the general consensus on the board. In the least this season has a weaker argument than 1995-96. While the raw totals are nearly the same 70 vs 69 goals 168 vs 161 points, his per game paces are notably lower during a time when overall league scoring and powerplay scoring was much higher; 7.42 vs 6.14 / 2.22 vs 1.80 This means one thing for sure, if we consider him to not be at his peak in 1995-96 than it's even less likely that he would at it in 1987-88. The one reason why I didn't say there is no chance it would be is his supporting cast. The Penguins were a good team in 1995-96 while in 1987-88 his supporting cast was mediocre at best. It's incredible that he had as many points as he did that year considering this, however a big reason was because powerplay goals were being scored at the highest rate in NHL history and indeed Lemieux set the single season record for powerplay points that year with 80. Though this has no impact in a comparison with 1995-96 as he also had very high % of powerplay points that season. 1987-88 was also only his age 22 season, most player are not in their peak at that age. Lastly the following year he showed a marked improvement, 70 to 85 goals 168 to 199 points, despite the team only improving marginally at best 81 vs 87 team points and I believe a player reaches his ultimate peak when he's stopped improving year over year. For the record I personally say his peak started at the very end of 1987-88. Wayne had come back from an injury and cut Mario's lead down from 19 to 11 points in the scoring race. That's when Mario exploded with his best stretch ever up to that point recording 33 points in the final 11 games to stave off Gretzky and clinch the Art Ross for himself. Which leaves us with one...
The problem, so to speak, is his 1995-96 season. It's one of the greatest scoring seasons in NHL history, with 161 points it ranks as the 12th highest all-time in a single season. On an adjusted basis it ranks even higher 10th, but take out seasons with 60 or less games played and it's tied for 6th overall. Even more incredibly it has the highest adjusted points per game in history;
Before anyone gets up in arms about using hockey reference's adjusted scales... I'm not trying to argue whether it was the most proficient offensive season in NHL history - I agree adjusted points are not the be-all end-all(though neither are raw totals!), there are other important metrics that need to be considered as well. What I'm trying to get my head around is whether or not this season should be considered as part of Mario's peak. Here is all the pros and cons I've been able to think of so far;
And that more or less covers it for the 1995-96 season. I'll say this, if we consider 1995-96 to not be part of his peak then it may very well be the best post-peak season by anyone in NHL history. Though I suppose that depends on where we think Gretzky's peak begins and ends, but that's an argument I'll save for the next thread lol
Mario Lemieux is one of the players in question. What he did in 2000-01 was incredibly considering the era and how long he hadn't played for, but at age 35 he was most certainly past his peak so this season is a non-issue. As for Lemieux's other seasons; 88-89 & 92-93 are the two where he obviously was at his peak performance, though some might only consider 1992-93 to be his absolute peak. Then we have 90-91, 93-94 & 94-95 which are the opposite and self-explanatory. 89-90 and 91-92 are a little strange in that clearly he was in the 'peak period' of his career but they are not his peak seasons, hamper largely by injuries. 1985 to 87 are clearly pre-peak and all seasons after 95-96 are clearly post-peak. Which leave us with just 87-88 and 1995-96.
First 87-88. While this was the year he finally broke through and won the Ross and Hart for the first time I don't believe he was in his peak yet and I believe that is the general consensus on the board. In the least this season has a weaker argument than 1995-96. While the raw totals are nearly the same 70 vs 69 goals 168 vs 161 points, his per game paces are notably lower during a time when overall league scoring and powerplay scoring was much higher; 7.42 vs 6.14 / 2.22 vs 1.80 This means one thing for sure, if we consider him to not be at his peak in 1995-96 than it's even less likely that he would at it in 1987-88. The one reason why I didn't say there is no chance it would be is his supporting cast. The Penguins were a good team in 1995-96 while in 1987-88 his supporting cast was mediocre at best. It's incredible that he had as many points as he did that year considering this, however a big reason was because powerplay goals were being scored at the highest rate in NHL history and indeed Lemieux set the single season record for powerplay points that year with 80. Though this has no impact in a comparison with 1995-96 as he also had very high % of powerplay points that season. 1987-88 was also only his age 22 season, most player are not in their peak at that age. Lastly the following year he showed a marked improvement, 70 to 85 goals 168 to 199 points, despite the team only improving marginally at best 81 vs 87 team points and I believe a player reaches his ultimate peak when he's stopped improving year over year. For the record I personally say his peak started at the very end of 1987-88. Wayne had come back from an injury and cut Mario's lead down from 19 to 11 points in the scoring race. That's when Mario exploded with his best stretch ever up to that point recording 33 points in the final 11 games to stave off Gretzky and clinch the Art Ross for himself. Which leaves us with one...
The problem, so to speak, is his 1995-96 season. It's one of the greatest scoring seasons in NHL history, with 161 points it ranks as the 12th highest all-time in a single season. On an adjusted basis it ranks even higher 10th, but take out seasons with 60 or less games played and it's tied for 6th overall. Even more incredibly it has the highest adjusted points per game in history;
Year | Player | Actual | Adjusted | Adjusted PPG |
1985-86 | 215 | 170 | 2.13 | |
1984-85 | 208 | 166 | 2.08 | |
1988-89 | 199 | 165 | 2.17 | |
1983-84 | 205 | 163 | 2.20 | |
1982-83 | 196 | 159 | 1.99 | |
1981-82 | 212 | 156 | 1.95 | |
1995-96 | 161 | 156 | 2.23 | |
1986-87 | 183 | 155 | 1.96 | |
1990-91 | 163 | 146 | 1.87 | |
1998-99 | 127 | 145 | 1.79 | |
1992-93 | 160 | 129 | 2.15 |
Before anyone gets up in arms about using hockey reference's adjusted scales... I'm not trying to argue whether it was the most proficient offensive season in NHL history - I agree adjusted points are not the be-all end-all(though neither are raw totals!), there are other important metrics that need to be considered as well. What I'm trying to get my head around is whether or not this season should be considered as part of Mario's peak. Here is all the pros and cons I've been able to think of so far;
ARGUMENTS AGAINST
1. His age, he had just turned 30 to start the year and it's well known that aside from a few late bloomers most players are past their peaks by that age
2. His reliance on powerplay points - 49% of his points came on the powerplay where he was supported by Jagr, Francis, Zubov and Sandstrom making the Pens powerplay by far the deadliest in the league at 25.95% (second were the Wings at 21.32%) with 109 goals, tied for the 6th most in league history. Although the team did not get an abnormally high amount of powerplay opportunities relative to other teams (420 vs 413 on average) powerplay opportunities as a whole were up across the league with an average of 5.04 per game, 4th highest in history. The following year the number of powerplay opportunities cratered by 19% to 4.10 Lemieux averaged exactly the same rate of even strength point per game as he did the year before 1.04 in both 1995-96 & 1996-97 yet his point totals dropped by 39 while playing 6 more games.
3. He obviously benefited from having a peak top-20 all time player on the team (Jagr is ranked 16th in the hf top 100) and a strong offensive cast overall. The team scored 362 goals, 36 more than the second placed Avalanche at 326
4. He benefited from days off during the season, or so is the claim. That is certainly a logical assumption and obviously Lemieux and the team operated with that assumption in mind. The question is what would his production have been without any days off which leads to another question; when does the benefit of having a day off 'wear out'. Here's how the actual numbers break down;
- In his first game back after taking a game off he had 37 points in 12 games(a 3.08ppg)
- That number does drop to just 51 in 23(2.21ppg) when including the first 2. Yup that's right, he only had 14 points in 11 games in that second game back from a layoff
- The number does however jump back to 81 in 32(2.53 ppg) when including the first 3, which means he had 80 in his other 38 games(2.10ppg)
- Interestingly enough when including his first 4 games back after a game off his average is almost exactly the same as his seasonal average; 88 in 38(2.31ppg). This indicates that the benefit likely 'wore off' by that point.
Taking away his 1st game back his totals drop down to only 124 in 58(2.13 ppg), this lines up almost exactly the same as when we take away his first 3 games back(2.10ppg). But change it to 2 games his ppg is quite stable with the remainder of his games at 110 points in 47(2.34 ppg). He also did play one 20-consecutive game stretch where he averaged exactly his season long ppg; 2.30ppg(46 points in 20). Of course none of those numbers factor in season-long fatigue. Under that scenario there's certainly an argument that considering his health/overall fitness there's a decent enough chance he would have fatigued in his last 10 or 20 games. Some of his big late season games may not have happened i.e 5 in the season finale and that 7 pointer against St. Louis in March. I think it's fair to assume a lower ppg rate for an 82 game season, imo mostly likely somewhere around 2.10 ppg which would equate to 172 points. I think one thing is for sure, considering the overall offensive strength of the team it's hard to envision a scenario where he scores less than his actual total of 161 or averages less than 2 points per game even playing in those 12 extra games. Not with his virtuoso performance on the powerplay.
5. His production trended downward as the season progressed, it was the biggest dropped off in ppg from an early season and mid-season pace of his full seasons from 87-88 to 95-96;
ppg @10 games - 3.20
ppg @20 games - 2.85
ppg @30 games - 2.60
ppg @40 games - 2.60
ppg @50 games - 2.40
ppg @60 games - 2.27
ppg @70 games - 2.30
However I have a legitimate counter for this below.
6. Comparatively poor playoff performance. In the playoffs that year Lemieux scored 27 points in 18 games a ppg of 1.50 which is a huge dropped off from his regular season average of 2.30, a decrease of 53%. The failing came in the powerplay, where in the regular season it was a huge strength, in the playoffs depending on it became a huge weakness. The teams efficiency dropped from almost 26% to 16% in the playoffs and worse yet under 10% against the Panthers and Mario only had 12 powerplay points in 18 games, 0.67 per game. His even strength production declined as well with 14 in 18 0.78 per game, but only half as much as his powerplay production did.
ARGUMENTS FOR
1. Obviously the accolades; Hart, Pearson, Ross, AS-1, Masterton. That said, we shouldn't place too much value on this as it's depended on how strong of a season others had and it has no relation to his past seasons.
2. His overall production; both raw(12th all-time, his 3rd highest), per game(11th all-time, his 3rd highest) and adjusted(T6th all-time, his 2nd highest) it easily ranks as one of the greatest scoring season of all time. But on the other hand it comes as no surprised that a full season(or near to it) from a top 4 all-time player would rank so high and had Lemieux himself been able to play more full seasons it likely would have ranked a few spots lower.
3. Jagr and Lemieux barely played together at even strength, of the 50 points they combined for only 12 came during even strength play. His regular line mates were much weaker, more on that further down.
4. Lead the league in short handed goals and points with 8 and 9. Combined that with his even-strength totals (i.e. difficult to score situations) he him 82 in 70, second most in the league behind Jagr and neck and neck with him on a per-game basis(for ev+sh points).
5. It's not correct to say Lemieux collected at lot of powerplay points because of how great the Penguins were on the power play - the Penguins were great on the powerplay because of Lemieux. In 1994-95 without Lemieux playing the Penguins powerplay was fairly good but hardily anything special. They operated at a 19.00% efficiency, good for 10th out of 26 teams and only moderately above the league average of 17.73%. The powerplay rate went up 6.95% (a 36% year-over-year increase) with Lemieux on the team. They drew more penalties as well but the increase of 4.6 per game to 5.1 was less the average increase across the leauge which went from 4.1 to 5.04 per game. What's most interesting though is how much better he was than his own teammates on it. Both he and Jagr were a major feature on the same powerplay and yet he outscored Jagr 79 vs 51 this despite Jagr playing more games and likely minutes on it. Productive wise he nearly doubled a peak Jagr on the same powerplay; 1.13ppg vs 0.62ppg. That 1.13 is most likely the NHL record for powerplay points per game.
6. This is not really a strong one for but does go to show there was a decline in his game after 95-96 i.e. a possibly a sign of 'exiting his peak'. As mentioned in the arguments against, the following year Lemieux produced at the exact same rate at even strength which means the drop in his point totals was entirely due to a reduction in powerplay points. He went from having 79 in 70 games (1.13ppg) to just 37 in 76 games (0.49ppg). Why would his powerplay production decline so drastically? Yes the Pens powerplay was less efficient, but it was still very good. While no longer operating at near historic levels they still finished second in the league win an impressive 21.83% efficiency, just fractions off the Rangers league leading 21.95% Their number of opportunities declined significantly from 420 to 339 and as a result the total power play goals they scored dropped from 109 to 74. But that doesn't explain why Lemieux was involved in a much few % of them. In 1995-96 he had a point in 72.5% of the teams pp goals and scored 28.4% of them himself. In 1996-97 he was involved in exactly 50% of them and scored 20.2% of them. Had he just keep his involvement % the same he would've had 6 more goals and about 17 more points giving him season totals of 56 goals and 139 points. Yes powerplay points are easier to get than even strength points, but that doesn't mean they are 'easy to get' period. Even the very best powerplay teams fail 3 out of every 4 times. The drop in specials team points indicates a clear drop in some aspects of his game between 95-96 and 96-97.
7. Despite the knock that he over-relied on powerplay points he was still an incredibly efficient even strength scorer with 73 in 70(1.04ppg) games, this was the 4rd most overall in the league in 95-96 and 2nd on a per game basis behind Jagr at 95 in 82 (1.16ppg). As to why Jagr bested him in even strength production there are a few things to consider. Jagr played in 12 more games, though even taking this into consideration Jagr's still has that per game edge. While the NHL didn't keep track of minutes played at the time it's well-known that Jagr was an endurance machine and he almost certainly played more even strength minutes on a per-game basis than Lemieux did, least that's how I remembered it. But perhaps even more importantly Jagr clearly had the better line mates. He had HHOFer Francis as his center and Peter Nedved at his absolute best on the other wing. Lemieux meanwhile mostly played with Tomas Sandström, who in fairness would probably be comparable to Nedved, but on his other side he had a young, still developing Markus Näslund, clearly a far cry from Francis. And that doesn't even take into consideration that Lemieux was only with them for about 2/3rd of the season while Jagr had the same line mates all season long, it's little wonder why Jagr had more even strength points. While this arrangement worked to the detriment of Lemieux's even-strength production it was obviously for the good of the team to spread scoring out as Mario was seen as the one who was more capable of scoring with poorer line mates.
8. Lemieux's drop in production later in the season may have been more as result of the loss of any decent line mates rather than fatigued or some another factor.
He and Sandstrom played 48 games together that year before Sandstrom was forced out of the lineup due to surgery on Feb. 20, 1996. Sandstrom did return to action on March 13, 1996 against Hartford but didn't even finished the game as he incurred a shoulder injury courtesy of a hit by Steven Rice and miss the remainder of the regular season.
Their numbers together in the teams first 57 games;
Lemieux 48gm 48-69-117 2.40ppg 52ev 58pp 7sh
Sandstrom 48gm 33-32-65 1.29ppg
without each other;
Lemieux 22gm 21-23-44 2.00ppg -17% (post Feb 20) 21ev 21pp 2sh
Sandstrom 10gm 3-4-7 0.70ppg -46% (during Mario's 'skipped' games and that half-Hartford game)
They played together in all situations, 48 of Sandstorms 70 points were with Lemieux including 24 of 36 ev points, 21 of 30 pp points and 3 of 4 sh points. But although Sandstrom clearly needed Mario much more than Mario needed him, Mario also benefited from having a quality line mate, as anyone would. Mario also 'lost' Näslund due to a self inflicted injury on the Penguins part. They foolishly moved him to the Canucks in a horrible trade on March 20th. Prior to that Näslund was actually removed off the top line about a month before. Nasland had started the year off strong with 46 points in 43 games, understandably those totals were largely a result of ridding off Mario's coat tails but still you would have thought they had earned him a long rope in keeping that spot in the lineup. But rather than allowing him to play through a rough January(he fell off the horse and went 11 straight games without a point, though many of those were probably after being taken off Mario's wing) Eddie Johnson banished him to the 3rd and 4th lines and even scratched in 3 straight. They never gave him a chance to recover and the rest is history. In any either case, the loss of Sandstrom and the struggles of Näslund and his subsequent trade left Lemieux with the likes of Kevin Miller and Dave McLlwain on his wing, I kid you not. The Penguins were an offensive powerhouse that year but a very top-heavy one. Though in fairness there was some logic behind this. This is where it gets interesting, because peak Mario in 88-89 was able to produce no matter who was on his line, did he do the same in 95-96? The answer is mostly yes, he still managed to pot 21 even strength points in 22 games with those 3rd liners, a drop of just 10%. Sandstorm's loss was actually felt more on the powerplay where he was replaced by J.J. Daigneault and Mario's production on it dropped by almost 20% on a per-game basis. Additionally the Penguins win% dropped from .649 to .560 and the powerplay efficiency decreased from 26.6 to 24.4.
And that more or less covers it for the 1995-96 season. I'll say this, if we consider 1995-96 to not be part of his peak then it may very well be the best post-peak season by anyone in NHL history. Though I suppose that depends on where we think Gretzky's peak begins and ends, but that's an argument I'll save for the next thread lol
Last edited:
