Which of the following scenarios would’ve been the best for Mario Lemieux’s legacy?

[innitfam]

It's pretty clearly option 3.

 

[jigglysquishy]

MacDonald spent 78-79 playing with a 17 year old Gretzky and very weak Brett Callighen. He hit a career high of points.

He never scored more than 68 points unless he played with Gretzky. He peaked outside the top 20 in points away from Gretzky.

He's the 2024 equivalent of a 3rd liner. Optimistically.

For as much as we point to a Kunitz or Hyman or Brown as guys who saw huge boosts playing with superstars, they were all substantially better than MacDonald.

Is he any better than a Kailer Yamamoto?

 

[Michael Farkas]

I think I have plenty of posts - errrrr, more than zero posts" (?) - directed specifically at you regarding the WHA, I don't know if I can keep throwing time at that cause. The answer to your inquiries are in there. Specifically to MacDonald, his play style was such that he didn't exactly benefit from the WHA's open, one-way style of play as much as some others. He was a worker and a PK guy. His point total in the NHL was boosted by a rapidly improving Gretzky, obviously.

 

[TheStatican]

Lemieux is lucky he didn’t come in at age 19 with Gretzky, because he’d have half the hardware he does otherwise.

Actually it's more likely the opposite would have happened, with Gretzky winning less Harts and Pearson's. Just look at McDavid as a prime example, he's been the best player in the league for the past seven seasons and yet how many Hart's has he won in that time? Two. If there was a player in the same stratosphere as Gretzky, he wouldn't have basically sweept all the major awards year in year out for close to a decade straight.