Another season, more false hope. Here are ten predictions from a non-Leaf fan about the upcoming Maple Leaf season.
1. James Reimer is the real deal
It's certainly unlikely that Reimer will improve upon his stellar rookie season, in which he won 20 games in 37 starts and posted a tidy .921 save percentage. It was a perfect storm of factors in 2010-2011: the league didn't know much about Reimer or his weaknesses, and the Leafs in the second half of the season were a loose, confident bunch playing with nothing to lose (or to be more accurate, nothing to gain). However, I think that Reimer has "the right stuff", so to speak. He's not going to go the way of an Andrew Raycroft or a Jim Carey...his relaxed attitude and natural athleticism should pave the way for a successful sophomore campaign. The numbers may not be elite simply because the team he's playing for isn't very good, but Reimer will give the Leafs a solid foundation in net, something they haven't had since the days of Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour.
2. Jonas Gustavsson is not the real deal
Highly touted entering last season, Gustavsson struggled mightily, particularly in the second half of the season when his job was challenged by Reimer. Now that Gustavsson is the clear backup and not facing as much pressure, some have predicted he may blossom. I don't see it. Gustavsson is big and athletic, but his vision simply hasn't developed at the NHL level. Even in preseason games, he's been noticeably slow to track the puck, oftentimes just crouching down into the butterfly and praying that the puck will hit him. In today's NHL, where the majority of goals are scored on scrambles, deflections and rebounds, Gustavsson may be an adequate backup, but I'm closing the book on him as a viable #1 goaltender.
3. Two-thirds of last year's surprise line will continue to succeed, while one will regress
Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin aren't exactly anyone's idea of a great 1-2 punch (no one will be confusing them for Datsyuk and Zetterberg), but by the standards of Leaf Nation, the effort they put forward in 2010-2011 was a more-than-pleasant surprise. Grabovski put up 29 goals, 58 points and a sterling +14 rating. Unlike in 2009-2010, his effort night-in and night-out was superb at both ends of the ice, and he emerged as one of the least likely leaders on the team. Kulemin also broke out with 30 goals, 57 points and a +7 rating. I predict that both will continue to thrive as solid two-way players who flirt with 30 goals and 60 points.
A regression is coming, though, from their third linemate, Clarke MacArthur. While he will no doubt remain a fan favourite with his tough checking and timely goals, it seems likely that his actual production will begin to slide. MacArthur finished second on the team with 62 points last season, but scored only 22 in 33 games after the All-Star break. Expect that general rate to continue, leading to a 50-55 season...still solid, but not quite at the heights of 2010-2011.
4. Phil Kessel won't get 40 goals, but he'll be very close
Kessel, the most frustrating (and perhaps most unfairly maligned) player on the Maple Leafs, is constantly referred to by Leaf fans as a "40-goal scorer" when they defend the trade that sent two first round picks to the Boston Bruins. The only problem with that is that he's never actually scored 40 goals. This year things seem to be shaping up well...most importantly, he'll be centered by Team USA teammate Tim Connolly, a huge upgrade from Tyler Bozak, and he'll figure to have less of a roller-coaster season than in 2010-2011.
The big question with Kessel, of course, is whether or not he can produce consistently enough to avoid the crippling (and team-destroying) slumps that plagued his 2010-2011 season. There can be no more 10-game or 12-game goalless droughts...for the Leafs to have any chance to succeed, Kessel will have to be more like the player he was in the second half of the season, when he scored 30 points in 33 games and improved his ghastly +/- to -1 (as opposed to the -19 it was in the first half).
5. John-Michael Liles will be loved, and hated, by Maple Leaf fans as the season progresses.
Liles is a power-play specialist much like the departed Tomas Kaberle, and since Maple Leaf fans tend to love any newcomers to their team (as well as vastly overrate them), Liles may enjoy a nice honeymoon in Toronto if he puts up points early in the season, which he is very capable of doing. In 2010-2011 with Colorado, Liles got off to a scorching start, scoring 23 points in the first 24 games and also sporting a solid +9 rating. A start like that and Maple Leaf fans would be willing to christen Liles the second-coming of Borje Salming.
But with Liles, there's a darkside, and it's his intensity in the defensive zone. When the offense dries up, and it will at some point in this season, so will the goodwill that comes from Leaf fans. When the points aren't coming, Liles is exactly what most Leaf fans hate: soft in his own end, a turnover machine and lacking any sort of sandpapery edge to redeem himself. If there is any downstretch for the Leafs at this point, you can bet that Liles will be one of the main targets of the radio call-in crowd.
6. Dion Phaneuf will play for the entire season like he did in the second half of 2010-2011
The fall of Dion Phaneuf from the peaks that he reached in his early Calgary Flames' days is well-documented. After averaging 18 goals, 53 points and a +9 rating in his first three seasons, Phaneuf has averaged just 10 goals, 36 points and a -4 rating in the last three years. But there are signs that he may have shaken the funk...in the second-half of last year, playing mostly with Keith Aulie, Phaneuf seemed freer and more relaxed. His play was a lot closer to his early Calgary days...even his thunderous hits returned. I'm not sure we'll ever see Phaneuf get close to the Norris-nominee level that some Leaf fans hope he will, but I do think we can expect to see a solid season from Phaneuf now that he is comfortable in his role as Leafs' captain. Expect 15 goals, 45-50 points, perhaps an even +/- rating (an accomplishment playing on a subpar team like the Leafs), and some thunderous hits.
7. Jake Gardiner will make an impact this season, Nazem Kadri will not
Gardiner, acquired in the trade with Anaheim for Francois Beauchemin, has impressed everyone at training camp and in the preseason this year. He seems to have tremendous offensive upside and enough speed to be able to recover from his mistakes and get back to the defensive zone. Like Carl Gunnarsson and Keith Aulie, Gardiner will no doubt endear himself to Maple Leaf fans and management this season, providing decent minutes on a young but promising defensive corps.
Unfortunately, the jury is still out on Nazem Kadri, and I believe it will remain out for the 2011-2012 season. A knee injury has already set him back, but before that Kadri was hardly setting the world on fire, having mustered just two assists in five preseason games. Kadri still has the reputation of being too soft and not committed enough to the game when he doesn't have the puck on his stick. Since the Maple Leafs appear set with their top six forwards, and since Kadri isn't nearly gritty enough to justify a spot on the checking lines, it may be another season in which Kadri seesaws back and forth between the Maple Leafs and the AHL.
8. Mike Komisarek will be repeatedly booed throughout the season for his dreadful play
Oops, I said that this would be 10 Fearless Predictions. I guess it's only nine, plus this one, which is a prediction on the order of "the sun will rise tomorrow". So here's a bolder one: Brian Burke will somehow find someone to take Mike Komisarek off his hands in a trade, and Leaf fans will be spared his presence for another full season.
9. Ron Wilson will not be the coach at the end of this season
This prediction may actually make a majority of Maple Leaf fans happy if it does come true...although it will no doubt mean that the Leafs have endured another failure of a season (more on that in prediction #10). Wilson has not exactly endeared himself to Toronto fans or the media with his far-from-charming blend of surliness, sarcasm and smugness (a trifecta of negative "s" adjectives). Of course, Pat Quinn was arguably just as big of a jerk, but he delivered a winning team on the ice (how much credit Quinn deserves for that is up for debate). With Wilson, though, the team has missed the postseason for three seasons in a row, and patience is wearing thin. Brian Burke has professed his devotion to Wilson over and over again, but Burke will soon find that he needs to look out for his own survival, even if that means cutting ties with his good friend. I will be shocked if Burke rushes to sign Wilson to a contract extension, even if the Maple Leafs get off to a decent start. The only thing that will save Wilson's job is a postseason appearance. Which leads me to prediction #10, the most important one of all:
10. The drought will continue
Even the most optimistic Maple Leaf fan would concede that the team's 44-year Stanley Cup drought will most likely extend to 45 years. But there is a feeling in Leaf Nation that this could be the year in which the team finally makes it back to the playoffs for the first time since 2004 (a string of futility bettered only by the Florida Panthers). I will concede that the Maple Leafs are a better team than the one that started training camp at this time last year. If Reimer gives the team the kind of goaltending he did last season, then the Maple Leafs have already solved one of the biggest problems of the past several years: the inability of their goalies to make the big save and give their team a chance to win.
But there are still problems here. The defense, while potentially very good, is also young and inexperienced, and will no doubt go through some growing pains. The biggest problem is the lack of firepower on offense. There simply isn't a player on this team that I can see getting over 70 points. Now, there are teams in the NHL that can make the playoffs without a 70-point scorer (the Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Bruins, are a good example). But they roll four lines that all have the ability to score, and they are so organized defensively and on special teams that they can make up for their lack of scoring. The Maple Leafs simply haven't demonstrated that organizational structure yet under Ron Wilson, so it's difficult to imagine them wondrously lucking into it in 2011-2012.
The Leafs' biggest problem is that the other teams in the East have noticeably improved. I'm dubious on the Florida Panthers' offseason spending spree (spending money doesn't matter if the players you spend it on aren't actually any good), but there is no doubt that the Sabres and Rangers have improved, while the Devils shouldn't be as much of a disaster as they were last season and the Jets (formerly Thrashers) may be inspired by their move to Winnipeg. Sad as it is for Leaf fans, I just can't in good conscious say that they will make the playoffs in a conference that has Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, the Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington and Tampa Bay.
The Leafs will compete hard, and if they get the right breaks, they could be one of the Cinderella playoff teams of 2011-2012 (there always seem to be one or two). There is just so much that has to go right, and if recent history is any indication, not all of it will.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Headshots: Everything Must Go
Sidney Crosby was in the midst of a historic season in 2010-2011. At the halfway point, he had 32 goals and 66 points in only 41 games. Prorate that for a full year and you're looking at 64 goals and 132 points...impressive enough, but even more amazing when one considers that Crosby was putting up these numbers during a season in which the average goal-scoring output of an NHL game was 5.46, far lower than during the days when Gretzky and Lemieux were rewriting the record-book. Consider: Daniel Sedin ended up leading the league in scoring with 104 points...no one else cracked 100. Crosby was on pace for 132.
It's even debatable that Crosby's 2010-2011 season was, in terms of goal-scoring dominance relative to the rest of the league, almost as impressive as Wayne Gretzky's 92-goal campaign in 1981-1982. Gretzky scored 92 when the league was averaging 8 goals per game, Crosby was on pace for 64 in a season where the average was 5.46. You can do the math for yourself.
Why bring up Crosby's campaign? Because, of course, it was tragically ended in early January when Crosby suffered concussions in two consecutive games: the first during the New Year's Winter Classic when Washington's David Steckel hit Crosby in the head while skating up the ice, and the second in the very next game, when Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman pressed Crosby into the boards (why the Penguins' training staff let Crosby play this game is mind-boggling, pardon the pun).
And so we, as hockey fans, were robbed of seeing something special. Hopefully it was just the season that we were robbed of, and not Crosby's career, which has (or at least, had) a good chance of developing into one that is/was worthy of discussion with the Pantheon names of Gretzky, Orr, Lemieux and Howe. I am fearful...having seen the careers of Eric Lindros and Marc Savard derailed, I find it difficult to be optimistic about Crosby's future. And the thought of the NHL losing its marquee player makes me sick.
When I was younger, I cared about who won games and who lost them, as most sports fans do. The old me might have cheered the Crosby injury...as a Devils' fan, the loss of a division rival's best player was certainly advantageous. But as sports fans grow more mature, most realize that the wins and losses of certain teams are ephemeral...what we truly want to see is greatness, talent, the ability to do something special. Crosby gave us those things, and now he may not.
Whether Steckel meant to hit Crosby in the head as he skated up-ice is up for debate. What matters it that the injury to Crosby came at a point when the NHL was already facing criticism for not dealing with the issue of headshots properly. They buried their head in the sand, hoping the problem would go away, and it came back to haunt them about as badly as one could imagine.
The solution is staring everyone in the face: assess a five-minute major for all headshots, and then look at suspensions as supplementary punishment if the headshot is deemed intentional. Suspensions, tough as they seem, actually don't act as much of a deterrent: a team can just send out a goon to take out a star, and then replace said goon with another when they get suspended. But penalties hurt a team during that game: people will think twice about being careless with their shoulders or elbows if they have to watch their team kill a penalty for five minutes as a result.
Some purists argue that doing this will taking hitting out of the game. Wrong...it will take dangerous hitting out of the game. The clearest parallel is the penalty for high-sticking. It doesn't matter if you meant to high-stick someone, or if you high-sticked them from their blindside, or north-south, or east-west, or any of the other excuses and doublespeak that the NHL came up with to excuse headshots. If you high-stick someone, you get a penalty. That hasn't made players slow down and not attempt to lift players' sticks or bat down pucks in the air. But you can bet there would be a whole lot more sticks to the face if there wasn't a high-sticking penalty, or if it was protected by the same vague language that the headshot rule is.
There may be some spectacular open-ice hits that we miss out on as a result of a zero-tolerance approach to headshots. Scott Stevens, one of my favourite all-time players, wouldn't have been able to thrive to the degree that he did in today's NHL...his hit on Lindros was certainly questionable, and his hit in the Stanley Cup finals on Paul Kariya was unquestionably dirty (it was both late and a deliberate headshot). Did I love watching Stevens dole out punishment? Of course! But knowing what we know about the long-term brain damage it inflicts, it may be worth sacrificing. If it comes to a decision between missing one or two awe-inspiring hits by Scott Stevens per season and the entire career of Sidney Crosby, as a hockey fan, I'll take the latter.
It's even debatable that Crosby's 2010-2011 season was, in terms of goal-scoring dominance relative to the rest of the league, almost as impressive as Wayne Gretzky's 92-goal campaign in 1981-1982. Gretzky scored 92 when the league was averaging 8 goals per game, Crosby was on pace for 64 in a season where the average was 5.46. You can do the math for yourself.
Why bring up Crosby's campaign? Because, of course, it was tragically ended in early January when Crosby suffered concussions in two consecutive games: the first during the New Year's Winter Classic when Washington's David Steckel hit Crosby in the head while skating up the ice, and the second in the very next game, when Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman pressed Crosby into the boards (why the Penguins' training staff let Crosby play this game is mind-boggling, pardon the pun).
And so we, as hockey fans, were robbed of seeing something special. Hopefully it was just the season that we were robbed of, and not Crosby's career, which has (or at least, had) a good chance of developing into one that is/was worthy of discussion with the Pantheon names of Gretzky, Orr, Lemieux and Howe. I am fearful...having seen the careers of Eric Lindros and Marc Savard derailed, I find it difficult to be optimistic about Crosby's future. And the thought of the NHL losing its marquee player makes me sick.
When I was younger, I cared about who won games and who lost them, as most sports fans do. The old me might have cheered the Crosby injury...as a Devils' fan, the loss of a division rival's best player was certainly advantageous. But as sports fans grow more mature, most realize that the wins and losses of certain teams are ephemeral...what we truly want to see is greatness, talent, the ability to do something special. Crosby gave us those things, and now he may not.
Whether Steckel meant to hit Crosby in the head as he skated up-ice is up for debate. What matters it that the injury to Crosby came at a point when the NHL was already facing criticism for not dealing with the issue of headshots properly. They buried their head in the sand, hoping the problem would go away, and it came back to haunt them about as badly as one could imagine.
The solution is staring everyone in the face: assess a five-minute major for all headshots, and then look at suspensions as supplementary punishment if the headshot is deemed intentional. Suspensions, tough as they seem, actually don't act as much of a deterrent: a team can just send out a goon to take out a star, and then replace said goon with another when they get suspended. But penalties hurt a team during that game: people will think twice about being careless with their shoulders or elbows if they have to watch their team kill a penalty for five minutes as a result.
Some purists argue that doing this will taking hitting out of the game. Wrong...it will take dangerous hitting out of the game. The clearest parallel is the penalty for high-sticking. It doesn't matter if you meant to high-stick someone, or if you high-sticked them from their blindside, or north-south, or east-west, or any of the other excuses and doublespeak that the NHL came up with to excuse headshots. If you high-stick someone, you get a penalty. That hasn't made players slow down and not attempt to lift players' sticks or bat down pucks in the air. But you can bet there would be a whole lot more sticks to the face if there wasn't a high-sticking penalty, or if it was protected by the same vague language that the headshot rule is.
There may be some spectacular open-ice hits that we miss out on as a result of a zero-tolerance approach to headshots. Scott Stevens, one of my favourite all-time players, wouldn't have been able to thrive to the degree that he did in today's NHL...his hit on Lindros was certainly questionable, and his hit in the Stanley Cup finals on Paul Kariya was unquestionably dirty (it was both late and a deliberate headshot). Did I love watching Stevens dole out punishment? Of course! But knowing what we know about the long-term brain damage it inflicts, it may be worth sacrificing. If it comes to a decision between missing one or two awe-inspiring hits by Scott Stevens per season and the entire career of Sidney Crosby, as a hockey fan, I'll take the latter.
Explaining "adjusted" goals and assists
Apples-to-oranges debates occur all the time in sports, particularly when trying to determine where two players of different eras rank historically. There's a reason that Greg Vaughn's 50 home-run season in 1998 doesn't register as much as, say, a comparable Mickey Mantle season: when Vaughn was hitting his homers, it was in the midst of the "steroid era", when home runs were being hit at a record pace. So it is with hockey. It's no coincidence that the majority of the NHL's all-time career leaders in points enjoyed their prime seasons from the early-1980s to the mid-1990s: skaters had taken that evolutionary leap to a new level of speed and playmaking ability (no doubt aided by the influences of Orr and Gretzky), while goaltenders were still relying on primitive technique and laughably small (by today's standards) equipment.
This leads to a few false assumptions among hockey fans. On one hand, there's the temptation to shrug aside the truly remarkable seasons that Gretzky and Lemieux put up during that era. On the other hand, one can overrate the historical impact of players like Mike Gartner and Dino Ciccarelli, simply because they amassed a boatload of career goals.
For a solution, I like to apply the "adjusted scoring" formula (used by hockey-reference.com and many other sites, no doubt). The history of the league has goal-scoring at approximately 6.15 goals per game played. The concept of the formula goes like this: if you scored, say, 100 points during a time when league-wide goal scoring was at 8 goals per game, then we should look at what that total would have been if you were playing in an average season (6.15 GPG). In that example, it would be about 77 points. There's a big difference in how fans view a 100-point season and a 77-point season, so the system provides a much better view of what the impact of that season was like at the time it was happening.
Taking it a step further, I like to adjust for players who didn't play when the NHL was in its 82-game schedule. Gordie Howe in his prime played 70 games a season out of 70 possible games. It's certainly possible that those extra twelve games would have worn him down, but there's no evidence to suggest that. So players who played in non-82 game seasons are prorated for a full 82 game season (this cuts both ways for injuries...if you played 35 out of 70 games, that would adjust to 41 out of 82 games).
Is the system perfect? Of course not. Who's to say that certain players wouldn't have thrived even more in higher-scoring eras, or that others would have still continued to produce even in a heavily-defensive era. And as mentioned in the paragraph above, who's to say that the players of past eras could have handled a full 82 games? But at least the system helps to level the playing field a lot, so that a conversation can ensue. And it's remarkably accurate for demonstrating which players mattered. Gordie Howe benefits immensely, because we can see how dominant a scorer he truly was. Interestingly, a player like Mark Messier suffers...many of his gaudy numbers from the 1980s weren't even enough to place him in the top ten in scoring.
The debates about the factors of an era still exist when judging players, but at least the "adjusted scoring" system allows for a common-ground discussion about what types of numbers players were actually putting up.
This leads to a few false assumptions among hockey fans. On one hand, there's the temptation to shrug aside the truly remarkable seasons that Gretzky and Lemieux put up during that era. On the other hand, one can overrate the historical impact of players like Mike Gartner and Dino Ciccarelli, simply because they amassed a boatload of career goals.
For a solution, I like to apply the "adjusted scoring" formula (used by hockey-reference.com and many other sites, no doubt). The history of the league has goal-scoring at approximately 6.15 goals per game played. The concept of the formula goes like this: if you scored, say, 100 points during a time when league-wide goal scoring was at 8 goals per game, then we should look at what that total would have been if you were playing in an average season (6.15 GPG). In that example, it would be about 77 points. There's a big difference in how fans view a 100-point season and a 77-point season, so the system provides a much better view of what the impact of that season was like at the time it was happening.
Taking it a step further, I like to adjust for players who didn't play when the NHL was in its 82-game schedule. Gordie Howe in his prime played 70 games a season out of 70 possible games. It's certainly possible that those extra twelve games would have worn him down, but there's no evidence to suggest that. So players who played in non-82 game seasons are prorated for a full 82 game season (this cuts both ways for injuries...if you played 35 out of 70 games, that would adjust to 41 out of 82 games).
Is the system perfect? Of course not. Who's to say that certain players wouldn't have thrived even more in higher-scoring eras, or that others would have still continued to produce even in a heavily-defensive era. And as mentioned in the paragraph above, who's to say that the players of past eras could have handled a full 82 games? But at least the system helps to level the playing field a lot, so that a conversation can ensue. And it's remarkably accurate for demonstrating which players mattered. Gordie Howe benefits immensely, because we can see how dominant a scorer he truly was. Interestingly, a player like Mark Messier suffers...many of his gaudy numbers from the 1980s weren't even enough to place him in the top ten in scoring.
The debates about the factors of an era still exist when judging players, but at least the "adjusted scoring" system allows for a common-ground discussion about what types of numbers players were actually putting up.
The Great Debate: Gretzky or Lemieux?
(Note: For an explanation of the "adjusted points" scoring system, go here.)
Time is the enemy of greatness in the world of sports...as the years go by, retired stars fade in the mind and younger generations convince themselves that there is no possible way the best of a bygone era could possibly stack up against the present's best. But time is also the enemy of nuance, and to be more bold, accuracy, when it comes to judging where stars of different eras place in the discussion of all-time greats. It becomes easier to accept the labels applied to players without delving into the different facets of their careers. That's one of the reasons why most people shrug off Gordie Howe's accolades as a product of his longevity: they remember hearing about him playing for the Hartford Whalers when he was 52 years old and assume he was just a freak of nature who was able to hang around long enough to wrack up a boatload of career points. What they forget is the dominance he displayed in his prime.
One of the great hockey debates that suffers from this lack of attention to nuance is the unending one that occurs amongst hockey fans: Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux? At the time he retired, the answer was Gretzky, no question. In fact, Gretzky's chief competition for "greatest of all-time" honours wasn't Lemieux but Bobby Orr. The Gretzky/Orr debate was an almost unsolvable one, and one that also gave birth to many myths about both players (inevitably underrating Gretzky's defensive contributions, for example). And so the attention began to shift to an easier comparison, one between the two most dominant scoring forwards of all-time, and two players who played in close to the same era: Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
The groundswell of support for Lemieux has emerged largely through a younger generation of fans who were fortunate enough to catch the majority of Lemieux's prime but may have seen Gretzky only during his later years with the Kings, Blues and Rangers, in which he had evolved primarily into an Oates-like playmaking specialist. Regardless, the debate still is one that deserves consideration. Unfortunately, supporters in each camp tend to put forward arguments that are at best simplistic and more often-than-not inaccurate.
I come down on the side of Wayne Gretzky. I firmly believe that he was the greatest hockey player of all-time, although I acknowledge Mario's place in the (to me inarguable) four-person Pantheon alongside Gretz, Orr and Howe. Yet I am not dogmatic enough to dismiss the case for Mario. A casual hockey fan may look at the bare facts and say that Gretzky clearly was superior: he had nine MVP awards to Lemieux's three; ten scoring titles to Lemieux's six; four Stanley Cup rings to Lemieux's two and the same amount of Conn Smythe trophies with two. But I will acknowledge to the pro-Mario camp that it is not as clear cut as those facts would suggest. Still, when the Lemieuxites (an awkward name, but less clumsy than the Lemieuxophiles) attempt to make their case for Mario, they stumble into a few arguments that sound reasonable enough until they are looked at in more depth. Here are a few:
ARGUMENT #1 - "Gretzky played in a higher-scoring era"
This may be the most frequent argument, and it is the easiest to deal with, since it can be solved simply by looking at an adjusted-scoring system and league-wide averages throughout the NHL. The Lemieuxites frame things as if Gretzky was playing against a bunch of clueless goaltenders and leaky defences during his prime, while Lemieux was suffocated by the trap era and having to face the likes of Roy, Brodeur, Belfour and Joseph every night. It is true that Gretzky's five first seasons in the league were during the league's highest-scoring five-year period, but it's not as if Lemieux missed that era altogether. When Gretzky had his remarkable 92-goal, 212-point season in 1981-1982, it was at a time when leaguewide scoring was at 8.03 goals per game. In 1988-1989, Lemieux's best statistical season, it was 7.48...lower to be sure, but a far cry from the 5.30 averages that the likes of Jagr, Iginla and Sakic had to deal with in the late-1990s and early-2000s.
When leveled out for leaguewide averages, things become murkier. In reality, Gretzky scored 1.92 points-per-game while Lemieux scored 1.88. Considering that Gretz was consistently healthier than Lemieux, it would appear to be case-closed for Gretzky. But when adjusted, Lemieux emerges with 1.70 points-per-game for his career while Gretzky's is at 1.64. More impressive is the disparity in their goal-per-game production: Lemieux's is 0.675 per game while Gretzky stands at 0.502. At this point, Lemieux supporters may be saying "See, Lemieux's average is higher...ergo, he was a better offensive player!". What they fail to see is the logical flaw behind argument two:
ARGUMENT #2 - "Since Lemieux's adjusted numbers were better, if they had played in the same era and Lemieux had played for as long as Gretzky...he'd be the one with all the records".
Let's set aside for a moment debating the merits of health and longevity when considering a player's place in history. I tend to think that it does have value, even though I'll take a career with moments of transcendence (say, Peter Forsberg's) over one of plodding consistency (say, Dave Andreychuk's) any day. The longevity vs. brilliance debate belongs more in the discussion of whether Gordie Howe should be ranked higher than Lemieux (although I hate to perpetuate the myth that the only reason Howe belongs this high is because of his longevity...his peak was remarkable even if it failed to reach the lofty heights of Lemieux). When it comes to Gretzky, though, some of number 99's supporters use Gretzky's consistency as a trump card, saying that it should end the discussion of who was the greatest player since with Gretzky there were no "what-ifs?". I believe this is a mistake for the pro-Gretzky camp...what they should instead focus on is what Gretzky did in the same amount of time as Lemieux.
Here is a simple fact: even though his total points were immensely helped by his longevity, Gretzky's averages were dragged down by playing nearly 65% more games than Lemieux for his career. The trait that made Gretzky's records among the most untouchable in sports history, his consistent productivity over twenty seasons, is also what opened the cracks for Lemieux supporters to argue in favour of Lemieux's excellence.
Most hockey fans would agree that forwards' production tends to go down after the age of 30 (there are of course exceptions, but for the most part it's a reality that a superstars' production from the ages of, say, 22-30 will be greater than it is from 31-38). Mario Lemieux played 246 games after his age-30 season, 1995-1996, in which he scored 388 adjusted points, for an average of 1.58 per game. Wayne Gretzky played 595 games after his age-30 season, nearly two-and-a-half times as many as Mario. In that time, his adjusted-average was 1.26 per game (which, by the way, while not as high as Mario's average, would still be good enough to lead the NHL in most seasons. We're talking about two incredibly special talents with these guys, in case that wasn't already abundantly obvious).
Let's look at what came before those age-31 seasons. Mario accumulated 1,185 points (again, all these figures are adjusted for scoring averages) in 681 games, for a per-game average of 1.74. Gretzky had 1,781 points in 949 games, for an average of 1.88 per game. Even their goals-per-game averages are remarkably close during this period: Lemieux is at 0.715 GPG while Wayne is at 0.625. So it's not, as some Mario supporters claim, that the only reason Gretzky dwarfed Lemieux statistically is that he was fortunate enough to stay healthy, avoid the nagging back problems that Mario was plagued with, and of course not be unfortunate enough to contract Hodgkin's disease. While they were young and in their primes, and even when adjusted for the seasons they played in, Gretzky still outproduced Lemieux on an average basis...not even factoring that he played over 95% of his team's games during that stretch while Mario played 70%.
Gretzky was more productive each game (granted, by a slim degree) and played far more games. If this were any other sport, it would be case closed that Gretzky was the better offensive player (and since no one, not even the most diehard Lemieux supporter, would make the case that Lemieux was appreciably better than Gretzky defensively, I guess that makes Gretzky the better overall player). No one would make the case that a basketball player who averaged, say, 30 PPG, 7 RPG and 7 APG for 80 games a season during his career wasn't superior to someone who averaged 29 PPG, 8 RPG and 6 APG for only 55 games a season unless the latter player was markedly better defensively than the former (which Lemieux wasn't when compared to Gretzky). No one would argue that they'd rather have a Gold Glove-winning first baseman with an OPS of 1.000 who tended to miss 40 games a year over a Gold Glove-winning first baseman with an OPS of 1.025 who hardly missed any time at all. You wouldn't see that in most other sports. But hockey is a far more subjective game than baseball, which can be quantified almost to the tee, and perhaps a tad more so than basketball, and so once their statistical objections have fallen by the wayside, the Lemieux supporters tend to fall back on difficult-to-quantify arguments, and easily-regurgitated myths are born. Let's look at a few of them:
ARGUMENT #3 - "Gretzky had far better teammates than the no-names that Lemieux was stuck with".
This is similar to the Russell/Chamberlain myth (chronicled and refuted so well in Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball) that Chamberlain supporters use to attempt to belittle Russell's eleven titles. There is no doubt that the Edmonton Oilers of the mid-1980s are one of the greatest teams ever assembled. The roster is strewn with Hall-of-Famers. To wit: Messier; Coffey; Kurri; Fuhr; Anderson. They were all at or near their peak production levels during this year...interestingly enough, except for Messier, who's best statistical seasons (when adjusted for scoring averages) actually came with the New York Rangers.
But notice I specify that the Oilers of the mid 1980s were amongst the greatest ever. Gretzky detractors make it sound as if Wayne just walked into an already-established dynasty, as opposed to being the foundation for them, as well as the playmaker who made superstars out of players who may in other circumstances have merely been stars. One need only look at Gretzky's first two seasons as a perfect refutation of that ill-thought-out theory.
In 1979-1980, at the age of eighteen it should be noted, Gretzky led the transition of the Oilers from the WHA to the NHL by walking into the league and tying for the lead in scoring with 123 adjusted points (137 in real life). He averaged 1.52 adjusted points-per-game in this season...higher than any mark that Lemieux put up in any of his first three seasons.
Of course he did...he had one of the greatest outlet passers of all-time (Coffey) feeding him, and had snipers like Messier, Kurri and Anderson to finish his own beautiful passes, right? Nope. Coffey, Kurri and Anderson weren't even in the league yet. And Messier? He was tearing the league up as an obvious Hall-of-Famer-in-waiting with a scintillating rookie season in which he put up 11 goals, 19 assists and a -15 rating (Gretzky incidentally was a +15 on this "dynasty" team, which finished fourth in the Smythe Division and was promptly swept in the first round).
Gretzky's best teammates? Blair McDonald, Stan Weir, Brett Callighen, Dave Lumley and Dave (not Dale) Hunter. Not exactly a team that was being mistaken for the '77 Canadiens. Blair McDonald, by the way, scored adjusted numbers of 41 goals, 43 assists and 84 points as Gretzky's linemate. So he must have been OK, right? Yes, his goal-scoring talent was so prolific and had so little to do with Gretzky's unparalled passing that Edmonton traded him the next season and McDonald was out of the league two years after that, having failed to match in his remaning three seasons his goal total as Gretzky's linemate for one season. I should just stop right now, having made my case, but I'll continue.
The next season saw the arrival of Kurri, Anderson and Coffey, so Lemieux supporters may claim that Gretzky only had one season to deal with trashy teammates as opposed to the five that Mario endured. But while Gretzky was now teammates with future Hall-of-Famers, they weren't exactly playing like it at the time. Gretzky once again led the league in scoring with 134 adjusted points and a rate of 1.64 PPG (again, 15% higher than anything Mario produced in his first three seasons). He had more than double the points of any of his Oiler teammates, with rookie Jari Kurri, his new linemate, being the second-highest scorer.
The names were there, but they weren't who we came to know them as (or to be even more daring, who Gretzky helped make them). Messier wasn't Messier...he had 51 points and was a -12, frustrating his coaches with his defensive shortcomings while Gretzky put up a +41 for a sub-.500 team. Anderson wasn't Anderson...he only had 43 points (again, all these figures are adjusted for leaguewide scoring averages). And most noticeably, Coffey wasn't the offensive force he would develop into, chipping in only 26 points. Once again the Oilers finished with a mediocre record but fared better in the playoffs, upsetting the Montreal Canadiens in a playoff win that would set the stage for the dynasty that was to ensue in the coming years.
Things finally clicked for the Oilers the next season, as Gretzky put up truly one of the greatest statistical seasons any sport has seen, going crazy on the league with 72 adjusted goals (a record-setting 92 in real-life) and 166 points. Once again, Gretzky's point total was more than double any of his teammates...but at least now he was getting more support. Messier scored 39 adjusted goals. No one else eclipsed 30. Gretzky had 72. Anderson was second on the team with 82 adjusted points. Eighty-two. Gretzky had 166. I just felt it needed repeating.
Let's call that third season a wash and not factor it into the "bad teammates" era. Even the most entrenched Mario supporter couldn't argue that Gretzky had particularly excellent, or even good, teammates in 1980-1981, and they certainly would acknowledge that what Gretzky had to work with in his rookie season was the envy of no one, even Lemieux. If Lemieux supporters point to Gretzky's Cup-winning seasons and how everyone was clicking on the Oilers team at just the right time, I don't begrudge them that. But it cuts both ways.
Here's how Lemieux's teammates broke down. On his 1991 Cup team, he had the following teammates: Jaromir Jagr; Paul Coffey; Bryan Trottier; Ron Francis; Mark Recchi ; Larry Murphy. That's four Hall-of-Famers and two future ones (Jagr and Recchi), for a total of six, compared to Gretzky's five with the Oilers, in case you're counting. Trottier was an aging veteran who was brought in for leadership and a checking role...he was a shell of his former self and nothing approaching a hall-of-fame level player, so let's scratch him from the list. And Jagr was a green rookie, not the dominant scorer he would become, although he did chip in with some key goals in the playoffs. But I didn't even mention Joe Mullen (another Hall-of-Famer), as well as John Cullen (28 goals, 86 points) and Kevin Stevens (36 goals, 78 points). Recchi led the team in regular-season scoring with 103 adjusted points and went to town in the playoffs, as did Stevens and Murphy. Were their inflated numbers the result of playing with Mario? Doubtful, as he only played 26 games during the regular season due to back surgery.
This is not to detract from Lemieux, who rightfully won the Conn Smythe award in 1991 with 38 adjusted-points in 23 games in the playoffs (44 actual points). It is simply to point out that the early-90s Penguins team were comparable in talent to the mid-1980s Oilers.
So what of Lemieux's teammates early in his career? I am the first to acknowledge that Lemieux had little to work with...the Penguins' general crappiness is the reason that they landed the lottery pick and drafted Lemieux in the first place. Lemieux's best teammates in his rookie season were Warren Young and Doug Shedden. Ugh. Young was very much like Blair McDonald...someone who benefited for a season or two playing with a transcendent superstar and then faded into obscurity. But Shedden was almost equally as productive in the previous two seasons as he was in 1984-1985 (Lemieux's rookie season), generally falling in the 55-65 adjusted points-range. Not spectacular, to be sure, but certainly comparable (and perhaps superior) to Gretzky's teammates in his rookie season, Blair McDonald and Stan Weir. Again, I reiterate: Gretzky put up 123 points and finished tied with Marcel Dionne for the scoring lead that season; Lemieux put up a still-remarkable 81 adjusted points. But was the talent-level of Blair McDonald, Stan Weir and Brett Callighen really enough to account for those extra 42 points?
In Lemieux's second season, with a core of Mike Bullard (not the talk-show host), defenseman Moe Mantha and Doug Shedden, Lemieux had 112 adjusted points in his healthiest season. The next four scorers on the team averaged 55 adjusted points. In Gretz' second season (in which he had 134), the next four scorers on the Oilers averaged 51 adjusted points. Now, granted, those "next four" included Kurri, Anderson and Messier...but as I discussed before, they weren't producing at the levels we would come to expect.
Well yes, the Lemieuxites might say, but Lemieux had to deal with mediocre teammates for a longer period than Gretzky. Looking at merely the first five seasons of their careers as a sample, I might agree. Gretzky's Oilers were a young team that began to gel and improve exponentially. Kurri and Coffey in particular began to play like true superstars. Lemieux's core was Dan Quinn and Randy Cunneyworth. Quinn had been fairly productive in Calgary before joining the Pens, getting about 60 adjusted points a season. Cunneyworth was more of a 50-point grinder. Neither was setting the league on fire or destined for Hall-of-Fame careers like Gretzky's teammates. But in 1987 (after Lemieux's third season), Pittsburgh acquired Paul Coffey, giving Lemieux a weapon (a puck-moving defenceman) that Gretzky had enjoyed. It bears noting that Gretzky benefited from having Coffey on his team producing at a high level for six seasons (it was seven as a teammate, but I discount Coffey's ineffective rookie season), while Lemieux had him for four-and-half elite years.
Paul Coffey does not a team make, though, so I will acknowledge that Lemieux's Penguin teams were still lacking heading into 1989, perhaps Mario's most impressive season, in which he put up an ungodly 168 adjusted points and made linemate Rob Brown, who wouldn't make much of a dent in the league after this season, a near-100 adjusted-point scorer. Coffey was remarkable in this season also, but other than that Lemieux only had the aforementioned Dan Quinn chipping in. So during their respective career seasons, Mario had less to work with than Gretzky, but it wasn't by much.
As already documented, Lemieux's post-1990 teams were excellent for a stretch of three or four seasons, with Jagr in particular coming into his own. It shouldn't be forgotten that Jagr and Ron Francis were among the top point-getters of the 1990s. For anyone who thinks that Jagr's numbers were inflated by Lemieux, look toward the 1994-1995 season, which Lemieux missed, in which Jagr led the league in scoring and won the Ted Lindsay Award (then the Lester Pearson) as MVP as voted by the players. So let's say that Lemieux's early-90s days compare reasonably with Gretzky's mid-80s days.
What the "Gretzky had a dynasty" camp tend to forget is only the most important development in hockey during the 1980s: the trade of the Great One to Los Angeles. When Gretzky joined the Kings, they were an untalented bunch who had just finished with 68 points in the standings, 20th in a 21-team league. Marcel Dionne had retired a few seasons earlier. Luc Robitaille was an excellent scoring left-winger, but beyond him, there was essentially only Bernie Nicholls (who had averaged about 75 adjusted points in the previous three seasons) and a past-his-prime Dave Taylor. In Gretzky's first season with the Kings, they improved by 23 points in the standings, and Nicholls blew up for 125 adjusted points as Gretzky's teammate. For the next five or six seasons, Gretzky played for a team that consisted of only one Hall-of-Fame level guy (Robitaille) and relied on consistent contributions from Bernie Nicholls, Steve Duchene and Tomas Sandstrom. Even when the Kings acquired Gretzky's old teammate Jari Kurri, he was far less productive than during his Oiler years. And defenceman Rob Blake, an excellent player who joined the league in 1991-1992, was still extremely green during his first few seasons with the Kings.
The Kings didn't do much during Gretzky's tenure, just as the Penguins didn't do much during Lemieux's first few seasons with the Penguins. The exception is of course the 1993 playoffs, which Gretzky described as the best he ever had, leading a Kings team (again, a core of Sandstrom, Robitaille and an aging Kurri) to the Cup finals. It was a matchup against the Canadiens in what may have been two of the great examples of superstars willing mediocre teams to the finals, with Patrick Roy playing out of his mind to lead the Habs to a championship.
So to recap: we've established that Lemieux's Penguin teams from about 1991 to 1993 (three seasons) were comparable to the Oilers from about 1983 to 1988 (five seasons). That's two seasons of playing with an elite-level team that Gretz has on Mario. Both had terrible teams in the first two seasons of their career...Mario continued to have a mediocre-to-poor team for the next four seasons. Gretz endured mediocre-to-poor teams after being traded to Los Angeles, while Mario played with a consistently contending (although by no means dynasty-level) Penguin team in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s. Making nonsense statements like "well, Messier and Kurri won a Cup without Gretzky and he never won one without them" ignores that hockey is a team game and is about as useful as pointing out that the Penguins with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin developed into an Eastern power and eventual Stanley Cup champion after Mario retired.
Let's look at Mario's first six seasons (in which he had less-than-spectacular teammates, as his defenders always point to) and compare them to Gretzky's first two seasons with the Oilers and his first four with the Kings (which we've established had comparably uninspiring rosters):
Lemieux "Weak Teammate" Era (1984-1990): 438 GP, 289 adjusted goals, 701 adjusted points, 1.60 PPG
Gretzky "Weak Teammate" Era (1979-1981; 1988-1992): 474 GP, 235 adjusted goals, 778 adjusted points, 1.64 PPG
So when we look at how they fared with comparably non-superstar teammates, Gretzky still comes out on top. And that's not even factoring in that Lemieux's "weak teammate" era came when he was in his prime, whereas Gretzky was putting up monster numbers with the Kings at the age of 33 (he led the league in scoring with a non-playoff team in 1993-1994...I didn't even count that season in his "weak teammate" era, although I probably should have).
The "Gretzky strolled into the middle of a dynasty" argument is a myth, plain and simple.
ARGUMENT #4 - "Lemieux was the better pure goal-scorer"
Here's an argument that I fully concede, and it may go towards explaining why people consider Lemieux the better player. Lemieux was the more physically dominant player than Gretzky, and a better one-on-one force-of-nature (although Gretzky is underrated in his one-on-one skills). But this does not necessarily mean that Lemieux was the better pure offensive force. It's similar to the Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate: Ovechkin is more awe-inspiring, Crosby is more effective (at least, if he remains concussion-free).
Boiling such multi-faceted superstars as Gretzky and Lemieux down to one-dimensional pegs does a great disservice to both of their skills. As time has gone on, Gretzky's pure goal-scoring ability has been forgotten. During his first eight seasons, Gretzky averaged 55 adjusted goals and twice bested 70. And as I highlighted before, Gretzky's GPG before his age-31 season was 0.625. Lemieux's was even better at an astounding 0.715, but not by enough that it should belittle Gretzky's goal-scoring.
Similarly, Lemieux's incredible passing should not be forgotten. His assist rate is right up there with Bobby Orr for among the highest in history, bested only by Gretzky's unparalleled marks. Even during the "weak teammate" era that I highlighted, Lemieux averaged nearly an adjusted assist per game. If you watch some of the Penguins' games from the early-1990s, when Lemieux actually had teammates who could keep up with him, it was artistry to behold.
So I will concede that Lemieux was a better goal-scorer than Gretzky by a small margin, although not by nearly as large a margin as their final career adjusted goals-per-game rates would suggest (as mentioned, Gretzky's goal numbers went down as he got older). As Gretzky stayed in the league into his late-thirties, he adjusted to an almost strictly passing role. This period may have diminished him in the minds of those who were seeing Lemieux tear up the league during that same period. We missed Gretzky's run-and-gun days...he needed to be more cerebral near the end to remain elite. What this meant is that Gretzky doubters began to think that his gaudy point totals were merely the result of getting cheap second-assists.
There's something else to be said on this point: Lemieux was the more dominant one-on-one player, Gretzky the more cerebral passer (even though each was excellent at the other's supposed specialty). This to many suggests that, in a vacuum, Lemieux was the better player. But hockey is a team game, and I would suggest that Gretzky's excellence more readily translates to winning hockey than Lemieux's did. Watching some of the Oilers' games of the early-to-mid-1980s, you see the way even journeymen on the team began to see the game differently by virtue of playing with Gretzky. They started making bold passes and seeing angles to open space that may not have occurred to them before. Gretzky's vision for the game wore off on his teammates, even if not to the level of his own genius. I'm not saying that this did not occur with Lemieux, but with Lemieux one was always in awe of his size and control of the puck, and you can see at certain moments even excellent Pittsburgh players looking in reverance at what he does.
Of course you would want Mario Lemieux as a teammate or on your team as a fan...he's unquestionably one of the four greatest hockey players to ever live (which placement you give to him in relation to Orr or Howe is more up for debate in my mind than in comparison to Gretzky), and arguably the most talented along with Orr. But when you factor in the sustained health and consistency, the superior productivity in both assists and points and the only-slightly-inferior productivity in goals, plus the infectiousness of his vision for the game, and dispel the arguments that he lucked into a historically-great team and benefited from a high-scoring era, one has to give the edge to the Great One.
Time is the enemy of greatness in the world of sports...as the years go by, retired stars fade in the mind and younger generations convince themselves that there is no possible way the best of a bygone era could possibly stack up against the present's best. But time is also the enemy of nuance, and to be more bold, accuracy, when it comes to judging where stars of different eras place in the discussion of all-time greats. It becomes easier to accept the labels applied to players without delving into the different facets of their careers. That's one of the reasons why most people shrug off Gordie Howe's accolades as a product of his longevity: they remember hearing about him playing for the Hartford Whalers when he was 52 years old and assume he was just a freak of nature who was able to hang around long enough to wrack up a boatload of career points. What they forget is the dominance he displayed in his prime.
One of the great hockey debates that suffers from this lack of attention to nuance is the unending one that occurs amongst hockey fans: Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux? At the time he retired, the answer was Gretzky, no question. In fact, Gretzky's chief competition for "greatest of all-time" honours wasn't Lemieux but Bobby Orr. The Gretzky/Orr debate was an almost unsolvable one, and one that also gave birth to many myths about both players (inevitably underrating Gretzky's defensive contributions, for example). And so the attention began to shift to an easier comparison, one between the two most dominant scoring forwards of all-time, and two players who played in close to the same era: Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
The groundswell of support for Lemieux has emerged largely through a younger generation of fans who were fortunate enough to catch the majority of Lemieux's prime but may have seen Gretzky only during his later years with the Kings, Blues and Rangers, in which he had evolved primarily into an Oates-like playmaking specialist. Regardless, the debate still is one that deserves consideration. Unfortunately, supporters in each camp tend to put forward arguments that are at best simplistic and more often-than-not inaccurate.
I come down on the side of Wayne Gretzky. I firmly believe that he was the greatest hockey player of all-time, although I acknowledge Mario's place in the (to me inarguable) four-person Pantheon alongside Gretz, Orr and Howe. Yet I am not dogmatic enough to dismiss the case for Mario. A casual hockey fan may look at the bare facts and say that Gretzky clearly was superior: he had nine MVP awards to Lemieux's three; ten scoring titles to Lemieux's six; four Stanley Cup rings to Lemieux's two and the same amount of Conn Smythe trophies with two. But I will acknowledge to the pro-Mario camp that it is not as clear cut as those facts would suggest. Still, when the Lemieuxites (an awkward name, but less clumsy than the Lemieuxophiles) attempt to make their case for Mario, they stumble into a few arguments that sound reasonable enough until they are looked at in more depth. Here are a few:
ARGUMENT #1 - "Gretzky played in a higher-scoring era"
This may be the most frequent argument, and it is the easiest to deal with, since it can be solved simply by looking at an adjusted-scoring system and league-wide averages throughout the NHL. The Lemieuxites frame things as if Gretzky was playing against a bunch of clueless goaltenders and leaky defences during his prime, while Lemieux was suffocated by the trap era and having to face the likes of Roy, Brodeur, Belfour and Joseph every night. It is true that Gretzky's five first seasons in the league were during the league's highest-scoring five-year period, but it's not as if Lemieux missed that era altogether. When Gretzky had his remarkable 92-goal, 212-point season in 1981-1982, it was at a time when leaguewide scoring was at 8.03 goals per game. In 1988-1989, Lemieux's best statistical season, it was 7.48...lower to be sure, but a far cry from the 5.30 averages that the likes of Jagr, Iginla and Sakic had to deal with in the late-1990s and early-2000s.
When leveled out for leaguewide averages, things become murkier. In reality, Gretzky scored 1.92 points-per-game while Lemieux scored 1.88. Considering that Gretz was consistently healthier than Lemieux, it would appear to be case-closed for Gretzky. But when adjusted, Lemieux emerges with 1.70 points-per-game for his career while Gretzky's is at 1.64. More impressive is the disparity in their goal-per-game production: Lemieux's is 0.675 per game while Gretzky stands at 0.502. At this point, Lemieux supporters may be saying "See, Lemieux's average is higher...ergo, he was a better offensive player!". What they fail to see is the logical flaw behind argument two:
ARGUMENT #2 - "Since Lemieux's adjusted numbers were better, if they had played in the same era and Lemieux had played for as long as Gretzky...he'd be the one with all the records".
Let's set aside for a moment debating the merits of health and longevity when considering a player's place in history. I tend to think that it does have value, even though I'll take a career with moments of transcendence (say, Peter Forsberg's) over one of plodding consistency (say, Dave Andreychuk's) any day. The longevity vs. brilliance debate belongs more in the discussion of whether Gordie Howe should be ranked higher than Lemieux (although I hate to perpetuate the myth that the only reason Howe belongs this high is because of his longevity...his peak was remarkable even if it failed to reach the lofty heights of Lemieux). When it comes to Gretzky, though, some of number 99's supporters use Gretzky's consistency as a trump card, saying that it should end the discussion of who was the greatest player since with Gretzky there were no "what-ifs?". I believe this is a mistake for the pro-Gretzky camp...what they should instead focus on is what Gretzky did in the same amount of time as Lemieux.
Here is a simple fact: even though his total points were immensely helped by his longevity, Gretzky's averages were dragged down by playing nearly 65% more games than Lemieux for his career. The trait that made Gretzky's records among the most untouchable in sports history, his consistent productivity over twenty seasons, is also what opened the cracks for Lemieux supporters to argue in favour of Lemieux's excellence.
Most hockey fans would agree that forwards' production tends to go down after the age of 30 (there are of course exceptions, but for the most part it's a reality that a superstars' production from the ages of, say, 22-30 will be greater than it is from 31-38). Mario Lemieux played 246 games after his age-30 season, 1995-1996, in which he scored 388 adjusted points, for an average of 1.58 per game. Wayne Gretzky played 595 games after his age-30 season, nearly two-and-a-half times as many as Mario. In that time, his adjusted-average was 1.26 per game (which, by the way, while not as high as Mario's average, would still be good enough to lead the NHL in most seasons. We're talking about two incredibly special talents with these guys, in case that wasn't already abundantly obvious).
Let's look at what came before those age-31 seasons. Mario accumulated 1,185 points (again, all these figures are adjusted for scoring averages) in 681 games, for a per-game average of 1.74. Gretzky had 1,781 points in 949 games, for an average of 1.88 per game. Even their goals-per-game averages are remarkably close during this period: Lemieux is at 0.715 GPG while Wayne is at 0.625. So it's not, as some Mario supporters claim, that the only reason Gretzky dwarfed Lemieux statistically is that he was fortunate enough to stay healthy, avoid the nagging back problems that Mario was plagued with, and of course not be unfortunate enough to contract Hodgkin's disease. While they were young and in their primes, and even when adjusted for the seasons they played in, Gretzky still outproduced Lemieux on an average basis...not even factoring that he played over 95% of his team's games during that stretch while Mario played 70%.
Gretzky was more productive each game (granted, by a slim degree) and played far more games. If this were any other sport, it would be case closed that Gretzky was the better offensive player (and since no one, not even the most diehard Lemieux supporter, would make the case that Lemieux was appreciably better than Gretzky defensively, I guess that makes Gretzky the better overall player). No one would make the case that a basketball player who averaged, say, 30 PPG, 7 RPG and 7 APG for 80 games a season during his career wasn't superior to someone who averaged 29 PPG, 8 RPG and 6 APG for only 55 games a season unless the latter player was markedly better defensively than the former (which Lemieux wasn't when compared to Gretzky). No one would argue that they'd rather have a Gold Glove-winning first baseman with an OPS of 1.000 who tended to miss 40 games a year over a Gold Glove-winning first baseman with an OPS of 1.025 who hardly missed any time at all. You wouldn't see that in most other sports. But hockey is a far more subjective game than baseball, which can be quantified almost to the tee, and perhaps a tad more so than basketball, and so once their statistical objections have fallen by the wayside, the Lemieux supporters tend to fall back on difficult-to-quantify arguments, and easily-regurgitated myths are born. Let's look at a few of them:
ARGUMENT #3 - "Gretzky had far better teammates than the no-names that Lemieux was stuck with".
This is similar to the Russell/Chamberlain myth (chronicled and refuted so well in Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball) that Chamberlain supporters use to attempt to belittle Russell's eleven titles. There is no doubt that the Edmonton Oilers of the mid-1980s are one of the greatest teams ever assembled. The roster is strewn with Hall-of-Famers. To wit: Messier; Coffey; Kurri; Fuhr; Anderson. They were all at or near their peak production levels during this year...interestingly enough, except for Messier, who's best statistical seasons (when adjusted for scoring averages) actually came with the New York Rangers.
But notice I specify that the Oilers of the mid 1980s were amongst the greatest ever. Gretzky detractors make it sound as if Wayne just walked into an already-established dynasty, as opposed to being the foundation for them, as well as the playmaker who made superstars out of players who may in other circumstances have merely been stars. One need only look at Gretzky's first two seasons as a perfect refutation of that ill-thought-out theory.
In 1979-1980, at the age of eighteen it should be noted, Gretzky led the transition of the Oilers from the WHA to the NHL by walking into the league and tying for the lead in scoring with 123 adjusted points (137 in real life). He averaged 1.52 adjusted points-per-game in this season...higher than any mark that Lemieux put up in any of his first three seasons.
Of course he did...he had one of the greatest outlet passers of all-time (Coffey) feeding him, and had snipers like Messier, Kurri and Anderson to finish his own beautiful passes, right? Nope. Coffey, Kurri and Anderson weren't even in the league yet. And Messier? He was tearing the league up as an obvious Hall-of-Famer-in-waiting with a scintillating rookie season in which he put up 11 goals, 19 assists and a -15 rating (Gretzky incidentally was a +15 on this "dynasty" team, which finished fourth in the Smythe Division and was promptly swept in the first round).
Gretzky's best teammates? Blair McDonald, Stan Weir, Brett Callighen, Dave Lumley and Dave (not Dale) Hunter. Not exactly a team that was being mistaken for the '77 Canadiens. Blair McDonald, by the way, scored adjusted numbers of 41 goals, 43 assists and 84 points as Gretzky's linemate. So he must have been OK, right? Yes, his goal-scoring talent was so prolific and had so little to do with Gretzky's unparalled passing that Edmonton traded him the next season and McDonald was out of the league two years after that, having failed to match in his remaning three seasons his goal total as Gretzky's linemate for one season. I should just stop right now, having made my case, but I'll continue.
The next season saw the arrival of Kurri, Anderson and Coffey, so Lemieux supporters may claim that Gretzky only had one season to deal with trashy teammates as opposed to the five that Mario endured. But while Gretzky was now teammates with future Hall-of-Famers, they weren't exactly playing like it at the time. Gretzky once again led the league in scoring with 134 adjusted points and a rate of 1.64 PPG (again, 15% higher than anything Mario produced in his first three seasons). He had more than double the points of any of his Oiler teammates, with rookie Jari Kurri, his new linemate, being the second-highest scorer.
The names were there, but they weren't who we came to know them as (or to be even more daring, who Gretzky helped make them). Messier wasn't Messier...he had 51 points and was a -12, frustrating his coaches with his defensive shortcomings while Gretzky put up a +41 for a sub-.500 team. Anderson wasn't Anderson...he only had 43 points (again, all these figures are adjusted for leaguewide scoring averages). And most noticeably, Coffey wasn't the offensive force he would develop into, chipping in only 26 points. Once again the Oilers finished with a mediocre record but fared better in the playoffs, upsetting the Montreal Canadiens in a playoff win that would set the stage for the dynasty that was to ensue in the coming years.
Things finally clicked for the Oilers the next season, as Gretzky put up truly one of the greatest statistical seasons any sport has seen, going crazy on the league with 72 adjusted goals (a record-setting 92 in real-life) and 166 points. Once again, Gretzky's point total was more than double any of his teammates...but at least now he was getting more support. Messier scored 39 adjusted goals. No one else eclipsed 30. Gretzky had 72. Anderson was second on the team with 82 adjusted points. Eighty-two. Gretzky had 166. I just felt it needed repeating.
Let's call that third season a wash and not factor it into the "bad teammates" era. Even the most entrenched Mario supporter couldn't argue that Gretzky had particularly excellent, or even good, teammates in 1980-1981, and they certainly would acknowledge that what Gretzky had to work with in his rookie season was the envy of no one, even Lemieux. If Lemieux supporters point to Gretzky's Cup-winning seasons and how everyone was clicking on the Oilers team at just the right time, I don't begrudge them that. But it cuts both ways.
Here's how Lemieux's teammates broke down. On his 1991 Cup team, he had the following teammates: Jaromir Jagr; Paul Coffey; Bryan Trottier; Ron Francis; Mark Recchi ; Larry Murphy. That's four Hall-of-Famers and two future ones (Jagr and Recchi), for a total of six, compared to Gretzky's five with the Oilers, in case you're counting. Trottier was an aging veteran who was brought in for leadership and a checking role...he was a shell of his former self and nothing approaching a hall-of-fame level player, so let's scratch him from the list. And Jagr was a green rookie, not the dominant scorer he would become, although he did chip in with some key goals in the playoffs. But I didn't even mention Joe Mullen (another Hall-of-Famer), as well as John Cullen (28 goals, 86 points) and Kevin Stevens (36 goals, 78 points). Recchi led the team in regular-season scoring with 103 adjusted points and went to town in the playoffs, as did Stevens and Murphy. Were their inflated numbers the result of playing with Mario? Doubtful, as he only played 26 games during the regular season due to back surgery.
This is not to detract from Lemieux, who rightfully won the Conn Smythe award in 1991 with 38 adjusted-points in 23 games in the playoffs (44 actual points). It is simply to point out that the early-90s Penguins team were comparable in talent to the mid-1980s Oilers.
So what of Lemieux's teammates early in his career? I am the first to acknowledge that Lemieux had little to work with...the Penguins' general crappiness is the reason that they landed the lottery pick and drafted Lemieux in the first place. Lemieux's best teammates in his rookie season were Warren Young and Doug Shedden. Ugh. Young was very much like Blair McDonald...someone who benefited for a season or two playing with a transcendent superstar and then faded into obscurity. But Shedden was almost equally as productive in the previous two seasons as he was in 1984-1985 (Lemieux's rookie season), generally falling in the 55-65 adjusted points-range. Not spectacular, to be sure, but certainly comparable (and perhaps superior) to Gretzky's teammates in his rookie season, Blair McDonald and Stan Weir. Again, I reiterate: Gretzky put up 123 points and finished tied with Marcel Dionne for the scoring lead that season; Lemieux put up a still-remarkable 81 adjusted points. But was the talent-level of Blair McDonald, Stan Weir and Brett Callighen really enough to account for those extra 42 points?
In Lemieux's second season, with a core of Mike Bullard (not the talk-show host), defenseman Moe Mantha and Doug Shedden, Lemieux had 112 adjusted points in his healthiest season. The next four scorers on the team averaged 55 adjusted points. In Gretz' second season (in which he had 134), the next four scorers on the Oilers averaged 51 adjusted points. Now, granted, those "next four" included Kurri, Anderson and Messier...but as I discussed before, they weren't producing at the levels we would come to expect.
Well yes, the Lemieuxites might say, but Lemieux had to deal with mediocre teammates for a longer period than Gretzky. Looking at merely the first five seasons of their careers as a sample, I might agree. Gretzky's Oilers were a young team that began to gel and improve exponentially. Kurri and Coffey in particular began to play like true superstars. Lemieux's core was Dan Quinn and Randy Cunneyworth. Quinn had been fairly productive in Calgary before joining the Pens, getting about 60 adjusted points a season. Cunneyworth was more of a 50-point grinder. Neither was setting the league on fire or destined for Hall-of-Fame careers like Gretzky's teammates. But in 1987 (after Lemieux's third season), Pittsburgh acquired Paul Coffey, giving Lemieux a weapon (a puck-moving defenceman) that Gretzky had enjoyed. It bears noting that Gretzky benefited from having Coffey on his team producing at a high level for six seasons (it was seven as a teammate, but I discount Coffey's ineffective rookie season), while Lemieux had him for four-and-half elite years.
Paul Coffey does not a team make, though, so I will acknowledge that Lemieux's Penguin teams were still lacking heading into 1989, perhaps Mario's most impressive season, in which he put up an ungodly 168 adjusted points and made linemate Rob Brown, who wouldn't make much of a dent in the league after this season, a near-100 adjusted-point scorer. Coffey was remarkable in this season also, but other than that Lemieux only had the aforementioned Dan Quinn chipping in. So during their respective career seasons, Mario had less to work with than Gretzky, but it wasn't by much.
As already documented, Lemieux's post-1990 teams were excellent for a stretch of three or four seasons, with Jagr in particular coming into his own. It shouldn't be forgotten that Jagr and Ron Francis were among the top point-getters of the 1990s. For anyone who thinks that Jagr's numbers were inflated by Lemieux, look toward the 1994-1995 season, which Lemieux missed, in which Jagr led the league in scoring and won the Ted Lindsay Award (then the Lester Pearson) as MVP as voted by the players. So let's say that Lemieux's early-90s days compare reasonably with Gretzky's mid-80s days.
What the "Gretzky had a dynasty" camp tend to forget is only the most important development in hockey during the 1980s: the trade of the Great One to Los Angeles. When Gretzky joined the Kings, they were an untalented bunch who had just finished with 68 points in the standings, 20th in a 21-team league. Marcel Dionne had retired a few seasons earlier. Luc Robitaille was an excellent scoring left-winger, but beyond him, there was essentially only Bernie Nicholls (who had averaged about 75 adjusted points in the previous three seasons) and a past-his-prime Dave Taylor. In Gretzky's first season with the Kings, they improved by 23 points in the standings, and Nicholls blew up for 125 adjusted points as Gretzky's teammate. For the next five or six seasons, Gretzky played for a team that consisted of only one Hall-of-Fame level guy (Robitaille) and relied on consistent contributions from Bernie Nicholls, Steve Duchene and Tomas Sandstrom. Even when the Kings acquired Gretzky's old teammate Jari Kurri, he was far less productive than during his Oiler years. And defenceman Rob Blake, an excellent player who joined the league in 1991-1992, was still extremely green during his first few seasons with the Kings.
The Kings didn't do much during Gretzky's tenure, just as the Penguins didn't do much during Lemieux's first few seasons with the Penguins. The exception is of course the 1993 playoffs, which Gretzky described as the best he ever had, leading a Kings team (again, a core of Sandstrom, Robitaille and an aging Kurri) to the Cup finals. It was a matchup against the Canadiens in what may have been two of the great examples of superstars willing mediocre teams to the finals, with Patrick Roy playing out of his mind to lead the Habs to a championship.
So to recap: we've established that Lemieux's Penguin teams from about 1991 to 1993 (three seasons) were comparable to the Oilers from about 1983 to 1988 (five seasons). That's two seasons of playing with an elite-level team that Gretz has on Mario. Both had terrible teams in the first two seasons of their career...Mario continued to have a mediocre-to-poor team for the next four seasons. Gretz endured mediocre-to-poor teams after being traded to Los Angeles, while Mario played with a consistently contending (although by no means dynasty-level) Penguin team in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s. Making nonsense statements like "well, Messier and Kurri won a Cup without Gretzky and he never won one without them" ignores that hockey is a team game and is about as useful as pointing out that the Penguins with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin developed into an Eastern power and eventual Stanley Cup champion after Mario retired.
Let's look at Mario's first six seasons (in which he had less-than-spectacular teammates, as his defenders always point to) and compare them to Gretzky's first two seasons with the Oilers and his first four with the Kings (which we've established had comparably uninspiring rosters):
Lemieux "Weak Teammate" Era (1984-1990): 438 GP, 289 adjusted goals, 701 adjusted points, 1.60 PPG
Gretzky "Weak Teammate" Era (1979-1981; 1988-1992): 474 GP, 235 adjusted goals, 778 adjusted points, 1.64 PPG
So when we look at how they fared with comparably non-superstar teammates, Gretzky still comes out on top. And that's not even factoring in that Lemieux's "weak teammate" era came when he was in his prime, whereas Gretzky was putting up monster numbers with the Kings at the age of 33 (he led the league in scoring with a non-playoff team in 1993-1994...I didn't even count that season in his "weak teammate" era, although I probably should have).
The "Gretzky strolled into the middle of a dynasty" argument is a myth, plain and simple.
ARGUMENT #4 - "Lemieux was the better pure goal-scorer"
Here's an argument that I fully concede, and it may go towards explaining why people consider Lemieux the better player. Lemieux was the more physically dominant player than Gretzky, and a better one-on-one force-of-nature (although Gretzky is underrated in his one-on-one skills). But this does not necessarily mean that Lemieux was the better pure offensive force. It's similar to the Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate: Ovechkin is more awe-inspiring, Crosby is more effective (at least, if he remains concussion-free).
Boiling such multi-faceted superstars as Gretzky and Lemieux down to one-dimensional pegs does a great disservice to both of their skills. As time has gone on, Gretzky's pure goal-scoring ability has been forgotten. During his first eight seasons, Gretzky averaged 55 adjusted goals and twice bested 70. And as I highlighted before, Gretzky's GPG before his age-31 season was 0.625. Lemieux's was even better at an astounding 0.715, but not by enough that it should belittle Gretzky's goal-scoring.
Similarly, Lemieux's incredible passing should not be forgotten. His assist rate is right up there with Bobby Orr for among the highest in history, bested only by Gretzky's unparalleled marks. Even during the "weak teammate" era that I highlighted, Lemieux averaged nearly an adjusted assist per game. If you watch some of the Penguins' games from the early-1990s, when Lemieux actually had teammates who could keep up with him, it was artistry to behold.
So I will concede that Lemieux was a better goal-scorer than Gretzky by a small margin, although not by nearly as large a margin as their final career adjusted goals-per-game rates would suggest (as mentioned, Gretzky's goal numbers went down as he got older). As Gretzky stayed in the league into his late-thirties, he adjusted to an almost strictly passing role. This period may have diminished him in the minds of those who were seeing Lemieux tear up the league during that same period. We missed Gretzky's run-and-gun days...he needed to be more cerebral near the end to remain elite. What this meant is that Gretzky doubters began to think that his gaudy point totals were merely the result of getting cheap second-assists.
There's something else to be said on this point: Lemieux was the more dominant one-on-one player, Gretzky the more cerebral passer (even though each was excellent at the other's supposed specialty). This to many suggests that, in a vacuum, Lemieux was the better player. But hockey is a team game, and I would suggest that Gretzky's excellence more readily translates to winning hockey than Lemieux's did. Watching some of the Oilers' games of the early-to-mid-1980s, you see the way even journeymen on the team began to see the game differently by virtue of playing with Gretzky. They started making bold passes and seeing angles to open space that may not have occurred to them before. Gretzky's vision for the game wore off on his teammates, even if not to the level of his own genius. I'm not saying that this did not occur with Lemieux, but with Lemieux one was always in awe of his size and control of the puck, and you can see at certain moments even excellent Pittsburgh players looking in reverance at what he does.
Of course you would want Mario Lemieux as a teammate or on your team as a fan...he's unquestionably one of the four greatest hockey players to ever live (which placement you give to him in relation to Orr or Howe is more up for debate in my mind than in comparison to Gretzky), and arguably the most talented along with Orr. But when you factor in the sustained health and consistency, the superior productivity in both assists and points and the only-slightly-inferior productivity in goals, plus the infectiousness of his vision for the game, and dispel the arguments that he lucked into a historically-great team and benefited from a high-scoring era, one has to give the edge to the Great One.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)