Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesFanStrandedInEDM
If Gretzky played in an era when the goalie stops 5% more shots on average throughout a career, that would definitely impact his goal totals and the goal totals of the players he was setting up. in 1985(Gretzky's 215 pts season) All top 10 players had point totals 105 or greater. A feat Crsoby has only done twice. Can we not just say that if Neal Broten can score 105 pts in the NHL in 1985, it was probably easier to score back then?
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I think even the strongest Gretzky supporters would agree that playing in the 80s helped his point totals. It's to what extent that we get hung up on. Would Gretzky be putting up 200 point totals in today's NHL consistently? Ehh probably not. Would Tim Jackman teleported back into 1985 be challenging Gretzky for the scoring lead? Ehh going to go with no. Somewhere in the middle is our answer.
If you want to bring up 1985, remove Gretzky from the equation for a second and hear me out. Lemieux's 141 point second place finish is still a high number, and he would lead the league in his 19 year old season just like Crosby if not for Gretzky. And you're right that top 10 did score pretty highly in 1985. But compared to Crosby's top 10 finishers when he had his best season, so far, with 120 points in 2007 is it an astronomical difference? Everyone in the top 10 had over 95 points, and if Jokinen can score 91 that year is Broten really that big of an insult to Gretzky?
Lemieux's 141 points to Crosby's 120 is 118% difference
Coffee's 138 points to Thornton's 114 is 121% difference
Kurri's 131 points to Lecavalier's 108 is 121% difference
Bossy's 123 points to Heatley's 105 is 117% difference
Stastny's 122 points to St. Louis's 102 is 120% difference
Savard's 116 points to Hossa's 100 is 116% difference
Naslund's 110 points to Sakic's 100 is 110% difference
Hawerchuk's 105 points to Jagr's 96 is 109% difference
Broten's 105 points to Savard's 96 is 109% difference
Goulet's 104 points to Briere's 95 is 109% difference
(Sorry terrible formatting, but from there you can see that somewhere between that top tier scoring was up between 10% and 20% without factoring in Gretzky, and more importantly the playstyle, the goalies, the competition, the parity, the training etc. etc. etc. I'm just more going for a comparison between their peers)
Now placing Gretzky and his 215 points back into that mess and the equivalent would be placing a player in 2007 who scored somewhere between 180 and 195 points. Imagine if in 2007 a player did put up those type of points, would Crosby be even getting the time of day? The way Gretzky dominated his peers up until Lemieux broke out is just so far out of what Crosby has done to date that the comparison becomes pretty iffy at best to me.
Then of course there's the argument about all the other stuff but just in terms of comparison to peers Gretzky has a leg up.