Quote:
Originally Posted by handgroen
i think it's fair to say that the gap between wayne and the rest is more significant than the gap between jordan and the rest for example.
from a stats standpoint wayne might have been the most dominant athlete in history.
the record book belongs to wayne gretzky it's kind of ridiculous.
|
Mario played 915 NHL games and had 1723 points. I'll leave playoffs out of this.
He's a career 1.88 PPG player. Gretzky has 1487 regular season GP and 2857 points. Obviously that's insane, but it's only 0.04 PPG better than Lemieux. Gretzky is a career 1.92 PPG player.
If Mario had played the same number of games as Wayne, he ends up with 2796 points. That's without allowing for an increase in production due to more GP during the prime early years of his career.
Lemieux never played a full season, and while he plays 70+ games in four of his first five seasons, he doesn't get to that mark again until 1995-96. Conversely, Wayne played 70+ games his first eight years in the league, with his low point being a 74 game campaign in 83-84.
As things stand in real life, Wayne Gretzky would be the all time leading scorer if he'd never tallied a goal. I think, however, there's a compelling case to be made that a healthy Mario Lemieux finishes ahead of him.
But that's why they play the games. Maybe Lemieux would've been the best there ever. In real life, Gretzky is the GOAT.
If you add their playoff totals, this becomes a laugher for Gretzky. Wayne played 101 more playoff games than Mario, and scored 210 more playoff points. #### right off. I don't care how good your team is - it's not like Lemieux's team didn't also have Jaromir Jagr and Ron Francis in their 20s.
Wayne.