He was "honestly nothing more than league average his last 8 seasons"?
Here is where Gretzky ranked in points his last 8 seasons:
'91-92 (3rd)
'92-93 (outside of top 20... missed 38 games)
'93-94 (1st)
'94-95 (19th)
'95-96 (12th)
'96-97 (tied 4th)
'97-98 (tied 3rd)
'98-99 (outside of top 20... missed 12 games)
Lemieux may have started his career with some poor teams, but Gretzky ended his career with poor teams.
Goal rates are absolutely skewed when you take 4 seasons away from Lemieux in the decline phase of his career during the peak of the neutral zone trap. Maybe not as skewed as a player like Bossy, but it does make Lemieux look better when you try and extrapolate his numbers. Looking at his career arc, I think if Lemieux hadn't had cancer and got a couple of injury seasons back he realistically could have cracked 2500 points, but he wouldn't have beaten Gretzky's 2857.
If you want to argue Lemieux's 199 point season was better than any of Gretzky's four 200+ seasons, you might be right. Still even after adjusting for teams, it would only be marginally better and Gretzky had an insanely high peak for 14 seasons while Lemieux's insanely high peak lasted about 10 seasons. Again, Gretzky's linemates look better in large part because they got to play with Wayne Gretzky. Kurri is probably a HOFer anywhere he plays, and Coffey certainly is, but their numbers are vastly inflated by playing with the greatest play maker of all time much more so than Gretzky's numbers are inflated by playing shifts with them.
I get that you are from Pittsburgh and absolutely should idolize Mario, but you are misremembering or misrepresenting how good Gretzky was even in those last few years and while even the most generous cherry picking of stats puts Lemieux in Gretzky's league I don't see how one could argue that he surpasses Gretzky.
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Originally Posted by markf31
Goal rates are hardly skewed towards shorter careers when you're discussing two players who both played 16+ seasons in the league. While you argue Gretzky's long career shouldn't be held against him neither should then Lemieux's short career. Lemieux played just 915 games while Gretzky played 1482. So it's hardly fair to compare straight raw stats when Lemieux played 516 fewer games, you have to compare points/game and goals/game. You say Lemieux would never come close to Gretzky's numbers if he had played as long, but Lemieux trails Gretzky in points/game by just 0.038 points per game and given a player of Lemieux's pedigree its quite possible he could have come very close to or broken Gretzky's career numbers.
And no one is penalizing Gretzky for playing with the the HOFers but he put up his best numbers in those years, while some of Lemieux's highest point totals came playing on teams WITHOUT Jagr, Francis or Stevens. Lemieux put up 199 points in the 88-89 and single handedly took that team to the playoffs, something Gretzky never had to do in with the 80s Oilers. Lemieux put up over 100 points in each of his first 6 seasons, making the playoffs just once with a Pens team that wallowed in the bottom of the Whales conference.
In Gretzky's last 8 seasons, he scored more than 30 goals just twice and put up over 100 points just twice. I just can't say a player was the best ever when for the last 8 years of his career he was honestly nothing more than average statistically speaking.
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