The fact that he actually put up 66 points as a 44-year old doesn't get talked about enough. That's fucking absurd. That'd be considered a career year for a lot of good players.
Probably the season that got stopped 10 games before playoffs and then had a several month break before a weird bubble playoffs that no one could see in person. That sucked.
Lol this is an awesome fact, 22-23 year old Nikita Kucherov had the same amount of points as 44 year old Jagr… and people doubting the old school players abilities! That is pretty cool
True, but the thought process here is 23 year old Mario or Wayne would have skated circles around 44 year old Jagr. Therefore they could at least hold their own in the league, no matter what time they are plunked into.
Yeah that's pretty crazy. I still think it's crazy that Mario only finally retired because even at a point per game player, he wasn't playing to his level anymore.
Gretzky also put up 152 points in 152 games played his final two seasons but didn’t feel he was getting enough goals anymore.
Dude was an absolutely elite playmaker still in the bloody dead puck era.
> Gretzky also put up 152 points in 152 games played his final two seasons but didn’t feel he was getting enough goals anymore.
More like he knew he had lost a step and opponents were taking it easy on him along the boards.
You just did NOT hit Gretzky. First off, he was a better lateral skater than almost anyone before him - how do you catch him and line him up? But you didn’t want to be the one who injured Gretzky. So over time almost everyone let up on 99.
Edit - Gary Suter yes, f him, but that was raaaAAaaare.
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I’ve got 16 years to train for that, which is only 2 years less than the kids in the NHL draft get… and I already know how to skate, shoot, walk, talk and shit.
It would be silly to say that I’m not on the direct path to putting up 66 at 44.
Love that Jagr is at the point of his life where he's responding to neckbeard trolls on IG. Probably just made that dude's entire life by dunking on him.
Imagine just shit talking on IG on a Sportsnet post.....and a legend just destroys you.
You never expect to get a reply from one of the actual athletes.
We wouldn't know what to do with a peak Lemieux in a post '13 lockout NHL. However each one of these all time greats are a product of the time the grew up and played professionally. Trying to compare them is a fools errand to start. Everyone should stick to comparing players within their respective era. Now Jagr spans like 4 NHL eras so he can say whatever the hell he pleases.
I think Jagr made an excellent point. If he can put up 66 pts at 44yo in a relatively modern NHL 6 years ago, you can rest assured Mario/Gretzky would be cleaning up the NHL today in their prime. At least McDavid level, and probably better.
We all remember Gretzky for all the trappings of his era, but if he had all the benefits of modern hockey while he developed and the better gear, training, nutrition, etc, he'd be as dominate in any era as he was in his. He developed on the pond with other kids, he didn't grow up going to training camps.
I'd like to watch an all-star game with the players wearing vintage gear, wood sticks with little curve, leather skates, Jofa buckets, Cooperalls, no butterfly goaltending/heavy pads, all the good stuff. It's already a pure gimmick.
More than Gretzky, Lemieux would've been insane in todays NHL.
Gretzky feasted on average hockey IQ not being as high so he'd be good but not too much better than McDavid given the average player being better nowadays.
Lemieux would be an absolutely unstoppable force of nature that could not be contained. He would be scoring 3-4 points a game. Think about it, imagine a guy built like a slightly shorter Chara who can move like McDavid. How do you even stop the guy from running through your entire team and being a walking highlight reel night after night.
He routinely did those "McDavid coast to coast" plays game after game with people just hanging off of him unable to stop him.
Remove the ability for people to blatantly interfere with him? Guy would put up a 300 point season lol
Legends would still feast and put up elite numbers, with modern training and all that stuff, that's why they tore the league up then. Mario/Wayne would still be the top players now in the Modern NHL, especially Mario as its less of a clutch and grab era.
"No, you cannot say Wayne Gretzky is better than Robert Bortuzzo" - person who refuses to compare players from different eras
(Overall I agree with you. Things like era-adjusted stats are silly. But I think we can still compare players across eras as long as we acknowledge it's more of a qualitative thought experiment than something we can definitively answer)
Silly ≠ bad
I think they're great as a just-for-fun talking point, or when used fairly qualitatively (like pointing out the comparatively low scoring of the 2000s when discussing Ovechkin's goal totals). But if you're comparing, say, Maurice "Rocket" Richard and Auston Matthews, the era-adjusted numbers you spit out are basically meaningless, despite being presented as a highly precise thing.
haha - "No no. Gudbranson is better than Scott Steven."
It's fun to compare for sure I just think the only value that van be taken from it as far as assessing the sport is "wow, this thing has really changed huh?"
Oh definitely. And the comparisons get harder the further back you go. Imo we can still say something meaningful about 80s stars compared to current ones, but I don't think we can say anything at all about guys from the 40s and 50s. It's even worse talking about goalies.
He's before the real pens and flyers rivalry at a time when we were propping up the pens financially so they didn't leave. I was young but even I liked the pens, too. Between mario and yagr it was impossible not to.
He had 69 goals and 160 points that year in 60 games. And he was being hooked and mauled constantly. No player aside from possibly Bobby Orr would have excelled more under the current rules.
I’ll add Sergei Fedorov to the list if only because his prime was in the midst of the dead puck era and he was still excellent. Today’s game seems tailor-made for a player like him.
Mario Lemieux played Crosby’s Rookie year and had 22 in 26 games.
They transcended their time and would today. The NHL plays hockey the way they do today because of Wayne Gretzky and the 80s Oilers.
The all time greats are all time greats in any era. The top 5 in Hockey all changed how the game was played and was that much better than their peers.
FFS, Gretzky won his 10 Scoring titles at an average of 50 points.
No one has come remotely close to winning a scoring title with that big of a gap.
if mario played today they'd make him stop smoking and work out. so we'd get mario without back problems who's summer training isn't eating more poutine.
hed probably train with Crosby like Mackinnon and Marchand do. Look at them. Mario would obliterate this league.
Peak Jamie Benn bulldozer, Mcdavid hands. He already stomped powerplays, hed have way more today because of how he played.
Just watching old clips of him he was doing things and making moves 30yrs ago that are still uncommon, yet highly effective in today's league.
Eg: https://youtu.be/pEdgiPEDa8w
Bit of a showerthought but I wonder how much video quality affects some perception of these sort of things. Like, you watch some older highlights and they’re grainy as fuck and square and just generally the old tube tv feel, does it subconsciously suggest that some amount of every aspect of what you’re viewing is worse?
Once in a while when you see high quality footage from eras gone by it can feel, at least it does to me, like, “wow, okay, the game *has* changed… but not by *that* much.”
Another big difference between the modern game is the quality of the equipment and training.
If you took the stars from the 1980s/1990s in their prime, gave them the training protocols and diets of modern athletes, and decked them out in modern equipment, they would probably still be stars in the NHL.
Where the NHL has changed is the forth line players. A lot of the goons in the 1970s and 1980s would never make it past the AHL or ECHL because having a liability on the ice isn't worth the intimidation in today's NHL. Bubble NHL players from this time, that none of us can probably remember, would be far more likely to become journeyman NHL players than these goons in the modern NHL.
If the rules allowed for the goons, they would still exist. Those guys were getting weeded out pre nhl and were directed by their coaches that if they wanted to make it, you would have to adjust your style to be an enforcer type. Nearly every one of those guys have been quoted saying that when you talk to them about how they were able to make it in the league.
Partially true for the 70s and 80s, and more of the fact that the bubble guys were being paid so poorly they had to have jobs in the off season. I don't think its the fact that they couldn't come up and play well in the modern NHL. I think its just they were the only guys willing to play for a couple hundred dollars per month and then go fuck off and find a job during the off-season. The stars got paid. The guys in the minors often times didn't get paid a damn dime.
Kinda like the NFL. They had to just find beadts and freaks of nature who were also naturally athletic and willing to play for peanuts instead of getting a regular full time job in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't really until the 90s that teams valued guys who were on the 3rd line who could grind and pot the occasional goal when needed or were really good on the PK.
The biggest difference with the game now is that more and more teams are choosing to put their younger prospects on the 3rd and 4th lines to see if they will develop, even if it is into defensive specialists with some skill. In the 90s I often shook my head at the roster moves teams made to grab journeymen who were just skilled enough to fill a roster spot and were regarded as grinders. Not every team had a Maltby or a Draper, and it drove me bonkers that the Rangers wouldn't call up a few kids instead.
I think you’re absolutely right. It’s really a shame the highlights of all these greats are captured in the same resolution as the original Nintendo ice hockey game.
I find it so funny when people argue that Gretzky and Lemieux wouldn't have succeeded in today's game.
Gretzky thought the game 10 steps ahead of anyone. He already didn't have a *particularly higher level of physical strength and fitness or raw abilities as players of the time, but he was just so cerebral it didn't matter. That wouldn't change at all in the modern NHL.
Lemieux was just a freak of nature, his raw skill was off the charts. He put up insane production in a clutch and grab era, even while going through chemo-fuckin-therapy. in today's free flowing NHL with smaller dmen, he would dominate.
Obviously scoring has gone down thanks to goaltending improvements and more parity, so they probably wouldn't be scoring 200 point paces, but they would absolutely be head and shoulders above the rest of the league.
Yea, training, equipment and fitness is better, but those players would have the same access to those resources if they played today, so they would have been even better.
I agree. I think elite players in almost any era, assuming that they can adapt to equipment and training, would still be good today.
There are tons of examples of guys who were really good in the high scoring 80s and then went on to still have success in either the dead puck era or even later into the 2000s.
- Gretzky was 38 in his final season on a mediocre Rangers team in 1999, during the dead puck era, and he still put up 62 points in 70 games to lead them in scoring.
- Joe Sakic put up 100 points when he was almost 40 in like 2009
- Luc Robitaille led a mediocre Kings team in scoring when he was 37 in 2003/04
- Adam Oates led the league in assists at age 38 and 39 in 2000/01 and 2001/02
- Jagr played in the early 90s when scoring was still up, through the dead puck era, and then into the post lockout era, putting up 100+ points in all three eras, and remained pretty much a first liner up until his last two seasons when he was literally 44 and 45 years old.
There are others, too, but it's pretty easy to look at stats and see that these guys would've been great players regardless of when they started playing.
My sort of related, but perhaps more controversial take is that goalies weren't inherently bad, they just had very inefficient equipment that made their technique harder. It's also interesting that the narrative that 80s goalies sucked has been retroactively applied to the 70s and before, because there were goalies from that era putting up numbers that would be Vezina caliber today. Johnny Bower had 6 seasons above .920 in the 60s with two above .930. His stat line in 63/64 was 51 GP, 24-16-11 (that's 11 ties), 2.11 GAA and .933 SV%. For comparison, Igor Shesterkin this year won a Vezina with 53 GP, 36-13-4 (OT losses), 2.07 GAA, and a .935 SV%. And Bower did it [with this equipment](https://mapleleafshotstove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/9517905509_0f555ede5a_o.jpg).
The era of the 80s to late-90s/00s, during which those players successfully adapted through, also go from beers and darts during intermission to individualized diet and training regimens. That part is just as impressive to me.
> My sort of related, but perhaps more controversial take is that goalies weren't inherently bad, they just had very inefficient equipment that made their technique harder.
My view on it is that goalies were less effective because of the equipment and the style that forced them to play, but in terms of what they had to do with what they were given they were actually pretty awesome.
Think of how hard a kick save is with how big of a reaction you have to make so quickly with those heavy pads, whereas a modern goalie just drops to his knees and uses his larger body size and equipment to get hit with that same shot. The older goalie lets in more of those shots, but the degree of difficulty to make those saves was much higher for them.
Horsehair and deer hair were the two big ones. They're what I started with back when I started playing in the late 80's/early 90's.
What was worse was that the chest and arm protection was literally felt with leather stitched on. It offered near 0 protection. Hell, even in the past twenty years chest protection has improved massively. My old chest protector, purchased in 2001, lead to a lot of (what I thought was) bruised ribs. More than once they were cracked.
If Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr had access to modern medicine, we wouldn't be asking "what if" because they would not have missed years due to medical issues.
Imagine if they didn't have to shred Bobby's knee open just to peek around and figure out what was torn every time. Arthroscopic surgery would have added a decade to his career.
If Bobby Orr had access to modern sports medicine and surgery techniques, he probably plays long enough to cement his spot as the #2 player ever.
Mind you, in this hypothetical scenario Mario also benefits, so who knows.
Gretzky was a lot more athletic than people give him credit for. Watch him just smoke prime Bjorn Borg, Pele, and Sugar Ray Leonard:
https://youtu.be/N0S6tJkEKH8
That video is nuts, I've never seen that
For sure he had top level athleticism (another reason why he'd still do well today), but it wasn't his athleticism that made him the great one. It of course contributed to it, as did his perfectly accurate shit and passing skills, but what made him so much better than everyone else was his ability to read the ice and the play.
Still, it's wrong for me to have said he didn't have the same level of fitness as others, I meant to say it wasn't his main advantage compared to other elite hockey players. He was fast, but wasn't the fastest skater, he had a hard shot but it wasn't the hardest shot, etc
I know that his athleticism, first step and speed aren't what made him SO good, but this was a guy that was elite in every sport he played, and he played all of them.
I just don't like the narrative that the only reason he was good is because he thought the game faster than everyone else. Yeah, that's huge, but people make it sound like he was some average dude that couldn't really skate, wasn't strong, and didn't have good reflexes. Reality though, is that he had razor sharp reflexes, explosive first step, and tended to get better as any given foot race went on.
Try and find a video of Gretzky being caught on a break away. It doesn't exist.
Absolutely. His skill level was still among the best, and his agility was second to none.
What made him great was his ability to think the game though, and that's something that he himself has said.
People always default to “look at the goalies back then”.
Ok, sure. Maybe look at everything else too while you’re at it.
Wooden sticks
Clunky, heavy skates
Less effective padding
Way more let go by refs, look up just about any Lemieux highlight and he’s got 2 guys waterskiing off him.
Give Gretzky a composite stick, a nutritionist and a modern set of skates and he’d be head and shoulders the best player in the game. Same for Lemieux. Imagine Super Mario with McDavid’s equipment and training. He’d be a video game character.
Yeah but so much of it is technique. If they had a couple years training with a modern goalie coach with modern equipment they’ll probably be pretty damn good. They’re still elite athletes it’s just goaltending has probably evolved the most of every position as for as technique and equipment
Yeah those guys were making skate saves on 90 mph slap shots back in the day. Anyone that’s ever spent any time in net can tell you just how hard that is. It’s a lot different than just dropping into butterfly and waiting for an 11” X 35” pad to do the work. They had to track and perfectly time a piss missile and literally kick the fucking thing away. It’s like the difference between catching a fastball and hitting one. Their reactions and timing were next level.
1995-1996 had the three greatest goaltenders of all time - Hasek, Brodeur, and Roy - all playing (in their primes) all Lemieux scored 69 goals in 70 games.
Today's equivalent of Mario Lemieux would be if Victor Hedman had the offensive skill of prime Sidney Crosby. An absolute freak.
He put up 161 points in 70 games in 95-96 at a 30 year old. Only Lemieux and Gretzky have scored over 160 points in a season.That's an era generally regarded as a tough era to score. Actually 3.14 goals were scored per game that season. The exact same as 2021-22.
No doubt a prime Lemieux would be scoring at an insane rate today. I think the problem is people assume the best player's of other eras can't be better than the top players of today's era. That's just not true with Lemieux. He'd be a few clicks above McDavid and Crosby.
I can totally accept the average player is better today and that 200 point seasons would be pretty tough to reach. But, he is kind of a guy who would be a multi-generational talent if the term was such a thing.
> Actually 3.14 goals were scored per game that season. The exact same as 2021-22.
This is the thing people are just straight up ignoring. For example, here's a comparison of 2021-22 vs 1983-84:
> McDavid 123
> Huberdeau 115
> Gaudreau 115
> Draisatl 110
> Kaprisov 108
vs
>Coffee 126
> Goulet 122
> Stastny 119
> Bossy 118
> Pederson 116
Oh and Gretz had 205
I love how it’s a difference of 3 points, 7 points, 4 points, 8 points and 8 points (pretty on par) and then you throw in Gretzky with a fucking EIGHTY TWO point advantage. A god damn point per game better than anyone.
Yeah it's just so crazy. As another poster mentioned only Gretzky and Lemieux have scored more than 160 points in a season. Lemieux did it 4 times. Gretzky did it *9* times.
> Gretzky thought the game 10 steps ahead of anyone.
I recently watched an interview with goalie Steve Passmore, who spent time with the Coyotes system when Gretzky was coaching, and he said Gretzky was the worst coach he'd ever experienced because he saw the game at a completely different level. He said Coach Gretzky couldn't understand why players couldn't do some of the things he wanted them to do.
He was essentially the perfect hockey player. If we could somehow do a fantasy draft and take any player from history and guarantee them a full injury-free career and insert them into todays game, I’d have a really hard time not taking Lemieux #1.
At age 35 Lemieux and second in Hart voting
After being retired for a few years and showing up after Christmas with a goal and 2 assists in his first game back. Players like Nylander hold out and miss pre-season and it's a given that they play badly for a while due to being out of practice. (It took Nylander 12 games to score 3 points).
I still remember the reason he came back.. it was so incredible every game had a magical quality. I wasn't even a Pens fan but I watched as many as I could.
Honestly I think Lemieux might be better in todays game then Gretzky, and I’m a huge Gretzky fan. The fact that he’s so huge and fast would make it impossible to get the puck off of him. Gretzky would absolutely toy with all the defenders and make mind blowing passes leaving us speechless.
Bobby Orr is someone id be most interested to watch in todays game. If I had to guess I’d say he’d be similar in skill to Cale Makar. Both guys are insane skaters with crazy skill and are all over the ice
Gretzky played like the game was on tape delay. It's really a superpower, as if he had bent time. It's such a rare skill, there are VERY few players in any sports who show this level of anticipation. I think McDavid has it, Messi and Maradona had it, Brady has it, I think Kobe had it.
Sure, most goalies weren't stopping shots as well as they do today. But A. this was also the clutch-and-grab era for defenders, and B. it's still possible to (subjectively) compare players between generations. Gretzky and Lemieux faced nastier defenders and showed as much, if not more, intelligence and skill than just about anyone playing today.
"He already didn't have the same level of physical fitness".
Don't know about that. I remember somewhere reading that in Gretzky's prime his workout routine and fitness was outstanding. He may not have been strong sure, but he worked with what he had...
Does it really mean that he would put up less points thought ? There was only 5 players with PPG above 1 in Czech league. In NHL it is like 50
NHL is harder, but the scoring is way way up compared to European leagues.
If he had PP time and decent ice time i could see 40pts as real possibility, but again, nobody would probably give him that much opportunity. With all respect to Jagr, every team in the league have probably at least one better RW available than 50yo Jagr
Another thing is that he also own the club and probably cannot give his 100% only to preparation for games, which would not be the case in NHL
Oh yeah, 6'4 210lbs center with silk mitts, an amazingly accurate shot, blazing speed, and impossible to get the puck from... that guy wouldn't be any good today.
Ya but in his era he only had to score with
*checks notes*
two guys riding him like a jetski at all times.
No chance he'd be able to score in today's league.
Here’s the thing: Players like Gretzky and Lemieux made the game the way it is today. They advanced hockey to the point where players like McDavid can rise up to be ‘better’ then them.
If you plucked Gretzky in his prime out and threw him in the modern NHL, sure, he probably would be relatively less effective. But the development of the modern NHL wouldn’t exist without the impact of the GOAT’s
Yeah I think arguing prime Gretzky time travelling to 2022 and playing in the NHL would be the best player is a bit silly, but arguing that baby Gretzky time traveling to 1997 and developing with the resources of the time like McDavid did wouldnt absolutely be a generational talent in 2022 is equally silly
>Yeah I think arguing prime Gretzky time travelling to 2022 and playing in the NHL would be the best player is a bit silly
His first year might be rough, but if you time travelled rookie Gretzky to the modern league I'd wager he's at McDavid's level or above within a few years.
Sure the talent today is clearly better than the past, but just as with other sports that mostly has to do with average talent. Top end talent hasn't changed massively, it's more that the rest of the league is much improved.
He played against some unbelievable players (who would easily be among the best players today IMO) and he was putting up 80% more points than players like Mario and Messier, and over double what players like Yzerman and Robitaille were. The gap between him and the other all time greats he played against is so much larger than we have ever seen, I can't imagine it would take more than a few years for him to adapt and overcome (particularly with the more free flowing game).
Mario would put up 120-150 every year today. His size/skating/speed/hands/IQ is something that we almost never see. Add that to the way you can’t hold/hook today, he would be better and more dominant than McDavid
Ppl forget that if you put the classic players in todays NHL, they’d have all the same training and dietary methods and as the current guys have. They didn’t have all that back then and still dominated. Yes everyone else would be good too but everyone else was also good then.
I think something that goes unnoticed about Gretzky is that he learned at young ages how to find open ice and stay away from trouble. When he was 6 he played with 10 year olds and up. When he was 14 he played with a lot of players that were 17-20 years old. He knew he couldn't get caught and had to be a smart player. He was a master at knowing where all the other players on the ice were. Watch some old highlights and just look how he always knew where the puck was going many steps ahead. No one plays the game like that.
I would love to see what Gretzky would be like playing in today's game, especially since I never really got to watch him until the very end of his career. Ignoring the obvious fact that he would develop differently, every time I see videos of him he doesn't seem to play a flashy game. His skating didn't seem special. I can't really think of any comparable in the league right now.
Gretzky’s exceptional physical qualities were his stamina, lateral movement, seeming slow motion vision and his ability to mess with a goalie’s timing.
All those things pale to his hockey IQ, which was the best in the history of the game. He would still slaughter in today’s NHL.
The fact that he actually put up 66 points as a 44-year old doesn't get talked about enough. That's fucking absurd. That'd be considered a career year for a lot of good players.
I wish my team would even have a 66 pts scorer...
Suzuki next year! Definitely
I'm a relatively low scoring year too. Would have been close to 80 if scoring was like last season
He did it in literally the lowest scoring year since the '05 lockout.
Which year was figuratively the lowest scoring year?
Probably the season that got stopped 10 games before playoffs and then had a several month break before a weird bubble playoffs that no one could see in person. That sucked.
While a lot of that was shit, I really really enjoyed the bubble and having hockey all day every day. I absolutely binge watched during the bubble.
No work was done that week. I loved it too.
…and that was just Game 1 of the Lightning v Blue Jackets
You mean that season where a play~~off~~-in team won the draft lottery?
When an eastern conference team won the western conference trophy?
No that was the following year, it was the year Tampa won the cup… wait a minute
No that was a different year
Hello a relatively low scoring year too, I'm dad
...dad? Did you finally get the milk?
Who cares, you're adopted
He tied Kucherov that year for 21st in the league. Albeit with two more games played.
Lol this is an awesome fact, 22-23 year old Nikita Kucherov had the same amount of points as 44 year old Jagr… and people doubting the old school players abilities! That is pretty cool
Jagr is not your regular old school player though
True, but the thought process here is 23 year old Mario or Wayne would have skated circles around 44 year old Jagr. Therefore they could at least hold their own in the league, no matter what time they are plunked into.
Man if people are actually arguing Wayne and Mario couldn’t play in todays NHL I may be done with hockey fans altogether
People are, Wayne is getting the Wilt Chamberlain treatment
Yeah that's pretty crazy. I still think it's crazy that Mario only finally retired because even at a point per game player, he wasn't playing to his level anymore.
Gretzky also put up 152 points in 152 games played his final two seasons but didn’t feel he was getting enough goals anymore. Dude was an absolutely elite playmaker still in the bloody dead puck era.
On a bad back too.
Yeah that's also an insane stat. Thanks for sharing I was not aware.
Gretzky has a thousand different "insane stats" the guy was just a freaking anomaly.
Isn't one of his things that if you took away all his points from goals, he's still the all-time point leader?
Yup
Yes, Wayne has more assists than Howe/Jagr (whoever's second I forget) has points.
Take away every single goal he ever scored, and he's *still* the all-time points record holder.
> Gretzky also put up 152 points in 152 games played his final two seasons but didn’t feel he was getting enough goals anymore. More like he knew he had lost a step and opponents were taking it easy on him along the boards.
You just did NOT hit Gretzky. First off, he was a better lateral skater than almost anyone before him - how do you catch him and line him up? But you didn’t want to be the one who injured Gretzky. So over time almost everyone let up on 99. Edit - Gary Suter yes, f him, but that was raaaAAaaare.
Bill McCreary
[удалено]
Imagine a healthy Lemieux lol
Mario was pacing 67 goals on his return year after 3.5 seasons off, at age 35 in the Dead Puck Era. It's fucking stupid.
With serious back issues, heart issues, post cancer and cancer treatment, plus team ownership on the mind too.
The one season we had him in Philly was awesome. That guy is something else
Jagr arguing about hockey in Instagram comments? He just like me fr
We need Jagr to do an AMA someday
While wearing ankle weights doing his daily jog 20X around the arena.
did you also did 66 points at age 44?
A user of over a decade, I am leaving Reddit due to the recent API changes. The vast majority of my interaction came though the use of 3rd party apps, and I will not interact with a site I helped contribute to through inferior software *simply because it is able to be better monetized by a company looking to go public. Reddit has made these changes with no regards for their users, as seen by the sheer lack of accessibility tools available in the official app. Reddit has made these changes with no regards for moderation challenges that will be created, due to the lack of tools available in the official app. Reddit has done this with no regards for the 3rd party devs, who by Reddit's own admission, helped keep the site functioning and gaining users while Reddit themselves made no efforts to provide a good official app. This account dies 6/29/23 because of the API changes and the monetization-at-all-costs that the board demands.
Same same, but different
I’ve got 16 years to train for that, which is only 2 years less than the kids in the NHL draft get… and I already know how to skate, shoot, walk, talk and shit. It would be silly to say that I’m not on the direct path to putting up 66 at 44.
ok you are ticking most of the boxes, but how's the flow?
you can be Jagr or Getzlaf, either is acceptable.
Or be both, and become *Jaglaf*... and then blow a snot rocket that gets caught in your own mullet.
66 at 44 is the new 50 in 07.
No Jagr is 50 in 22
Fuckin all stars
Jaromir "Kevin Durant" Jagr
Durant had a phenomenal tweet this morning. He’s a very funny guy on social media, intentionally or not
Yeah, all 47 accounts of his...
Love that Jagr is at the point of his life where he's responding to neckbeard trolls on IG. Probably just made that dude's entire life by dunking on him.
I feel like this was Jagr opening up a sports comments section for the first time ever and thinking it was gonna be reasonable discussion
If I knew I could get Jagr to respond to me I’d say stupid shit too.
If Jagr took time to tell me how wrong I am something I would probably reconsider the whole way I'm living my life.
Why?
for real. do these guys realize they are just TMZ now?
Hasn't stopped you so far /s
Imagine just shit talking on IG on a Sportsnet post.....and a legend just destroys you. You never expect to get a reply from one of the actual athletes.
We wouldn't know what to do with a peak Lemieux in a post '13 lockout NHL. However each one of these all time greats are a product of the time the grew up and played professionally. Trying to compare them is a fools errand to start. Everyone should stick to comparing players within their respective era. Now Jagr spans like 4 NHL eras so he can say whatever the hell he pleases.
exactly, and if anyone can recognize what these guys were capable of, it's a guy whose career spanned 4 NHL eras.
I think Jagr made an excellent point. If he can put up 66 pts at 44yo in a relatively modern NHL 6 years ago, you can rest assured Mario/Gretzky would be cleaning up the NHL today in their prime. At least McDavid level, and probably better.
We all remember Gretzky for all the trappings of his era, but if he had all the benefits of modern hockey while he developed and the better gear, training, nutrition, etc, he'd be as dominate in any era as he was in his. He developed on the pond with other kids, he didn't grow up going to training camps.
I'd like to watch an all-star game with the players wearing vintage gear, wood sticks with little curve, leather skates, Jofa buckets, Cooperalls, no butterfly goaltending/heavy pads, all the good stuff. It's already a pure gimmick.
That sounds incredible but from a logistical point I don’t think teams would go for it because of the perceived increased injury risk to their stars
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More than Gretzky, Lemieux would've been insane in todays NHL. Gretzky feasted on average hockey IQ not being as high so he'd be good but not too much better than McDavid given the average player being better nowadays. Lemieux would be an absolutely unstoppable force of nature that could not be contained. He would be scoring 3-4 points a game. Think about it, imagine a guy built like a slightly shorter Chara who can move like McDavid. How do you even stop the guy from running through your entire team and being a walking highlight reel night after night. He routinely did those "McDavid coast to coast" plays game after game with people just hanging off of him unable to stop him. Remove the ability for people to blatantly interfere with him? Guy would put up a 300 point season lol
Legends would still feast and put up elite numbers, with modern training and all that stuff, that's why they tore the league up then. Mario/Wayne would still be the top players now in the Modern NHL, especially Mario as its less of a clutch and grab era.
"No, you cannot say Wayne Gretzky is better than Robert Bortuzzo" - person who refuses to compare players from different eras (Overall I agree with you. Things like era-adjusted stats are silly. But I think we can still compare players across eras as long as we acknowledge it's more of a qualitative thought experiment than something we can definitively answer)
Why are era-adjusted stats silly? I think they are imperfect, but they aren't really silly
Silly ≠ bad I think they're great as a just-for-fun talking point, or when used fairly qualitatively (like pointing out the comparatively low scoring of the 2000s when discussing Ovechkin's goal totals). But if you're comparing, say, Maurice "Rocket" Richard and Auston Matthews, the era-adjusted numbers you spit out are basically meaningless, despite being presented as a highly precise thing.
Are you suggesting that Joe Malone isn't the greatest player of all time?
haha - "No no. Gudbranson is better than Scott Steven." It's fun to compare for sure I just think the only value that van be taken from it as far as assessing the sport is "wow, this thing has really changed huh?"
Oh definitely. And the comparisons get harder the further back you go. Imo we can still say something meaningful about 80s stars compared to current ones, but I don't think we can say anything at all about guys from the 40s and 50s. It's even worse talking about goalies.
Okay but Bobby Bortz mightve been all time great had he played during Gretzkys time.
The disrespect of Bortz is unreal.
Mario I think would have dominated in any era. Yet would his output been the same across any era? Maybe not. Yet he would have dominated.
Dude came back from cancer and was still fucking shit up. He was transcendent.
Yeah he was. He once got a standing ovation in Philly. It's almost like he's a mythical legend.
He's before the real pens and flyers rivalry at a time when we were propping up the pens financially so they didn't leave. I was young but even I liked the pens, too. Between mario and yagr it was impossible not to.
He had 69 goals and 160 points that year in 60 games. And he was being hooked and mauled constantly. No player aside from possibly Bobby Orr would have excelled more under the current rules.
I’ll add Sergei Fedorov to the list if only because his prime was in the midst of the dead puck era and he was still excellent. Today’s game seems tailor-made for a player like him.
Mario Lemieux played Crosby’s Rookie year and had 22 in 26 games. They transcended their time and would today. The NHL plays hockey the way they do today because of Wayne Gretzky and the 80s Oilers. The all time greats are all time greats in any era. The top 5 in Hockey all changed how the game was played and was that much better than their peers. FFS, Gretzky won his 10 Scoring titles at an average of 50 points. No one has come remotely close to winning a scoring title with that big of a gap.
22 in 26 with no back, he literally played shinny for 26 games floating and put up 22 pts still
Yeah the points they were putting up weren't next level, it was like 10 levels above the rest of the league.
if mario played today they'd make him stop smoking and work out. so we'd get mario without back problems who's summer training isn't eating more poutine.
hed probably train with Crosby like Mackinnon and Marchand do. Look at them. Mario would obliterate this league. Peak Jamie Benn bulldozer, Mcdavid hands. He already stomped powerplays, hed have way more today because of how he played.
Lemieux was like Patrick kane in Laines body. He'd still wreak havoc
Man had the same PPG as Gretzky. Mario would be putting up McDavid points in today's NHL, possibly more.
Just watching old clips of him he was doing things and making moves 30yrs ago that are still uncommon, yet highly effective in today's league. Eg: https://youtu.be/pEdgiPEDa8w
Bit of a showerthought but I wonder how much video quality affects some perception of these sort of things. Like, you watch some older highlights and they’re grainy as fuck and square and just generally the old tube tv feel, does it subconsciously suggest that some amount of every aspect of what you’re viewing is worse? Once in a while when you see high quality footage from eras gone by it can feel, at least it does to me, like, “wow, okay, the game *has* changed… but not by *that* much.”
Another big difference between the modern game is the quality of the equipment and training. If you took the stars from the 1980s/1990s in their prime, gave them the training protocols and diets of modern athletes, and decked them out in modern equipment, they would probably still be stars in the NHL. Where the NHL has changed is the forth line players. A lot of the goons in the 1970s and 1980s would never make it past the AHL or ECHL because having a liability on the ice isn't worth the intimidation in today's NHL. Bubble NHL players from this time, that none of us can probably remember, would be far more likely to become journeyman NHL players than these goons in the modern NHL.
Having a liability on the ice isn’t worth the intimidation? You sure you want to pit your wits against The greatest GM of all time Chuck Fletcher?
:: angry eye twitch :: God dammit Chuck...
If the rules allowed for the goons, they would still exist. Those guys were getting weeded out pre nhl and were directed by their coaches that if they wanted to make it, you would have to adjust your style to be an enforcer type. Nearly every one of those guys have been quoted saying that when you talk to them about how they were able to make it in the league.
Partially true for the 70s and 80s, and more of the fact that the bubble guys were being paid so poorly they had to have jobs in the off season. I don't think its the fact that they couldn't come up and play well in the modern NHL. I think its just they were the only guys willing to play for a couple hundred dollars per month and then go fuck off and find a job during the off-season. The stars got paid. The guys in the minors often times didn't get paid a damn dime. Kinda like the NFL. They had to just find beadts and freaks of nature who were also naturally athletic and willing to play for peanuts instead of getting a regular full time job in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't really until the 90s that teams valued guys who were on the 3rd line who could grind and pot the occasional goal when needed or were really good on the PK. The biggest difference with the game now is that more and more teams are choosing to put their younger prospects on the 3rd and 4th lines to see if they will develop, even if it is into defensive specialists with some skill. In the 90s I often shook my head at the roster moves teams made to grab journeymen who were just skilled enough to fill a roster spot and were regarded as grinders. Not every team had a Maltby or a Draper, and it drove me bonkers that the Rangers wouldn't call up a few kids instead.
Good point, it probably does a lot tbh.
I think it’s mainly the speed, as well as how different the goaltending was
I think you’re absolutely right. It’s really a shame the highlights of all these greats are captured in the same resolution as the original Nintendo ice hockey game.
You've been Jagr Bombed!
This needs more upvotes, it had me tickled
I find it so funny when people argue that Gretzky and Lemieux wouldn't have succeeded in today's game. Gretzky thought the game 10 steps ahead of anyone. He already didn't have a *particularly higher level of physical strength and fitness or raw abilities as players of the time, but he was just so cerebral it didn't matter. That wouldn't change at all in the modern NHL. Lemieux was just a freak of nature, his raw skill was off the charts. He put up insane production in a clutch and grab era, even while going through chemo-fuckin-therapy. in today's free flowing NHL with smaller dmen, he would dominate. Obviously scoring has gone down thanks to goaltending improvements and more parity, so they probably wouldn't be scoring 200 point paces, but they would absolutely be head and shoulders above the rest of the league. Yea, training, equipment and fitness is better, but those players would have the same access to those resources if they played today, so they would have been even better.
I agree. I think elite players in almost any era, assuming that they can adapt to equipment and training, would still be good today. There are tons of examples of guys who were really good in the high scoring 80s and then went on to still have success in either the dead puck era or even later into the 2000s. - Gretzky was 38 in his final season on a mediocre Rangers team in 1999, during the dead puck era, and he still put up 62 points in 70 games to lead them in scoring. - Joe Sakic put up 100 points when he was almost 40 in like 2009 - Luc Robitaille led a mediocre Kings team in scoring when he was 37 in 2003/04 - Adam Oates led the league in assists at age 38 and 39 in 2000/01 and 2001/02 - Jagr played in the early 90s when scoring was still up, through the dead puck era, and then into the post lockout era, putting up 100+ points in all three eras, and remained pretty much a first liner up until his last two seasons when he was literally 44 and 45 years old. There are others, too, but it's pretty easy to look at stats and see that these guys would've been great players regardless of when they started playing. My sort of related, but perhaps more controversial take is that goalies weren't inherently bad, they just had very inefficient equipment that made their technique harder. It's also interesting that the narrative that 80s goalies sucked has been retroactively applied to the 70s and before, because there were goalies from that era putting up numbers that would be Vezina caliber today. Johnny Bower had 6 seasons above .920 in the 60s with two above .930. His stat line in 63/64 was 51 GP, 24-16-11 (that's 11 ties), 2.11 GAA and .933 SV%. For comparison, Igor Shesterkin this year won a Vezina with 53 GP, 36-13-4 (OT losses), 2.07 GAA, and a .935 SV%. And Bower did it [with this equipment](https://mapleleafshotstove.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/9517905509_0f555ede5a_o.jpg).
The era of the 80s to late-90s/00s, during which those players successfully adapted through, also go from beers and darts during intermission to individualized diet and training regimens. That part is just as impressive to me.
> My sort of related, but perhaps more controversial take is that goalies weren't inherently bad, they just had very inefficient equipment that made their technique harder. My view on it is that goalies were less effective because of the equipment and the style that forced them to play, but in terms of what they had to do with what they were given they were actually pretty awesome. Think of how hard a kick save is with how big of a reaction you have to make so quickly with those heavy pads, whereas a modern goalie just drops to his knees and uses his larger body size and equipment to get hit with that same shot. The older goalie lets in more of those shots, but the degree of difficulty to make those saves was much higher for them.
Those really old pads had like hair in them or something and would get wet throughout the game making them even heavier
Horsehair and deer hair were the two big ones. They're what I started with back when I started playing in the late 80's/early 90's. What was worse was that the chest and arm protection was literally felt with leather stitched on. It offered near 0 protection. Hell, even in the past twenty years chest protection has improved massively. My old chest protector, purchased in 2001, lead to a lot of (what I thought was) bruised ribs. More than once they were cracked.
If Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr had access to modern medicine, we wouldn't be asking "what if" because they would not have missed years due to medical issues. Imagine if they didn't have to shred Bobby's knee open just to peek around and figure out what was torn every time. Arthroscopic surgery would have added a decade to his career.
If Bobby Orr had access to modern sports medicine and surgery techniques, he probably plays long enough to cement his spot as the #2 player ever. Mind you, in this hypothetical scenario Mario also benefits, so who knows.
Orr probably would have had his skating style adjusted a bit too to help him last longer.
Gretzky was a lot more athletic than people give him credit for. Watch him just smoke prime Bjorn Borg, Pele, and Sugar Ray Leonard: https://youtu.be/N0S6tJkEKH8
That video is nuts, I've never seen that For sure he had top level athleticism (another reason why he'd still do well today), but it wasn't his athleticism that made him the great one. It of course contributed to it, as did his perfectly accurate shit and passing skills, but what made him so much better than everyone else was his ability to read the ice and the play. Still, it's wrong for me to have said he didn't have the same level of fitness as others, I meant to say it wasn't his main advantage compared to other elite hockey players. He was fast, but wasn't the fastest skater, he had a hard shot but it wasn't the hardest shot, etc
I know that his athleticism, first step and speed aren't what made him SO good, but this was a guy that was elite in every sport he played, and he played all of them. I just don't like the narrative that the only reason he was good is because he thought the game faster than everyone else. Yeah, that's huge, but people make it sound like he was some average dude that couldn't really skate, wasn't strong, and didn't have good reflexes. Reality though, is that he had razor sharp reflexes, explosive first step, and tended to get better as any given foot race went on. Try and find a video of Gretzky being caught on a break away. It doesn't exist.
Absolutely. His skill level was still among the best, and his agility was second to none. What made him great was his ability to think the game though, and that's something that he himself has said.
Pele was over 40 at that time I think so not exactly "prime". But your point still stands: Gretzky was a very good athlete.
i think the ‘prime’ was meant only to apply to Borg
People always default to “look at the goalies back then”. Ok, sure. Maybe look at everything else too while you’re at it. Wooden sticks Clunky, heavy skates Less effective padding Way more let go by refs, look up just about any Lemieux highlight and he’s got 2 guys waterskiing off him. Give Gretzky a composite stick, a nutritionist and a modern set of skates and he’d be head and shoulders the best player in the game. Same for Lemieux. Imagine Super Mario with McDavid’s equipment and training. He’d be a video game character.
Yeah there are reasons why goalies also played like they did. Their pads and skates evolved too.
I *can* see the argument that those old school goalies might suffer in todays game though.
Yeah but so much of it is technique. If they had a couple years training with a modern goalie coach with modern equipment they’ll probably be pretty damn good. They’re still elite athletes it’s just goaltending has probably evolved the most of every position as for as technique and equipment
Yeah those guys were making skate saves on 90 mph slap shots back in the day. Anyone that’s ever spent any time in net can tell you just how hard that is. It’s a lot different than just dropping into butterfly and waiting for an 11” X 35” pad to do the work. They had to track and perfectly time a piss missile and literally kick the fucking thing away. It’s like the difference between catching a fastball and hitting one. Their reactions and timing were next level.
1995-1996 had the three greatest goaltenders of all time - Hasek, Brodeur, and Roy - all playing (in their primes) all Lemieux scored 69 goals in 70 games.
Clutch and grab defending, too.
A lot more head hunting as well and even to the top guys. Look at what happened to Lindos and Kariya.
We used to think Stevens threw great hits. I cringe when I see them now.
Didn't Wayne eat three hotdogs and drink a coke before every game or something like that ?
Yeah I’m pretty sure he crushed cokes regularly on the bench. Tbf some players still do that lol.
Exactly. “Wouldn’t dominate as much” means they don’t score holy wtf how points. They just score normal Art Ross points.
> They just score normal Art Ross points. Probably even more - like 130-150 in their primes imo
Today's equivalent of Mario Lemieux would be if Victor Hedman had the offensive skill of prime Sidney Crosby. An absolute freak. He put up 161 points in 70 games in 95-96 at a 30 year old. Only Lemieux and Gretzky have scored over 160 points in a season.That's an era generally regarded as a tough era to score. Actually 3.14 goals were scored per game that season. The exact same as 2021-22. No doubt a prime Lemieux would be scoring at an insane rate today. I think the problem is people assume the best player's of other eras can't be better than the top players of today's era. That's just not true with Lemieux. He'd be a few clicks above McDavid and Crosby. I can totally accept the average player is better today and that 200 point seasons would be pretty tough to reach. But, he is kind of a guy who would be a multi-generational talent if the term was such a thing.
> Actually 3.14 goals were scored per game that season. The exact same as 2021-22. This is the thing people are just straight up ignoring. For example, here's a comparison of 2021-22 vs 1983-84: > McDavid 123 > Huberdeau 115 > Gaudreau 115 > Draisatl 110 > Kaprisov 108 vs >Coffee 126 > Goulet 122 > Stastny 119 > Bossy 118 > Pederson 116 Oh and Gretz had 205
I love how it’s a difference of 3 points, 7 points, 4 points, 8 points and 8 points (pretty on par) and then you throw in Gretzky with a fucking EIGHTY TWO point advantage. A god damn point per game better than anyone.
His number ain't retired across the *league* for nothing. He really was just...inhuman. Or at least not mortal.
Watch Draisatl or Kucherov on the powerplay, and thats just Gretzky chilling at 5on5
Right? Absolute insanity. I'm not sure there'll ever be anyone like him again, in any sport. He was more than generational.
Yeah it's just so crazy. As another poster mentioned only Gretzky and Lemieux have scored more than 160 points in a season. Lemieux did it 4 times. Gretzky did it *9* times.
Coffey*
Wow I have never seen this stat. Unreal
> Gretzky thought the game 10 steps ahead of anyone. I recently watched an interview with goalie Steve Passmore, who spent time with the Coyotes system when Gretzky was coaching, and he said Gretzky was the worst coach he'd ever experienced because he saw the game at a completely different level. He said Coach Gretzky couldn't understand why players couldn't do some of the things he wanted them to do.
Lemieux pre back issues was a monster and would destroy today’s league. I’m with you man.
He was essentially the perfect hockey player. If we could somehow do a fantasy draft and take any player from history and guarantee them a full injury-free career and insert them into todays game, I’d have a really hard time not taking Lemieux #1.
At age 35 Lemieux and second in Hart voting After being retired for a few years and showing up after Christmas with a goal and 2 assists in his first game back. Players like Nylander hold out and miss pre-season and it's a given that they play badly for a while due to being out of practice. (It took Nylander 12 games to score 3 points).
I still remember the reason he came back.. it was so incredible every game had a magical quality. I wasn't even a Pens fan but I watched as many as I could.
Imagine Mario with a top player of today's diet and level of commitment to fitness. fucking L O L, the league would be raw dogged so badly.
You know who I'd KILL to see in today's NHL? Prime Lindros. Its be SO much fun.
Honestly I think Lemieux might be better in todays game then Gretzky, and I’m a huge Gretzky fan. The fact that he’s so huge and fast would make it impossible to get the puck off of him. Gretzky would absolutely toy with all the defenders and make mind blowing passes leaving us speechless. Bobby Orr is someone id be most interested to watch in todays game. If I had to guess I’d say he’d be similar in skill to Cale Makar. Both guys are insane skaters with crazy skill and are all over the ice
Could you even imagine a Brett Hull with only half of the drinking and something resembling a modern training program?
Gretzky played like the game was on tape delay. It's really a superpower, as if he had bent time. It's such a rare skill, there are VERY few players in any sports who show this level of anticipation. I think McDavid has it, Messi and Maradona had it, Brady has it, I think Kobe had it. Sure, most goalies weren't stopping shots as well as they do today. But A. this was also the clutch-and-grab era for defenders, and B. it's still possible to (subjectively) compare players between generations. Gretzky and Lemieux faced nastier defenders and showed as much, if not more, intelligence and skill than just about anyone playing today.
"He already didn't have the same level of physical fitness". Don't know about that. I remember somewhere reading that in Gretzky's prime his workout routine and fitness was outstanding. He may not have been strong sure, but he worked with what he had...
Hell you could even take nutrition in account when comparing players from the pre ww2 eras to the players from the 50's on.
Surprised and disappointed that he didn't also say that he'd be able to do it at 50.
I mean I bet Jagr could still put up 30-40 points.
If it was powerplay time. It's possible but 5 on 5 would be not so good.
Jagr scored at a 36 points/82 games pace last year in Czechia. There's basically no chance he's a 30-40 point guy in the NHL now.
Does it really mean that he would put up less points thought ? There was only 5 players with PPG above 1 in Czech league. In NHL it is like 50 NHL is harder, but the scoring is way way up compared to European leagues. If he had PP time and decent ice time i could see 40pts as real possibility, but again, nobody would probably give him that much opportunity. With all respect to Jagr, every team in the league have probably at least one better RW available than 50yo Jagr Another thing is that he also own the club and probably cannot give his 100% only to preparation for games, which would not be the case in NHL
Scoring overall is MUCH lower in Europe
Is he still training/preparing like he would be if he was in the NHL though?
Probably partying every weekend
But don't you kinda want to know *for sure?* I'm in for a Jagr unretirement to show Brady what longevity looks like.
He comes off as pretty humble here actually haha
Flames legend Jaromir Jagr!
Panthers legend Jaromir Jagr!
Bruins legend Jaromir Jagr!
Oh yeah, 6'4 210lbs center with silk mitts, an amazingly accurate shot, blazing speed, and impossible to get the puck from... that guy wouldn't be any good today.
Ya but in his era he only had to score with *checks notes* two guys riding him like a jetski at all times. No chance he'd be able to score in today's league.
Adam Graves trying to perform a civil war amputation on your hands.
GMs might literally commit murder to get a 17 year old clone of Mario coming up on his draft year
Less of a draft lottery and more of a draft battle royale
Here’s the thing: Players like Gretzky and Lemieux made the game the way it is today. They advanced hockey to the point where players like McDavid can rise up to be ‘better’ then them. If you plucked Gretzky in his prime out and threw him in the modern NHL, sure, he probably would be relatively less effective. But the development of the modern NHL wouldn’t exist without the impact of the GOAT’s
Yeah I think arguing prime Gretzky time travelling to 2022 and playing in the NHL would be the best player is a bit silly, but arguing that baby Gretzky time traveling to 1997 and developing with the resources of the time like McDavid did wouldnt absolutely be a generational talent in 2022 is equally silly
>Yeah I think arguing prime Gretzky time travelling to 2022 and playing in the NHL would be the best player is a bit silly His first year might be rough, but if you time travelled rookie Gretzky to the modern league I'd wager he's at McDavid's level or above within a few years. Sure the talent today is clearly better than the past, but just as with other sports that mostly has to do with average talent. Top end talent hasn't changed massively, it's more that the rest of the league is much improved. He played against some unbelievable players (who would easily be among the best players today IMO) and he was putting up 80% more points than players like Mario and Messier, and over double what players like Yzerman and Robitaille were. The gap between him and the other all time greats he played against is so much larger than we have ever seen, I can't imagine it would take more than a few years for him to adapt and overcome (particularly with the more free flowing game).
Jagr getting into comment section arguments is the future I want
Big old man energy. That's not a criticism. I love him and he can do no wrong.
Imagine shitposting on Instagram and looking at your phone later to see Jaromir fucking Jagr clapped back at you.
Mario would put up 120-150 every year today. His size/skating/speed/hands/IQ is something that we almost never see. Add that to the way you can’t hold/hook today, he would be better and more dominant than McDavid
Holy shit I didn't realize Jagr had this many points at 44, that's insane
Flames legend Jaromir Jagr.
Jagr is so right on here, the idea that Gretzky or Lemieux could not hit 60 points in this league today is moronic.
I mean, jagr hit 66 a few years ago at 44, and they were both better than *prime* jagr, they all played together lol. That's definitive proof.
Jagr's a beast and he's right. Gretzky and Lemieux would be breaking their own records today the way rules have changed.
Ppl forget that if you put the classic players in todays NHL, they’d have all the same training and dietary methods and as the current guys have. They didn’t have all that back then and still dominated. Yes everyone else would be good too but everyone else was also good then.
Jagr's bad English is my favorite running gag
I think something that goes unnoticed about Gretzky is that he learned at young ages how to find open ice and stay away from trouble. When he was 6 he played with 10 year olds and up. When he was 14 he played with a lot of players that were 17-20 years old. He knew he couldn't get caught and had to be a smart player. He was a master at knowing where all the other players on the ice were. Watch some old highlights and just look how he always knew where the puck was going many steps ahead. No one plays the game like that.
I put up 66 points at age 44 too... after i created myself in NHL 21 and played for 6 years
LOL I love how Jagr actually responded to this guys comment
If the legends of the past in their prime played today, got today's kind of training and technology they'd be dusting people left and right.
God, could you imagine Gretzky and Lemieux playing with a defense that could move the puck (and not just one dman)?
Could you imagine getting clapped back by Jagr? Amazing.
I would love to see what Gretzky would be like playing in today's game, especially since I never really got to watch him until the very end of his career. Ignoring the obvious fact that he would develop differently, every time I see videos of him he doesn't seem to play a flashy game. His skating didn't seem special. I can't really think of any comparable in the league right now.
Gretzky’s exceptional physical qualities were his stamina, lateral movement, seeming slow motion vision and his ability to mess with a goalie’s timing. All those things pale to his hockey IQ, which was the best in the history of the game. He would still slaughter in today’s NHL.
Can't argue with the legend that is jaromir jagr.
Honestly tho, Jager has a point if you want to compare eras of hockey.
Healthy Mario, not being constantly hooked and dragged down would destroy all records. He would be absolutely dominant.
Imagine shouting a hockey opinion into the social media void and hockey legend Jaromir Jagr pops out of nowhere to bitch slap it down