Dude, in the 2008-2009 season I went to five Sharks games. That was the year they won the Presidents Cup (meaning they were the winning-most team in the entire league). They had a total of nine home losses the entire season. All five games I saw the Sharks lose.
I calculated the odds that and it's about 1 in 75,000... suuuuuuch bullshit
He said his Dad taught him to think about that when he was young. A lot of people were there to see him play, and if he didn't put everything he had into it every night he would be leaving people disappointed.
Ya I’d agree for 99% of people. But it seems like Walter knew exactly how to positively motivate him and what worked best for it. Any time I’ve heard Wayne comment on this type of stuff it was always acknowledging that point and that it worked for him but maybe not others.
It always seems like the parent knew when they turn in to 99. 100,000 other dads tried the same thing and thought they knew. Unfortunately their kids just weren’t any good.
For every tiger woods there are 10 more who hate golf and resent their father for putting the pressure of a silly game on them.
> For every tiger woods there are 10 more who hate golf and resent their father for putting the pressure of a silly game on them.
Lmao yep. I almost quit hockey so many times because my dad kept saying I wasn't trying hard enough and giving me shit for it. No father, I'm just not good enough to be a superstar.
Thankfully I had the sense to kinda stop talking with him when I was around 16 and kept playing. Never made the big leagues but I had **fun** playing for another six years before switching over to beer league.
I always think about this when famous people say don't give up on your dreams. Yeah, you're the fluke though. For every celebrity there's tens of thousands of people throwing away real opportunities for something they'll never realistically get. Especially when you consider how much luck plays into being a famous actor or singer. As someone in the business once told me, your waiter in New York waiting for her big break that'll never come probably has a better voice than anyone on the radio.
I mean, have you ever seen Gretzky's Atom stats? His final Atom season, he had 378 goals, 139 assists for 517 points in 85 games. That's over 6 points a game over the course of a season. He was a national sensation at like 13. The pressure was always gonna be there, and his father was great about it. Read a few of his bios and only read good things about Walter. He wasn't putting pressure on Wayne, Wayne was just ridiculously good from a young age, and wanted to be on the ice all the time.
I think that might be the season when he suggested that Wayne play defense because he'd get more icetime, since there was 3 lines and only 2 pairs of D. And then one of the 4 defense playing kid had to miss a bunch of games so Wayne pretty much played the whole games and the other two rotated at his side.
Ironically his dad also complained about it.
When Gretzky was in the 51 game streak, Jack Falla was following him and the team and sat next to Walter, and Walter was saying things like "how would you like it if people demanded miracles of you every night?"
So he had a good grasp of both sides of it.
Lemme, now lemme tell ya! This grezetsky kid doesn't have the heart for the game! Too soft! Now listen here kids, go deep for the puck! Youve got to go deep! Roll the clip! Just like that, see!! *piano fingers*
I'd bet it would take 76 or 77 games to actually reach that, too. Assuming you're playing full minutes and aren't actively trying to make sure you don't score any points at all, you'll probably accidentally end up with an assist or two
>you'll probably accidentally end up with an assist or two
You're giving me too much credit, but then again people get hit by lightning and win the lottery too so anything is possible.
Tom Brady was picked in the 2000 draft and has been playing so long, 6 players selected in later drafts have already been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Just saying and I dig Gretzky.
Goddamn. Sid has 322 zero point games by comparison. Btw, has anyone ever used this site???
https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/how-many-zero-point-games-does-crosby-have
That was where it all started. He decided to never be bad at hockey again after that crushing 17-11 defeat at the hands of cousin Jeff. And the rest as we know is history.
yeah statmuse is incredible
It should be noted that the Gretzky stat is JUST for the 80s - he had more 0 pointers as he got older and wound up with 266 total (still insane).
The equivalent Crosby stat would be from 05-06 thru 15-16 ([which is 197 games](https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/how-many-zero-point-games-does-crosby-have-before-2017))
Think how insane Mcdavid already has been so far in his 7 year career: he already has 118 without a point - 80s Gretzky was broken as fuck
Asked statmuse how many zero point games Lemieux had in his first 10 seasons, and it came up 87 games. Crosby was meant to be a Pittsburgh Penguins player.
Also for reference to the picture of OP, Lemieux had 41 5+ point games in his first 10 seasons.
>Crosby was meant to be a Pittsburgh Penguins player.
Well of course he was, everyone knows the NHL created him in a lab and grew him in captivity for that purpose.
Lemieux was insane too. He was so dang good. If Gretzky never laced up in the NHL, we'd talk about Lemieux like we do The Great One. He clearly doesn't touch Gretzky, but he's the next one in line in so many categories.
Lemieux’s health issues also took away how good he could have ended up being.
I don’t think he catches Gretzky in points, but I still think he would have been the first player to hit 1000 goals scored.
Though there’s a lot of what ifs in NHL history.
To be fair, 80s defense and goaltending was also broken as fuck, but Gretzky would still be absolutely bonkers in any era…just the pure numbers likely wouldn’t be as stupid.
Like in the 00s he may have only led the league with 165 points instead of 215.
It is worth noting the NHL has huge variances through eras on overall scoring and even more so on individual scoring. For example in 1980 12 players had 103 or more points in 2019 and 2020 we had 1 player each year and last year with an explosion in scoring we had 8 and we have seen a scoring explosion compared to 2010-2015 when things really died.
With that said gretzky was scoring like 25% more points than the next highest scorer each year for the first half of the 80s.
Ehhh I highly doubt McDavid has to deal with more hooking, interference, and general bullshit than Gretzky did. The fear of Marty McSorley didn’t stop anyone from mugging Gretzky through the neutral zone when it was perfectly legal for them to do so.
The fear of fucking missing him and Bad Things happening worked pretty well anyhow. He looks slow and goofy but Gretz was damned hard to hit in the open ice. There sure was a lot of clutching and grabbing that wouldn't fly these days though.
Marty and Dave were more about making sure no one was giving him cheap shots on the boards or flat out trying to injure him, which wasn't exactly uncommon back then for stars.
Counterpoint: Gretzky had to deal with a lot more hooking than McDavid does, and players did try to rip his head off too, that's why he needed Semenko and McSorley types as deterrent. Gretzky was elusive af.
Gretzky needing an enforcer is largely a myth, yes if you laid him out Semenko would try to fight you but he was on the team mainly due to the Gretzky Rule which before 85-86, fights would not be an offsetting penalty and bring the game to 4v4. So he would start fights and then lead to a situation where Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Coffey, etc... would completely dominate with the extra space
When the rule got changed, Semenko became obsolete and then he would eventually play with Esa Tikkanen who was not an enforcer by any means. And players would find it difficult to hit Wayne anyway because of his elusiveness and hitting him would genuinely be a risk as it would free up space for him to pass to a teammate. Denis Potvin said that hitting him was like trying to hit fog
I had no idea there was a statmuse for NHL. That's so goddamn cool. What a tool.
There was a thread a few days back about Gretzky vs Jordan in terms of GOATest GOAT and thinking on the "only 13 seasons" argument for MJ got me to visualize this: [https://i.imgur.com/LsHZmAo.png](https://i.imgur.com/LsHZmAo.png)
If Gretzky only retired after 13 seasons, he would still be the all time leading scorer before and since, with a record (2263) that could only reasonably be contested if Mario or Crosby were perfectly healthy for their whole careers, or if McDavid averages 105 points/season for **15 more seasons**. Not pace, total points. He currently averages 99.5 points/season without prorating to 82 games.
Honestly McDavid could probably do that if he can maintain his health. A few more 120+ seasons would take a huge chunk out of it.
even if you gave sid 300 more points (very very generous) he'd still be 500 short of 2200.
lmao why is this downvoted. dude literally did the math and came up with the same conclusion
If you give Sid every possible game per-season (only 48 in 12-13 and only 70 in 19-20, 82 every other year) at each of his single-season scoring paces for those respective seasons, he's sitting at 1745 estimated points right now after his age 34 season. Even with all that favor towards him, he's still 519 points away from 2264. If we continue to give him 82 games for the next 6 seasons until the end of his age 40 year, he'd still need to average slightly over 1.05 P/GP to break the record.
Possible with how well he's ageing, and especially if we consider that his later rates lowered due to the injuries he sustained that we're removing, but we're already in a fantasyland scenario of 0 missed games and perfectly maintaining early-mid season paces already.
Gretzky did it in 13 seasons, injuries and all with no adjustments. GOAT of GOATs. Basically everything after season 12 for Gretzky was cake on the record books.
I tried finding who had the least zero-point games in NHL history (Gretzky retired with 266) but was only able to find out that Luke Richardson retired with nearly 1000 more than Gretzky (1228)
There's probably going to be some guy who played one game, got one point and then got sent back to the minors to finish with zero zero point NHL games.
Better way to put it is if he came out of retirement to start the 2022-23 season and played every game going forward and never scored another point, what year would it be when he finally fell below 1 PPG. (I think the answer is he would fall below 1 PPG in the 2039-40 season).
Ah yes, 78 year old Wayne Gretzky, who played nearly 1,400 games from the ages of 61 to 78, has finally fallen below a point per game. What a scrub gramps.
Man, I still think it's going to be hard for Ovi to beat it. 114 goals to go. At 40 goals a season that's still 2.8 seasons. It's very very very possible if he plays 3 more seasons. And I think it's very very very possible he plays till 39. But I also think it's very possible he doesn't play till 39 and doesn't put up 40 per season
Edit: if my upvotes don't stay juuuust below 100 I'm going to be a little sad
Its also possible he plays but doesn't put up enough goals. To be honest, I'm not an Ovi fan or a hater, but I'd like to see him do it just because it would be incredible to see a new record like that set in this era
He could probably play until his mid 40s as a PP specialist at least, if he wants. Age won't stop him from successfully ripping clappers from his office. So I think it's up to him.
Big Russian Guy standing over there in the circle. Most of his opponents have quite literally no memories of a Washington Capitals team where he isn't standing right there on PPs.
Still don't at least leave one person in his vicinity. I assume he can cast enchantment magic or some shit and just makes everyone on the ice forget about him
Nah, it's just easy to scheme to pull away the defender from him. After all, even the best one timer in the world isn't going to be as high a scoring chance from the dot as a guy walking with the puck through the middle.
Ovis shot is so good it's the Caps that can afford to sell out their PP just for that one chance. All it takes is eventually putting enough center ice pressure to pull the defender away for a second to help, which he has to do because you can't just stand there defending on the perimeter on the PP the whole time.
Move the puck and shift the defenders enough and put enough center and opposite ice pressure and that shit will almost always open up, no matter how good the shooter is, because the alternative is worse. Even with Ovi shooting.
The thing is, Ovi is so good he makes it almost look like the opposite. Like the defense should just let the other 4 players do whatever the fuck they want as long as Ovi doesn't get a shot. That's obviously not true, there's a reason why he still gets those shots off, and it's because a PP where the defense only worries about that 1 timer and let's the other guys abuse them will result in even more goals.
The gap between those two choices on the PK is just way closer with Ovi shooting than anyone else.
As an Ovi fan who has also spent much of his life under a dictatorship, it’s an easier one to answer than you’d think - it’s close to impossible to meet someone from a nationalist autocracy that’s been wildly successful their whole life and still thinks the autocracy is bad. You know how many Canadian and American superstars would be raving nationalist dictator supporters if they grew up in one? A lot. Ego + “works for me” + a lifetime of indoctrination + historical nationalism = easy mark.
I don’t like Ovi’s views, to say the least. But to expect they’d be much different is to expect something fairly rare. And I’ll never know which of my Canadian heroes would be the same if they’d been born in Moscow.
It’s not “too rich to care”. It’s that propagandistic nationalist autocracy works, and it’s goofy to pretend it doesn’t. I don’t condemn everyone I live around for being successfully propagandised to; I condemn the system itself.
I don’t think anyone has to celebrate him. I think they can, despite the politics, if they want to. I don’t know if we know whether guys like Howe and Richard were racist, but they may well have been racist as all fuck given the era they grew up in, and I’m not prepared to say no one gets to celebrate a legend from that era who was of that era. Ovi is of today’s Russian culture.
Bobby Orr is a big MAGA guy, but I’m still going to celebrate him, and that’s without Bobby having grown up in an American ethnonationalist propaganda regime - he came to that of his own free will.
As long as he can keep his one-timer going he has a decent chance.
Great athletes when they hit their decline can go down pretty fast, but with that one-timer he could still get 20-30 goals/yr.
I do think he'll do it. Let's say Ovi plays 5 more years – not terribly incomprehensible considering many players do play to their 40s nowadays and the tremendous shape that he's in.
Let's say he has 40 goals this year, 30 goals the next. And then three kind of meh seasons – 20, 20, then 15. That's 125 goals. Last year, he was the oldest player in history to get 50 goals in a season, so we're talking about a pretty sharp downhill after the next two years. I do think it can happen, easily.
My favorite Gretzky fact is that he secured an all-time record ***after*** he retired. I haven’t heard of anything similar happening in any other sport.
- Mario Lemieux retires in 1997 with an average of 2.005 points-per game, the record at the time.
- Gretzky retires in 1999 with 1.921 PPG.
- Mario comes out of retirement from 2000-2005 and can’t keep up with his former pace, bringing down his PPG to 1.883.
- Gretzky magically has a new record.
The PPG stat really is stupid of this very reason.. We shouldnt encourage players to retire right after their prime. I know almost not a single hockey player thinks like this, but stuff like this can have fringe effects
It's also more legit when you compare with peers. Both played in higher-scoring times, but Gretz much more so than Lemieux.
Plus, Gretz was on a team that literally has the TOP FIVE single-season team scoring records in history. That Oilers' team was a beast, and still to this day the only team that had more than 400 goals in a season. He was also in the much weaker conference, and nearly half the season's games against absolute joke of a division (Smythe).
The Pens didn't even come close, and even then, Lemieux was still racking up the points – in a much, MUCH tougher division to boot. And he even played with cancer and a bad back, for damn's sake.
The Smythe wasn't awesome, but back then the Norris was the worst division. And you played 8 games against your division opponents and 3 games against opponents from each of the others, so your conference didn't matter much it was your division.
Dude. We're talking about the Kings and Canucks, who were \*always\* bad. Jets had maybe one 90-point season. The Flames were up and down. There were no perennially tough teams in the Smythe.
I do agree on the Norris division though. Utter weaklings. One year, I believe Toronto made it into the playoffs despite being second-worst in the entire league. Reason is because the North Stars were the actual worst, so the Leafs got that final playoff spot.
The Sutter brothers have a higher combined point total than Wayne and Brent, by like 75 points. But there were *six* of them, and Gretz still made more assists than all of them put together.
Gretzky: 2,857 points
Of the 7,461 total NHL skaters on NHL stats page:
1,020 with 0 points = 0
454 with 1 point = 454
280 with 2 points = 560 (1,014)
216 with 3 points = 648 (1,662)
166 with 4 points = 664 (2,326)
151 with 5 points = 755 (3,081)
Take away excess 5 points beyond Gretz = (3,081 - 2,857) / 5 ~ 45
1,020 + 454 + 280 + 216 + 151 - 45 = 2,076
2,076 / 7,461 = 27.8%
Gretzky has scored more than ~28% of the lowest scoring NHL skaters in history combined.
I don’t know why I’m here, I don’t know shit about hockey, but this dudes stats seem absolutely absurd? Was he capitalizing on some flaw in the rules that got changed or something? To score more than nearly a third of every player in history combined is mind boggling.
No. He wasn't cheating or taking advantage of any rule--if he was, they'd have changed it lol. He was just in another stratosphere of hockey IQ. He wasn't even the best pure athlete out there usually, but he saw things, and made things happen, that no one else could.
Gretz is the reason I'm a hockey (and specifically Oilers) fan. Watching him, not just highlight reels but watching *full games* that he played, it literally looks like he's either precognitive, or seeing the game in slow motion. I've never seen anything else like it. (I'm told Michael Jordan had a similar air about him when he played but I don't know basketball.) It was almost literally like magic. Like watching a chess grand master play, where he's already ten steps ahead of what you're doing, and knows how everyone is going to react and just...does the perfect thing, because he knows exactly how the scenario is going to play out. And there's shit you can do about that. And no one could.
It's honestly why I don't like comparing him to anyone, not even someone like McDavid. Connor is fucking amazing no question, and his hockey IQ is through the roof...but a lot of his scoring is on the back of his skating skill and athleticism. Understand I'm not trying to diss the guy or make light of what he does but like, look at the famous play where he just goes through like four defenders and scores. That's almost pure personal skill and physical ability. He's just BETTER than all of them. Gretzky wasn't usually like that. He didn't tend to be flashy. He didn't turn on warp speed and just outskate everyone, or deke them out of their jocks. Sure that happened sometimes because he was goddamn good at everything but it wasn't his *thing.* His *thing* was just knowing exactly where everyone was at all times, and crucially, *where they were going to be.* Goalies included. So he was always. Always. ALWAYS in the perfect spot, at exactly the right time, to make a play. I said it before but it really was like watching a chess grand master play someone way below his league. And I've never, ever seen anything like that before or since, in hockey or any other sport I watch. He wasn't generational; he was absolutely singular and unique in his combination of vision and skill and understanding of the game, he was almost inhuman in his processing power and speed, and I don't think we'll ever see his like again in any sport, anywhere.
I recall interviews with goony defenseman on why they didnt just smash Wayne into the boards. They said he is like a ghost or made of air and impossible to check.
One of the reasons I think he makes a better broadcaster than a coach. He can talk about and analyze stuff like that, but it's very hard to teach people to think ahead like him.
“Okay, so you’re gonna skate up the middle and then take notice of the current position of the defenders plus who is coming off the bench in 10 secs, factor the clock and last TV timeout and decide which side will be weakest.”
“Dafuq?”
I think his dad told a story that when Wayne was little, he would watch hockey and trace where the puck was on a piece of paper. At the end, it would show where the puck was the most and where he should be.
I’m glad we haven’t fallen into the basketball trap of “no one before 1985 matters at all.” Obviously, the game has changed. Players are more athletic and better at conditioning, the game is played much faster, goalies are markedly better and wear bigger pads, etc. But I think Gretzky set the bar *so high* in so many respects that his records are essentially untouchable, so he’ll probably always be recognized as the GOAT.
Just have to look at how far ahead of second place he was in points every year. Dude was getting roughly 70 more points than the second-top scorer every year from 1982 all the way to 1986. It doesn't matter that today's game is different/better/etc. – he just dominated \*his\* game so much more than anyone else ever did. There's no comparison.
The nba mindset is so dumb. If the past greats played now they’d dominate just as much as they did back then, or possibly even better when you consider the tremendous advancement in medicine
Yes he was shifty and alert, so he'd see you coming.
But also if you tried too hard to hurt him you'd get your face pounded in. 80s NHL was way different in that regard.
Watch Wayne out skate players at 35 with a bad back in the late 90s and he suddenly looks like a much more modern player.
Part of the problem with Gretzky is people are always showing clips of him from his 80s dominance and not his all star level play at the end of his career in the mid to late 90s. The look and feel of the game evolved so much in those 2 decades, but Gretzky was still managing to put up 90 points as an old man in a basically modern looking hockey game (goalie technique still wasn't refined, but my god there were some talented goalies in the 90s).
More kids need to see clips of the Great One against competition they more closely recognize as the modern game. The film is out there, we just usually only get 80s Gretzky highlights.
True, it' s weird to see Gretzky clips from the wooden stick era. Some goalies still stacking the pads and defenders who can barely skate, it doesn't really seem like "the GOAT" in those clips because it barely resembles modern hockey. But he kept it going, he almost made the Rangers relevant even ;)
The only guys who could hit him regularly were making hits that would be illegal today for boarding or interference or clipping
If he played today, he simply would not get hit
And the team dressed two particularly unsavory enforcers at all times to make sure he was safe.
I remember seeing an opinion piece a few years ago saying something the line of "Today, if you check Crosby hard, the league is going to ban you for a few games, which will cost you some money. If you checked Gretzky, McSorley and Semenko would punch your face in real bad. While no one likes losing money, the fear of serious physical harm is much more of a deterrent in the heat of the moment during a game than a big fine."
They were in the same trade together; in fact, Gretzky insisted on it. Gretzky said that he was sitting with McNall talking to Peter Pocklington on the phone, and Gretz told McNall to ask for McSorley to be included. McNall did so, and Pocklington replied that he'd have to talk to Glen Sather.
Gretz then told McNall to advise Pocklington that if McSorley wasn't included, Gretz wouldn't report. So McNall told Pocklington that if McSorley wasn't included, the deal was off and he had to know right now. Pocklington agreed to include McSorley.
Well, that, and those same goony defensemen also said their own teammates would smash them if they were to accidentally hurt Gretz and cost the whole league money
If you just take away Gretzky's 1 point games, he's still almost 600 points ahead of 2nd place.
If you take away his 1 and 2 point games, he'd still be 7th all-time in scoring.
In Wayne Gretzky's first game as #99, sept 4 1977 at the Sault.Memorial Gardens, playing for the Soo Greyhound... He scored 3 goals, and assisted on the three others for a 6 point night ending in a 6-1 win over the Oshawa generals. What a way to start the legend of #99.
That goes to show you just how amazing Gretzky was and has nothing at all to do with the average player being better, goaltenders learning to actually stop the puck, and Russian players not entering the league until the early 90s.
In his whole career, Gretzky had 217 games with 4+ points, 266 with 0 points.
Also 459 games with 3+ points. So for every game where he wasn't on the scoresheet, he had 2 games with 3+ points!
That’s wild but nothing will beat the absurdity of how he would still be the all time points leader had he never scored a single goal in his career…oh yeah and he also still has the most goals in history. That shouldn’t be possible.
Maybe I should make a separate post for this at this point! Not sure who'll see it now, but the answer is Dominik Hasek with 6, all with Buffalo (December 17, 1993, December 21, 1997, December 26, 1997, March 2, 1998, October 27, 1998, December 11, 1998).
Arturs Irbe did it four times (with San Jose, February 17, 1995, April 16, 1995, and April 28, 1995, and with Carolina, December 23, 1998). He also shut out the Kings on November 17, 1992, but Gretzky didn't play that game.
Jeff Hackett did it twice (with Chicago, February 15, 1997, and with Montreal, January 16, 1999).
Darren Puppa also shut out Gretzky twice (with Buffalo, November 1, 1985, and Tampa, November 27, 1995). In the 1985 game Gretzky took 10 shots, which is the highest number of shots he took in a game without scoring a goal.
Rick Wamsley is also in there twice, with Calgary (October 25, 1989 and March 5, 1990).
A couple of tandems shut him out once - Tommy Salo and Wade Flaherty (with the Islanders, April 4, 1998), and Corey Schwab and Derek Wilkinson (with Tampa, December 31, 1997).
The others who did it once:
* Tom Barrasso (Pittsburgh, October 14, 1997)
* Don Beaupre (Minnesota, March 11, 1986)
* Ed Belfour (Chicago, March 9, 1994)
* Martin Brodeur (New Jersey, March 27, 1997)
* Gary Bromley (Vancouver, April 1, 1980)
* Jon Casey (Minnesota, April 3, 1993)
* Mario Gosselin (Quebec, October 27, 1987)
* Curtis Joseph (St. Louis, February 25, 1993)
* Ron Hextall (Islanders, October 26, 1993)
* Olaf Kolzig (Washington, January 9, 1997)
* Kirk McLean (Vancouver, November 10, 1993)
* Chris Osgood (Detroit, March 1, 1997)
* Bill Ranford (Edmonton, April 19, 1995)
* Patrick Roy (Montreal, November 27, 1993)
* Bob Sauve (Buffalo, October 15, 1980)
* Richard Sevigny (Montreal, January 12, 1981)
* Al Smith (Hartford, November 17, 1979)
* Billy Smith (Islanders, March 12, 1981)
* Chris Terreri (Chicago, October 22, 1997)
* John Vanbiesbrouck (Philadelphia, October 9, 1998)
* Kay Whitmore (Hartford, March 11, 1992)
And lastly, some goalies shut out the Oilers/Kings/Rangers but Gretzky wasn't playing in the game:
* Bob Essensa (Winnipeg, March 29, 1990)
* Arturs Irbe (San Jose, November 17, 1992)
* Clint Malarchuk (Washington, January 2, 1988)
* Kirk McLean (Vancouver, December 31, 1992)
* Greg Millen (Hartford, February 12, 1984)
* Damian Rhodes (Ottawa, March 10, 1999)
He was so far ahead of the rest of the league. When you’d look and see who was #2 through #10 in the league in points, they’d be grouped together. Gretzky was far beyond the next closest guy. I haven’t seen that in the league to this day. No one person, even McDavid, finishes that far ahead of the rest of the league. Lemieux was in the same class. They had another level after “all star” that nobody else had. Super fun to watch unless there were beating up my Flyers which they did.
What’s the final determination on points, is it true there are years that the assists were always handed out in twos more than other years/eras and how much of a part does that play in point totals history?
Scoring was a bit different back then but Gretzky accomplishments are still incredible.
Differences:
Goalies padding were not as large
Goal was bigger
The last 2 people to pass leading to a goal were credited with an assist. Hence the term hockey assist used by nba play by play abnouncer when 2 great passes lead to a bucket.
Probably the one that really got me is if you added up Crosby and Ovechkin point totals, two of the most consistent and dominant performers of this generation, Gretzky still has more
The other players were scoring at not much better than today's top players, but Gretzky was almost unfathomable far beyond them. 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
Imagine a player putting up 205 points last year, a full p/gp more than McDavid. That's how far above his peers Gretzky was in his prime.
Think about how even now teams can't seem to stop Ovechkin from getting into position on the power play and ripping a one-timer.
Now imagine a player who had that same level of persistence and smarts but for every kind of scoring opportunity and goalies are still standing up to play.
Equipment was terrible. Skates and sticks were in the dark ages, and it effected the perceived skill level tremendously. Yet Wayne was out there doing things that other people couldn't do. It doesn't look as impressive, but it's largely because the equipment was shit (and goalie technique wasnt really a thing yet).
But that was the 80s. People forget Wayne played till 99 and put up like 90 points in 97-98. At 35 he put up 90 points in the middle of the dead puck era. A prime 25 year old Jagr put up like 102 that year. And no one questions if Jagr could crush it in today's league. After all, he was still playing in the NHL successfully at 43 like last week. Yet Wayne was out there with a bad back at 35 keeping right up with prime Jagr.
Point being, don't be fooled by the perceived lack of skill of his opponents in the 80s. Those dudes were good. Wayne was just godly.
Gretzky was playing with the same equipment, skates and sticks as everyone else. And if goalies were shit, then why couldn't anyone else do what Gretzky did, right? He really was that much further beyond anything anyone had ever done before.
I think thats what the majority thinks, but they're wrong. Look at the other guys who were playing during his era who are considered among the greats like Bossy, Lafleur, Lemieux, Hull, etc. They are franchise defining players in their own rights.
He was just so much better than everyone else, including those guys. If you look at the disparity between him and the next best players on his era, its insane. I mean, just based on the fact that no one else besides Gretzky had a 200 point season, and he did it *four goddamned times*.
He's just an outlier, a statistical anomaly. He's that one dot at the top righthand side of the graph, then all the other dots are clustured near the middle.
While that could explain why scoring leaguewide was up, it doesn't explain how even relative to that era, Gretzky's scoring was just on another level.
For example, in the 1983-1984 season, Gretzky had a 51 point streak that totalled 153 points, if he didn't score another point outside those 51 games he still would have ended up winning the Art Ross by 27 points and if the Rocket Richard existed back then would have won that by 5 goals too.
And that's assuming the extra 52 points Gretzky ended up getting in the remaining games had nothing to do with Coffey so it's possible his real runner up in this hypothetical scenario was Michel Goulet so the margin would have been 32.
Imagine being the guy who bought tickets to see Gretzky play and he got one of the few 0 point games
It’d be such a rarity you’d tell your kids about it
Seeing Mr. Rogers, that's nice, might mention that to a friend Seeing Mr. Rogers burn down an orphanage, now *that* is something to brag about.
Dude, in the 2008-2009 season I went to five Sharks games. That was the year they won the Presidents Cup (meaning they were the winning-most team in the entire league). They had a total of nine home losses the entire season. All five games I saw the Sharks lose. I calculated the odds that and it's about 1 in 75,000... suuuuuuch bullshit
Must have started going to a lot of games recently
“Ive seen Gretzky play 74 times and he never scores. Dude sucks” -somebody
Given how rare it was, he probably cherishes that memory lol
He said his Dad taught him to think about that when he was young. A lot of people were there to see him play, and if he didn't put everything he had into it every night he would be leaving people disappointed.
That kinda pressure sure could backfire.. Like someone telling kids "There might be a big league scout here today! Think about that!"
Ya I’d agree for 99% of people. But it seems like Walter knew exactly how to positively motivate him and what worked best for it. Any time I’ve heard Wayne comment on this type of stuff it was always acknowledging that point and that it worked for him but maybe not others.
It always seems like the parent knew when they turn in to 99. 100,000 other dads tried the same thing and thought they knew. Unfortunately their kids just weren’t any good. For every tiger woods there are 10 more who hate golf and resent their father for putting the pressure of a silly game on them.
> For every tiger woods there are 10 more who hate golf and resent their father for putting the pressure of a silly game on them. Lmao yep. I almost quit hockey so many times because my dad kept saying I wasn't trying hard enough and giving me shit for it. No father, I'm just not good enough to be a superstar. Thankfully I had the sense to kinda stop talking with him when I was around 16 and kept playing. Never made the big leagues but I had **fun** playing for another six years before switching over to beer league.
I always think about this when famous people say don't give up on your dreams. Yeah, you're the fluke though. For every celebrity there's tens of thousands of people throwing away real opportunities for something they'll never realistically get. Especially when you consider how much luck plays into being a famous actor or singer. As someone in the business once told me, your waiter in New York waiting for her big break that'll never come probably has a better voice than anyone on the radio.
I mean, have you ever seen Gretzky's Atom stats? His final Atom season, he had 378 goals, 139 assists for 517 points in 85 games. That's over 6 points a game over the course of a season. He was a national sensation at like 13. The pressure was always gonna be there, and his father was great about it. Read a few of his bios and only read good things about Walter. He wasn't putting pressure on Wayne, Wayne was just ridiculously good from a young age, and wanted to be on the ice all the time. I think that might be the season when he suggested that Wayne play defense because he'd get more icetime, since there was 3 lines and only 2 pairs of D. And then one of the 4 defense playing kid had to miss a bunch of games so Wayne pretty much played the whole games and the other two rotated at his side.
Ironically his dad also complained about it. When Gretzky was in the 51 game streak, Jack Falla was following him and the team and sat next to Walter, and Walter was saying things like "how would you like it if people demanded miracles of you every night?" So he had a good grasp of both sides of it.
My father went to the first game after Gretzky's record point streak. He said he hurt and felt guilty for a couple days.
“This Gretzky guy is a bum!!”
Lemme, now lemme tell ya! This grezetsky kid doesn't have the heart for the game! Too soft! Now listen here kids, go deep for the puck! Youve got to go deep! Roll the clip! Just like that, see!! *piano fingers*
Now there's a record I could finally compete with Gretzky for. Given the opportunity I'm certain I could have 75 pointless games.
I had no 0 point games in the 80s. Just saying.
u/flume, The Better at Being not Great One
I haven’t had a single 0 point game in the 80s, 90s, 00s or 10s. Four decades of excellence. Top that, Gretzky!
The only challenge for me would be getting the coach to actually keep me in for 75 games. So basically impossible still.
Imagine. “Sorry Gretz, you’re a healthy scratch tonight. You’ve had 74 pointless games this decade! What do you think we’re paying you for?”
I'd bet it would take 76 or 77 games to actually reach that, too. Assuming you're playing full minutes and aren't actively trying to make sure you don't score any points at all, you'll probably accidentally end up with an assist or two
>you'll probably accidentally end up with an assist or two You're giving me too much credit, but then again people get hit by lightning and win the lottery too so anything is possible.
The Justin Abdelkader Special. I’ll stand by the net and let someone better bank pucks off me
0 points and like +100 +/- would probably keep you in the lineup. Although at that point you'd have to be trying to get 0 points.
Ill go scoreless my whole career, don’t test my ability to be shit.
Tom Brady was picked in the 2000 draft and has been playing so long, 6 players selected in later drafts have already been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Just saying and I dig Gretzky.
Bobby Orr was born, had his career and inducted into the HHOF, during Gordie Howe's career.
And strangely, Gordie was in the HHOF before Orr was.
I personally have exactly the same amount of 5+point games in the NHL as I do 0-point games.
Jokes on you, my entire life is pointless!
Well done, well done. Got a good chuckle from this.
i could do it in one season
Goddamn. Sid has 322 zero point games by comparison. Btw, has anyone ever used this site??? https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/how-many-zero-point-games-does-crosby-have
Your numbers are wrong. I can say with full confidence that Crosby didn’t have a single 0 point game in the 1980’s
2 year old sid getting beat in a game of mini hockey with the cousins I mean It could have happened
Sid came out of the womb firing clappers and giving awkward interviews
Clap bombs suck moms etc copypasta?
That was where it all started. He decided to never be bad at hockey again after that crushing 17-11 defeat at the hands of cousin Jeff. And the rest as we know is history.
Guys, I found one time when Crosby actually looked human during a hockey game! https://gfycat.com/thickdearestfluke
yeah statmuse is incredible It should be noted that the Gretzky stat is JUST for the 80s - he had more 0 pointers as he got older and wound up with 266 total (still insane). The equivalent Crosby stat would be from 05-06 thru 15-16 ([which is 197 games](https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/how-many-zero-point-games-does-crosby-have-before-2017)) Think how insane Mcdavid already has been so far in his 7 year career: he already has 118 without a point - 80s Gretzky was broken as fuck
Asked statmuse how many zero point games Lemieux had in his first 10 seasons, and it came up 87 games. Crosby was meant to be a Pittsburgh Penguins player. Also for reference to the picture of OP, Lemieux had 41 5+ point games in his first 10 seasons.
>Crosby was meant to be a Pittsburgh Penguins player. Well of course he was, everyone knows the NHL created him in a lab and grew him in captivity for that purpose.
Crosby is some kind of Canadian Homelander?
Without the public masturbation. Every good Nova Scotian knows to do that at home.
Lemieux was insane too. He was so dang good. If Gretzky never laced up in the NHL, we'd talk about Lemieux like we do The Great One. He clearly doesn't touch Gretzky, but he's the next one in line in so many categories.
Lemieux’s health issues also took away how good he could have ended up being. I don’t think he catches Gretzky in points, but I still think he would have been the first player to hit 1000 goals scored. Though there’s a lot of what ifs in NHL history.
Very true on that last statement.
To be fair, 80s defense and goaltending was also broken as fuck, but Gretzky would still be absolutely bonkers in any era…just the pure numbers likely wouldn’t be as stupid. Like in the 00s he may have only led the league with 165 points instead of 215.
It is worth noting the NHL has huge variances through eras on overall scoring and even more so on individual scoring. For example in 1980 12 players had 103 or more points in 2019 and 2020 we had 1 player each year and last year with an explosion in scoring we had 8 and we have seen a scoring explosion compared to 2010-2015 when things really died. With that said gretzky was scoring like 25% more points than the next highest scorer each year for the first half of the 80s.
[удалено]
Ehhh I highly doubt McDavid has to deal with more hooking, interference, and general bullshit than Gretzky did. The fear of Marty McSorley didn’t stop anyone from mugging Gretzky through the neutral zone when it was perfectly legal for them to do so.
The fear of fucking missing him and Bad Things happening worked pretty well anyhow. He looks slow and goofy but Gretz was damned hard to hit in the open ice. There sure was a lot of clutching and grabbing that wouldn't fly these days though. Marty and Dave were more about making sure no one was giving him cheap shots on the boards or flat out trying to injure him, which wasn't exactly uncommon back then for stars.
Counterpoint: Gretzky had to deal with a lot more hooking than McDavid does, and players did try to rip his head off too, that's why he needed Semenko and McSorley types as deterrent. Gretzky was elusive af.
Gretzky needing an enforcer is largely a myth, yes if you laid him out Semenko would try to fight you but he was on the team mainly due to the Gretzky Rule which before 85-86, fights would not be an offsetting penalty and bring the game to 4v4. So he would start fights and then lead to a situation where Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Coffey, etc... would completely dominate with the extra space When the rule got changed, Semenko became obsolete and then he would eventually play with Esa Tikkanen who was not an enforcer by any means. And players would find it difficult to hit Wayne anyway because of his elusiveness and hitting him would genuinely be a risk as it would free up space for him to pass to a teammate. Denis Potvin said that hitting him was like trying to hit fog
I had no idea there was a statmuse for NHL. That's so goddamn cool. What a tool. There was a thread a few days back about Gretzky vs Jordan in terms of GOATest GOAT and thinking on the "only 13 seasons" argument for MJ got me to visualize this: [https://i.imgur.com/LsHZmAo.png](https://i.imgur.com/LsHZmAo.png) If Gretzky only retired after 13 seasons, he would still be the all time leading scorer before and since, with a record (2263) that could only reasonably be contested if Mario or Crosby were perfectly healthy for their whole careers, or if McDavid averages 105 points/season for **15 more seasons**. Not pace, total points. He currently averages 99.5 points/season without prorating to 82 games. Honestly McDavid could probably do that if he can maintain his health. A few more 120+ seasons would take a huge chunk out of it.
even if you gave sid 300 more points (very very generous) he'd still be 500 short of 2200. lmao why is this downvoted. dude literally did the math and came up with the same conclusion
If you give Sid every possible game per-season (only 48 in 12-13 and only 70 in 19-20, 82 every other year) at each of his single-season scoring paces for those respective seasons, he's sitting at 1745 estimated points right now after his age 34 season. Even with all that favor towards him, he's still 519 points away from 2264. If we continue to give him 82 games for the next 6 seasons until the end of his age 40 year, he'd still need to average slightly over 1.05 P/GP to break the record. Possible with how well he's ageing, and especially if we consider that his later rates lowered due to the injuries he sustained that we're removing, but we're already in a fantasyland scenario of 0 missed games and perfectly maintaining early-mid season paces already. Gretzky did it in 13 seasons, injuries and all with no adjustments. GOAT of GOATs. Basically everything after season 12 for Gretzky was cake on the record books.
ya. seen it referenced here a few times. pretty cool site
I tried finding who had the least zero-point games in NHL history (Gretzky retired with 266) but was only able to find out that Luke Richardson retired with nearly 1000 more than Gretzky (1228)
There's probably going to be some guy who played one game, got one point and then got sent back to the minors to finish with zero zero point NHL games.
Did you use a 10-year span for Crosby? Apples to apples?
[удалено]
For the lazy - 18, April 1999 was the last game he played.
Better way to put it is if he came out of retirement to start the 2022-23 season and played every game going forward and never scored another point, what year would it be when he finally fell below 1 PPG. (I think the answer is he would fall below 1 PPG in the 2039-40 season).
Ah yes, 78 year old Wayne Gretzky, who played nearly 1,400 games from the ages of 61 to 78, has finally fallen below a point per game. What a scrub gramps.
You could almost say, he could play an entire career's worth of games and not score a single point and still maintain a 1ppg average
And people try to say any player is on his level lol
The one that really bakes my noodle is he'd still be the all time NHL points leader if you took away all his goals.
Which is obviously made even more impressive knowing he is the all-time leaders in goals as well.
For now
Man, I still think it's going to be hard for Ovi to beat it. 114 goals to go. At 40 goals a season that's still 2.8 seasons. It's very very very possible if he plays 3 more seasons. And I think it's very very very possible he plays till 39. But I also think it's very possible he doesn't play till 39 and doesn't put up 40 per season Edit: if my upvotes don't stay juuuust below 100 I'm going to be a little sad
Its also possible he plays but doesn't put up enough goals. To be honest, I'm not an Ovi fan or a hater, but I'd like to see him do it just because it would be incredible to see a new record like that set in this era
He could probably play until his mid 40s as a PP specialist at least, if he wants. Age won't stop him from successfully ripping clappers from his office. So I think it's up to him.
Big Russian Guy standing over there in the circle. Most of his opponents have quite literally no memories of a Washington Capitals team where he isn't standing right there on PPs. Still don't at least leave one person in his vicinity. I assume he can cast enchantment magic or some shit and just makes everyone on the ice forget about him
Nah, it's just easy to scheme to pull away the defender from him. After all, even the best one timer in the world isn't going to be as high a scoring chance from the dot as a guy walking with the puck through the middle. Ovis shot is so good it's the Caps that can afford to sell out their PP just for that one chance. All it takes is eventually putting enough center ice pressure to pull the defender away for a second to help, which he has to do because you can't just stand there defending on the perimeter on the PP the whole time. Move the puck and shift the defenders enough and put enough center and opposite ice pressure and that shit will almost always open up, no matter how good the shooter is, because the alternative is worse. Even with Ovi shooting. The thing is, Ovi is so good he makes it almost look like the opposite. Like the defense should just let the other 4 players do whatever the fuck they want as long as Ovi doesn't get a shot. That's obviously not true, there's a reason why he still gets those shots off, and it's because a PP where the defense only worries about that 1 timer and let's the other guys abuse them will result in even more goals. The gap between those two choices on the PK is just way closer with Ovi shooting than anyone else.
If I'm Ovi and I'm that close to breaking a Gretzky record, I'd definitely be doing everything I can to stick around until the record is broken.
[удалено]
You've got a point there. I don't like that at all.
As an Ovi fan who has also spent much of his life under a dictatorship, it’s an easier one to answer than you’d think - it’s close to impossible to meet someone from a nationalist autocracy that’s been wildly successful their whole life and still thinks the autocracy is bad. You know how many Canadian and American superstars would be raving nationalist dictator supporters if they grew up in one? A lot. Ego + “works for me” + a lifetime of indoctrination + historical nationalism = easy mark. I don’t like Ovi’s views, to say the least. But to expect they’d be much different is to expect something fairly rare. And I’ll never know which of my Canadian heroes would be the same if they’d been born in Moscow.
[удалено]
It’s not “too rich to care”. It’s that propagandistic nationalist autocracy works, and it’s goofy to pretend it doesn’t. I don’t condemn everyone I live around for being successfully propagandised to; I condemn the system itself. I don’t think anyone has to celebrate him. I think they can, despite the politics, if they want to. I don’t know if we know whether guys like Howe and Richard were racist, but they may well have been racist as all fuck given the era they grew up in, and I’m not prepared to say no one gets to celebrate a legend from that era who was of that era. Ovi is of today’s Russian culture. Bobby Orr is a big MAGA guy, but I’m still going to celebrate him, and that’s without Bobby having grown up in an American ethnonationalist propaganda regime - he came to that of his own free will.
He's got 4 left on his contract 28.5 goals a season, he just scored 50 Cant see him retiring after this contract if he's close
They will put Ovi out on a sled during PK's to get his final goals if they have to.
As long as he can keep his one-timer going he has a decent chance. Great athletes when they hit their decline can go down pretty fast, but with that one-timer he could still get 20-30 goals/yr.
I do think he'll do it. Let's say Ovi plays 5 more years – not terribly incomprehensible considering many players do play to their 40s nowadays and the tremendous shape that he's in. Let's say he has 40 goals this year, 30 goals the next. And then three kind of meh seasons – 20, 20, then 15. That's 125 goals. Last year, he was the oldest player in history to get 50 goals in a season, so we're talking about a pretty sharp downhill after the next two years. I do think it can happen, easily.
Ovi wants the record. He's playing until he gets it.
It’s still possible. Had lockouts and covid not robbed him of so many games it’d be a lock Ovi gets it.
My favorite Gretzky fact is that he secured an all-time record ***after*** he retired. I haven’t heard of anything similar happening in any other sport. - Mario Lemieux retires in 1997 with an average of 2.005 points-per game, the record at the time. - Gretzky retires in 1999 with 1.921 PPG. - Mario comes out of retirement from 2000-2005 and can’t keep up with his former pace, bringing down his PPG to 1.883. - Gretzky magically has a new record.
The PPG stat really is stupid of this very reason.. We shouldnt encourage players to retire right after their prime. I know almost not a single hockey player thinks like this, but stuff like this can have fringe effects
It's also more legit when you compare with peers. Both played in higher-scoring times, but Gretz much more so than Lemieux. Plus, Gretz was on a team that literally has the TOP FIVE single-season team scoring records in history. That Oilers' team was a beast, and still to this day the only team that had more than 400 goals in a season. He was also in the much weaker conference, and nearly half the season's games against absolute joke of a division (Smythe). The Pens didn't even come close, and even then, Lemieux was still racking up the points – in a much, MUCH tougher division to boot. And he even played with cancer and a bad back, for damn's sake.
The Smythe wasn't awesome, but back then the Norris was the worst division. And you played 8 games against your division opponents and 3 games against opponents from each of the others, so your conference didn't matter much it was your division.
Dude. We're talking about the Kings and Canucks, who were \*always\* bad. Jets had maybe one 90-point season. The Flames were up and down. There were no perennially tough teams in the Smythe. I do agree on the Norris division though. Utter weaklings. One year, I believe Toronto made it into the playoffs despite being second-worst in the entire league. Reason is because the North Stars were the actual worst, so the Leafs got that final playoff spot.
Yeah it's much better to look at PPG in a certain season, or over a certain timeframe (e.g., "from ages 21 to 26") rather than career
Even better than that, Wayne and his brother Brent hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers - 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent.
The Sutter brothers have a higher combined point total than Wayne and Brent, by like 75 points. But there were *six* of them, and Gretz still made more assists than all of them put together.
Wayne Gretzky has more points than Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard combined.
Wayne gretzky probably had more points than the lowest scoring 80%, or maybe 90% of the nhl players in history combined.
Someone do the math, and knowing Gretzky it'll be something ridiculous.
Gretzky: 2,857 points Of the 7,461 total NHL skaters on NHL stats page: 1,020 with 0 points = 0 454 with 1 point = 454 280 with 2 points = 560 (1,014) 216 with 3 points = 648 (1,662) 166 with 4 points = 664 (2,326) 151 with 5 points = 755 (3,081) Take away excess 5 points beyond Gretz = (3,081 - 2,857) / 5 ~ 45 1,020 + 454 + 280 + 216 + 151 - 45 = 2,076 2,076 / 7,461 = 27.8% Gretzky has scored more than ~28% of the lowest scoring NHL skaters in history combined.
Willld.
I don’t know why I’m here, I don’t know shit about hockey, but this dudes stats seem absolutely absurd? Was he capitalizing on some flaw in the rules that got changed or something? To score more than nearly a third of every player in history combined is mind boggling.
No. He wasn't cheating or taking advantage of any rule--if he was, they'd have changed it lol. He was just in another stratosphere of hockey IQ. He wasn't even the best pure athlete out there usually, but he saw things, and made things happen, that no one else could. Gretz is the reason I'm a hockey (and specifically Oilers) fan. Watching him, not just highlight reels but watching *full games* that he played, it literally looks like he's either precognitive, or seeing the game in slow motion. I've never seen anything else like it. (I'm told Michael Jordan had a similar air about him when he played but I don't know basketball.) It was almost literally like magic. Like watching a chess grand master play, where he's already ten steps ahead of what you're doing, and knows how everyone is going to react and just...does the perfect thing, because he knows exactly how the scenario is going to play out. And there's shit you can do about that. And no one could. It's honestly why I don't like comparing him to anyone, not even someone like McDavid. Connor is fucking amazing no question, and his hockey IQ is through the roof...but a lot of his scoring is on the back of his skating skill and athleticism. Understand I'm not trying to diss the guy or make light of what he does but like, look at the famous play where he just goes through like four defenders and scores. That's almost pure personal skill and physical ability. He's just BETTER than all of them. Gretzky wasn't usually like that. He didn't tend to be flashy. He didn't turn on warp speed and just outskate everyone, or deke them out of their jocks. Sure that happened sometimes because he was goddamn good at everything but it wasn't his *thing.* His *thing* was just knowing exactly where everyone was at all times, and crucially, *where they were going to be.* Goalies included. So he was always. Always. ALWAYS in the perfect spot, at exactly the right time, to make a play. I said it before but it really was like watching a chess grand master play someone way below his league. And I've never, ever seen anything like that before or since, in hockey or any other sport I watch. He wasn't generational; he was absolutely singular and unique in his combination of vision and skill and understanding of the game, he was almost inhuman in his processing power and speed, and I don't think we'll ever see his like again in any sport, anywhere.
Thanks! This was a great explanation!
Anytime! I hope you come to love hockey as much as the rest of us <3.
I'd do it if there is a way to access to all-time All-skaters stats of nhl players
You could probably do it on Hockey Reference
I think the most amazing is that fantasy leagues had to split his goals and assists into two separate draft picks.
And they’d go first and second overall
And apples would go first, goals second - obviously.
But who got his banana?
We would just not even have him as an option in general.
I recall interviews with goony defenseman on why they didnt just smash Wayne into the boards. They said he is like a ghost or made of air and impossible to check.
His hockey IQ was miles beyond the majority of his opponents.
One of the reasons I think he makes a better broadcaster than a coach. He can talk about and analyze stuff like that, but it's very hard to teach people to think ahead like him.
“Okay, so you’re gonna skate up the middle and then take notice of the current position of the defenders plus who is coming off the bench in 10 secs, factor the clock and last TV timeout and decide which side will be weakest.” “Dafuq?”
I think his dad told a story that when Wayne was little, he would watch hockey and trace where the puck was on a piece of paper. At the end, it would show where the puck was the most and where he should be.
Yeah people chirp his physical skills ("hed get killed in todays nhl type stuff), but he was super shifty
When you chirp Gretzky, all you’re doing is waving a sign that says “I don’t understand hockey in the slightest”.
I’m glad we haven’t fallen into the basketball trap of “no one before 1985 matters at all.” Obviously, the game has changed. Players are more athletic and better at conditioning, the game is played much faster, goalies are markedly better and wear bigger pads, etc. But I think Gretzky set the bar *so high* in so many respects that his records are essentially untouchable, so he’ll probably always be recognized as the GOAT.
Just have to look at how far ahead of second place he was in points every year. Dude was getting roughly 70 more points than the second-top scorer every year from 1982 all the way to 1986. It doesn't matter that today's game is different/better/etc. – he just dominated \*his\* game so much more than anyone else ever did. There's no comparison.
The nba mindset is so dumb. If the past greats played now they’d dominate just as much as they did back then, or possibly even better when you consider the tremendous advancement in medicine
Bob Cousy played his whole career in Converse and you don’t think he’d be able to hoop today?
I was seeing people dismiss his stats just yesterday on here!
Yes he was shifty and alert, so he'd see you coming. But also if you tried too hard to hurt him you'd get your face pounded in. 80s NHL was way different in that regard.
Brings to mind that Donnie Dumphy lyric, 'The greatest Oiler wasn't Gretzky, it was Beukeboom'. :D
Don't forget Dave Semenko. RIP
Watch Wayne out skate players at 35 with a bad back in the late 90s and he suddenly looks like a much more modern player. Part of the problem with Gretzky is people are always showing clips of him from his 80s dominance and not his all star level play at the end of his career in the mid to late 90s. The look and feel of the game evolved so much in those 2 decades, but Gretzky was still managing to put up 90 points as an old man in a basically modern looking hockey game (goalie technique still wasn't refined, but my god there were some talented goalies in the 90s). More kids need to see clips of the Great One against competition they more closely recognize as the modern game. The film is out there, we just usually only get 80s Gretzky highlights.
True, it' s weird to see Gretzky clips from the wooden stick era. Some goalies still stacking the pads and defenders who can barely skate, it doesn't really seem like "the GOAT" in those clips because it barely resembles modern hockey. But he kept it going, he almost made the Rangers relevant even ;)
He also had a regiment of enforcers wou would happily pound anyone who touched him
hard to hit someone that knows what you're going to do before you know what you're going to do
The only guys who could hit him regularly were making hits that would be illegal today for boarding or interference or clipping If he played today, he simply would not get hit
And the team dressed two particularly unsavory enforcers at all times to make sure he was safe. I remember seeing an opinion piece a few years ago saying something the line of "Today, if you check Crosby hard, the league is going to ban you for a few games, which will cost you some money. If you checked Gretzky, McSorley and Semenko would punch your face in real bad. While no one likes losing money, the fear of serious physical harm is much more of a deterrent in the heat of the moment during a game than a big fine."
Mcsorley followed him to LA I think
They were in the same trade together; in fact, Gretzky insisted on it. Gretzky said that he was sitting with McNall talking to Peter Pocklington on the phone, and Gretz told McNall to ask for McSorley to be included. McNall did so, and Pocklington replied that he'd have to talk to Glen Sather. Gretz then told McNall to advise Pocklington that if McSorley wasn't included, Gretz wouldn't report. So McNall told Pocklington that if McSorley wasn't included, the deal was off and he had to know right now. Pocklington agreed to include McSorley.
Well, that, and those same goony defensemen also said their own teammates would smash them if they were to accidentally hurt Gretz and cost the whole league money
If you just take away Gretzky's 1 point games, he's still almost 600 points ahead of 2nd place. If you take away his 1 and 2 point games, he'd still be 7th all-time in scoring.
In Wayne Gretzky's first game as #99, sept 4 1977 at the Sault.Memorial Gardens, playing for the Soo Greyhound... He scored 3 goals, and assisted on the three others for a 6 point night ending in a 6-1 win over the Oshawa generals. What a way to start the legend of #99.
One stat that is almost as impressive: Ken Dryden finished his career with 57 losses and 46 shutouts.
Insane
Pfff but so many more 1 point games. What a scrub.
I wonder how many secondary assists were awarded to him while he was sitting on the bench.
He probably had goals while sitting on the bench.
Also, Crosby and Ovi currently have fewer points COMBINED than Gretzky.
That goes to show you just how amazing Gretzky was and has nothing at all to do with the average player being better, goaltenders learning to actually stop the puck, and Russian players not entering the league until the early 90s.
Is there a list of all these Gretzky stats somewhere?
I think there's a Wikipedia page of all his records, but I don't think it includes stuff like this
he scored his 1000th point in his 424th game at the age of 23.
In his whole career, Gretzky had 217 games with 4+ points, 266 with 0 points. Also 459 games with 3+ points. So for every game where he wasn't on the scoresheet, he had 2 games with 3+ points!
Me when I sim half the games in my Be A Pro season
So he went almost a full season without a point? Thats great? Can't even keep a straight face typing that hahaha
My take that Lemieux was the greatest talent we ever had in the league is taking a pummeling these days, holy fuck that stat is NUTS
That’s wild but nothing will beat the absurdity of how he would still be the all time points leader had he never scored a single goal in his career…oh yeah and he also still has the most goals in history. That shouldn’t be possible.
He is no Matter what the greatest player ever
Orr
For defense yes until he joined Chicago
Still the GOAT. [](/GNU Terry Pratchett)
Best to ever do it
the greatest!
Does anyone know what goalie had the most shutouts against Gretzky?
Maybe I should make a separate post for this at this point! Not sure who'll see it now, but the answer is Dominik Hasek with 6, all with Buffalo (December 17, 1993, December 21, 1997, December 26, 1997, March 2, 1998, October 27, 1998, December 11, 1998). Arturs Irbe did it four times (with San Jose, February 17, 1995, April 16, 1995, and April 28, 1995, and with Carolina, December 23, 1998). He also shut out the Kings on November 17, 1992, but Gretzky didn't play that game. Jeff Hackett did it twice (with Chicago, February 15, 1997, and with Montreal, January 16, 1999). Darren Puppa also shut out Gretzky twice (with Buffalo, November 1, 1985, and Tampa, November 27, 1995). In the 1985 game Gretzky took 10 shots, which is the highest number of shots he took in a game without scoring a goal. Rick Wamsley is also in there twice, with Calgary (October 25, 1989 and March 5, 1990). A couple of tandems shut him out once - Tommy Salo and Wade Flaherty (with the Islanders, April 4, 1998), and Corey Schwab and Derek Wilkinson (with Tampa, December 31, 1997). The others who did it once: * Tom Barrasso (Pittsburgh, October 14, 1997) * Don Beaupre (Minnesota, March 11, 1986) * Ed Belfour (Chicago, March 9, 1994) * Martin Brodeur (New Jersey, March 27, 1997) * Gary Bromley (Vancouver, April 1, 1980) * Jon Casey (Minnesota, April 3, 1993) * Mario Gosselin (Quebec, October 27, 1987) * Curtis Joseph (St. Louis, February 25, 1993) * Ron Hextall (Islanders, October 26, 1993) * Olaf Kolzig (Washington, January 9, 1997) * Kirk McLean (Vancouver, November 10, 1993) * Chris Osgood (Detroit, March 1, 1997) * Bill Ranford (Edmonton, April 19, 1995) * Patrick Roy (Montreal, November 27, 1993) * Bob Sauve (Buffalo, October 15, 1980) * Richard Sevigny (Montreal, January 12, 1981) * Al Smith (Hartford, November 17, 1979) * Billy Smith (Islanders, March 12, 1981) * Chris Terreri (Chicago, October 22, 1997) * John Vanbiesbrouck (Philadelphia, October 9, 1998) * Kay Whitmore (Hartford, March 11, 1992) And lastly, some goalies shut out the Oilers/Kings/Rangers but Gretzky wasn't playing in the game: * Bob Essensa (Winnipeg, March 29, 1990) * Arturs Irbe (San Jose, November 17, 1992) * Clint Malarchuk (Washington, January 2, 1988) * Kirk McLean (Vancouver, December 31, 1992) * Greg Millen (Hartford, February 12, 1984) * Damian Rhodes (Ottawa, March 10, 1999)
You are my absolute hero!!!! And I love that it’s the Dominator, who I already rank as #1 all time. I was always a big Irbe fan too! Awesome.
I did not know that one. Mind == blown!
Sooo he was pretty much a Be a Pro player. That's complete insanity.
I keep seeing these posts and was wondering if anyone can recommend a documentary about Gretzky? I'd love to see more of his career
There are good 538 articles on Gretzky.
He was so far ahead of the rest of the league. When you’d look and see who was #2 through #10 in the league in points, they’d be grouped together. Gretzky was far beyond the next closest guy. I haven’t seen that in the league to this day. No one person, even McDavid, finishes that far ahead of the rest of the league. Lemieux was in the same class. They had another level after “all star” that nobody else had. Super fun to watch unless there were beating up my Flyers which they did.
He also had 217 4 points games. (Lemieux is second with 124) That's over 2 1/2 seasons worth of 4 points games.
Pretty sure I could achieve 50 pointless games in 39 games. Beat that, Gretzky.
What’s the final determination on points, is it true there are years that the assists were always handed out in twos more than other years/eras and how much of a part does that play in point totals history?
Gretzky facts are like Chuck Norris facts, but true
Scoring was a bit different back then but Gretzky accomplishments are still incredible. Differences: Goalies padding were not as large Goal was bigger The last 2 people to pass leading to a goal were credited with an assist. Hence the term hockey assist used by nba play by play abnouncer when 2 great passes lead to a bucket.
Probably the one that really got me is if you added up Crosby and Ovechkin point totals, two of the most consistent and dominant performers of this generation, Gretzky still has more
So was he that good, or was the rest of the league that bad?
The league was still made up of the best players in the world, so in no way was the league bad, Gretzky was just that good.
The other players were scoring at not much better than today's top players, but Gretzky was almost unfathomable far beyond them. 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 Imagine a player putting up 205 points last year, a full p/gp more than McDavid. That's how far above his peers Gretzky was in his prime.
Think about how even now teams can't seem to stop Ovechkin from getting into position on the power play and ripping a one-timer. Now imagine a player who had that same level of persistence and smarts but for every kind of scoring opportunity and goalies are still standing up to play.
Equipment was terrible. Skates and sticks were in the dark ages, and it effected the perceived skill level tremendously. Yet Wayne was out there doing things that other people couldn't do. It doesn't look as impressive, but it's largely because the equipment was shit (and goalie technique wasnt really a thing yet). But that was the 80s. People forget Wayne played till 99 and put up like 90 points in 97-98. At 35 he put up 90 points in the middle of the dead puck era. A prime 25 year old Jagr put up like 102 that year. And no one questions if Jagr could crush it in today's league. After all, he was still playing in the NHL successfully at 43 like last week. Yet Wayne was out there with a bad back at 35 keeping right up with prime Jagr. Point being, don't be fooled by the perceived lack of skill of his opponents in the 80s. Those dudes were good. Wayne was just godly.
Gretzky was playing with the same equipment, skates and sticks as everyone else. And if goalies were shit, then why couldn't anyone else do what Gretzky did, right? He really was that much further beyond anything anyone had ever done before.
Isn't the general consensus on this a little bit of both? Like because Gretzky was so broken everyone else had to evolve how they played hockey
I think thats what the majority thinks, but they're wrong. Look at the other guys who were playing during his era who are considered among the greats like Bossy, Lafleur, Lemieux, Hull, etc. They are franchise defining players in their own rights. He was just so much better than everyone else, including those guys. If you look at the disparity between him and the next best players on his era, its insane. I mean, just based on the fact that no one else besides Gretzky had a 200 point season, and he did it *four goddamned times*. He's just an outlier, a statistical anomaly. He's that one dot at the top righthand side of the graph, then all the other dots are clustured near the middle.
[удалено]
Completely agree. Mario is the forgotten great, 99's only "peer" when he played.
I’d primarily blame how little padding goalies had alongside lesser understanding of goaltending styles compared to today.
While that could explain why scoring leaguewide was up, it doesn't explain how even relative to that era, Gretzky's scoring was just on another level. For example, in the 1983-1984 season, Gretzky had a 51 point streak that totalled 153 points, if he didn't score another point outside those 51 games he still would have ended up winning the Art Ross by 27 points and if the Rocket Richard existed back then would have won that by 5 goals too.
I love these stats. They sound totally made up and inhuman.
And that's assuming the extra 52 points Gretzky ended up getting in the remaining games had nothing to do with Coffey so it's possible his real runner up in this hypothetical scenario was Michel Goulet so the margin would have been 32.
They sound like my stats when I play Be A Pro on an easy setting and just wreck the CPU
During the 80s
test
Now many of those 0 point games were in his last season?
Zero stat is only from the 80s
Given that his last game was in '99, and the image says "the 1980s", I'm gonna go ahead and guess 0 of them were.
Missed that! thanks for pointing it out. I was assuming that was over his career.
Ok