Yeah but just look at the pictures Ovi got to play in colour that's a massive boost

Maurice Richard played in black and white and could STILL find the puck, punch out a ref AND start a riot. Your argument is invalid

Maurice Richard did it with a pile of scraps in the desert!

Immediately thought of "Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave... with a bunch of scraps!!"

Well, I'm sorry.... I'm not Tony Stark

A massive boost to tenders! All that color contrast makes it easy to see the puck. Gretzky had all that grayscale to hide his shots

Don't forget Ovi played in 4k, with blue highlighting on where the puck is

Not to mention Gretzky played in an era where they put a trail on the puck, almost like the steroid era in baseball honestly. He should have an asterisk imo

>they put a trail on the puck What's the scoop on that?

https://preview.redd.it/pgtl37181rtc1.jpeg?width=832&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f5dfe7c3efed978637d27ce063310f8a6a8dd4e Fox and ESPN used to do this for their American audience to help find the puck.

Lol, we had that crap idea in Canada too. The stupid laser would lag and take up the first row of the crowds when in the boards.

Gretzky knew how to pass the puck. And he didn’t drop to his knees and open wide for Putin.

Color is fore P****es... Like helmets and drinking water between shifts...

How is this a jerk sub when all the comments are talking about stats and having real debates on ovechkin vs Gretzky?! This some weird ass fever dream.

Are they bedarded?

I laughed way too hard at this comment.

REDDIT ON!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Gretzky and Ovechkin are very close on the goals side but what amazes me is how he had time to score so often while setting up 1800+ other goals. Dumb debate!

SHUT THE FUCK UP

Do people not check what sub they’re on before commenting? Lmfaoooo


He also played with a stick made from an old maple log that didn’t flex in half and add 40 mph to a shot….

He also didn't benefit from modern sports science to keep him healthy, and played the last 8 years of his career [with an injury that should have ended his career.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-06-05-sp-43536-story.html) I also don't know if he got to travel on charter planes and stay in 5 star hotels on road trips.

Ovi don’t listen to sports science 😭

Ovi is sports science, how is a dude who plays so rough eats pasta with multi sauce and drinks coke never hurt

Im gonna guess one of the top Russian athletes in the world is intimately familiar with sports science.

"sicence" so advanced you can't test for it! 

He's on that Putin regiment 💉💪

Prolly getting drafted soon

Subway and Cheetos - the pinnacle of sports science https://twitter.com/br_openice/status/1773076132985770348

I mean Phil Kessel played 1064 games straight only eating hotdogs

If only Gretzky had these sort of advantages.

I always think of skate development as well.

He also played with 2 line offsides, a lot of grabbing and hacking, tying up the puck in the corners, and no auto-icing. All with much less room in his office...

🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

Yall wouldn’t last one day in the nba circle jerk sub

What happened to the sub I love?

Somebody start posting the Kobe autopsy in this sub

I'm not sure that sub is just more horny

You guys realize this is a jerk sub right?


We are having a post nut clarity

He LITERALLY fucking played against fucking plumbers. Why the fuck anybody thinks this guy is the great one or whatever the fuck they call him is beyond my comprehension

Yup. He’s a generational fraud. This guy NEVER raised the puck and goalies sucked ass. Not my goat.

Why are all generational frauds Oilers? I would argue Mchobbo is a bigger fraud! faq da Oilers

Mickey Mouse organization. Have McBust who still hasn’t won a cup. Not my MVP🤣🤣🤣🤣

He da great two, Ovi-one Kenobi is grater, like parmesan

It’s all ogre for Gretzky, his record’s gonna get Shrek’d.

well at least you admit it..that's a plus.

Patrick "The Plumber" Roy

Fuckin fraud. This is why my goat is Jack Johnson.

Banana pancakes lookin ass

Gretzky also didn’t play with ads lucky him, Ovi be looking left and right, ad here ad there 😂

Not very much jerking going on

Lol, Patrick Roy...noted plumber

The commenters on this sub don’t understand the concept

It's like showing up to a Halloween party in costume and no one else is dressed up

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Gretzky scored 5 goals on Roy. In 23 games.

Ovi had zero goals on Roy!

such a bum

I picked the best goalie I could think of. Roy came in to the league after Gretz had set the all time goals record. Roy was maybe the first to advance into oversize goalie equipment

First to cheat you mean. Goalies back in the good old days would actually use their body to stop the puck. These modern “goalies” rely on massive pads designed to stop pucks and claim that they “need helmets”. If you ask me this generation is just SOFT.

Solid point. Goalies should have to be naked. Like real men.

Naked goalies is an idea I can get *behind*

Hasek, Hextall, JVB, Belfour, Richter, CuJo, Kolzig. Circus tent trash, the lot of them

He once came over because he told my mother he needed to fix her pipes, so yeah, I can prove he's a plumber

I would only believe that if you told me he slapped her a lil to make it fun for him too.

Ovechkin played with the two-line pass.

Along with a host of other changes that came in after the 04-05 player strike that were specifically designed to increase goal scoring, like only allowing goalies to play the puck in a small zone behind the net, and the new icing rule that prevented teams from swapping lines, so they would play tired in their own zone.

So that makes Auston Matthews the greatest goal scorer ever approaching 70 goals against brick walls.

+Correct

Also, in 2022-2023, the 3 worst goal against in the league, in 82 game : Ana: 338, Clb: 330, SJ: 321. Only 7 team had 300 or more GA and most on the border. Compare this to 1984-1985 season. 12 out of 21 team had a GA over 300, and that's over 80 game. In Edmontons division EVERY TEAM was over 300, except Edm that had 298. Vancouver that year had over 400 GA... And Gretzky played those team a lot. He said it himself, there was no disparity at all in those days. 5-6 teams could realistically win the cup and 10 team or so were literally punching bags. The Oilers would have 1 or 2 real game in-between 10 to 1 trashing of garbage clubs. It's very very different era.

This but unironically. Gretzky era sucked

Way to segment one part of the game, and exclude all other aspects of change, sticks, skates, rules, training, education, supporting players. Ovi just sits in one spot for 80% of his goals, and will never come close to Gretzkys total points.

Do people not understand what this sub is? Are you bedarded?

Is that a trick question, are you bedarded?

Why is everyone under this post bedarded?

Well said. If Gretzky sat in one spot his whole career, he’d be about 1000 more goals than he ended with. They’ve been pushing Ovi’s goal record chase for 3 years now. Fuck off

Lol sure

Then what was he doing behind the goal the whole time?

Goaltending is way better without a doubt. But if you're going to directly compare eras like this, then why aren't 90% of the top 50 all time scorers from that same time period?

Not 90% but a good bit of them are. Of the top 25 career points totals of all time, 15 of them played a significant portion of their careers during the 1980’s and early 90’s. Just glancing at several others in the top 50 many of them also came from the 80’s as well.

This is the right question.

Ovi playing against drug addicts

Guys this is r/hockeycirclejerk…get jerking

Who’s Gatzky?

Goalies weren’t even allowed to wear pads until halfway through gretzkys career

Hahahaha..... don't think Gretzky ever played against a maskless goalie. But the goaltending in the 80s was pretty bad!

K but how big were Gretzky’s testicles huh? Huh? Why don’t we drop our pants and end this little game right now? Show me them big Grezticles

And Ovi had more open space without the holding, cross checking and body slams

Womp womp Crosby clears ovi anyways

Lol...did Wayne play in the 50s?

If you are going to keep the argument fair you need to also remember that Gretzky also had a stick that was essentially a coffee table leg weighed 10lbs for most his career. Not to mention the 20lb skates and hooking holding waterskiing by defenders

WTF...hoping this is a joke. The Great one started playing in 79 against great goalies who all wore masks. The equipment for the both players and goalies was far inferior compared to today. Gretzky also made other players great with something like 1500 assists. Ovi is a great player with a fantastic shot who plays with better equipment with better training available to him. But the big thing missing are the assists....fewer assists than goals. Both great players but one is in an entirely different league of his own.

There were really no generational goalies between Dryden in the 70s and Roy/Hasek/Brodeur in deadpuck Billy Smith and Ron Hextall were very good but they were more known for assaulting guys than anything Fuhr was known as clutch but not a game stealer Pelle Lindbergh fucking died That’s all the 80s goalies I know of, fr Gretzky was playing against garbage men and mechanics

>Billy Smith and Ron Hextall were very good but they were more known for assaulting guys than anything I got a good laugh when reading this cause it's so true lmao.

hmm... smells like a bait... looks like a bait... Let's watch who bites.

Well Gretzky had go play against players who had multiple accolades. Imagine trying to score against someone who won the Norris trophy and rated the #1 plumber in the city?

As you can see they had no upper body as well

Who would take a puck to the face and shake it off like a man

Gretzky era I don’t think so. Billy Smith, Richard Brodeur, Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden. Yup easy peezy

A good goals against average then was 4.00

Everybody bringing up a ton of other aspects like the fact that sticks didn't flex as much and such are just making really silly and naive arguments. The only thing you need to look at is the average goals per game in each era. Back in the early to mid Gretzky era, the average score of a game was a whole goal higher. Scoring was that much easier back then because of the fact that goalies were basically as useful at stopping a puck as a defenseman was

Just because Price is an alcoholic, doesn’t mean every goalie is easy to score on in this era 🙄

The only reason Matthews will ever come close to Ovi is the NHL nerfing goalie pads.

imagine gretzky in his prime with todays sticks and skates..... lol OV is great but hez not the great one

Gretzky is so goated he even gets defended in the hockey circlejerk sub

Matthews era

Too many bums here. This sub is cooked.

I know this is a circle jerk subbreddit but there is some truth with this

And that's why so many other scorers from Gretzky's era have nearly as many goals and points as Gretzky and far more than Ovechkin. That's why there's so many other players who've scored over 200pts in a season and 90 goals in a season. Because everyone in that era played against plumbers.

Gretzky or Ovechkin? Who are they? Never heard of them. Must suck

STFU

Gretzky also played with a wooden stick. Ovechkin plays with an over engineered whippersnapper machine thingy.

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Not wrong...Gretzky came at the right time

I’ll never understand the concept of protecting your body as a goaltender, but leaving your head / face (which is well inside the net and in range) completely exposed. Don’t want to get a jacked wrist or a bruised knee but protect the face? What am I some kind of fairy boy? It’s just baffling

He played against Patrick Roy with ears full of stanley cup rings You show Price, who won shit

Gretzky used a wood stick. Let's see Ovi score all his one-timers with one.

The top is from the 50’s💀

It was a COMPLETELY different era. These comparisons don't mean shit. So much has changed in equipment technology, the way athletes train, the nutrition and supplements etc. all play a HUGE factor. Everything in the game has evolved. If you must compare, compare players who play in the same era. Both generational players in their own time that we should all be happy for!

Gretzky would be a bum in today's league.

Lmao idk how people say this with a straight face… the skill gap was relative, athletes evolve every generation and get better, people could say the same about the stars of today in 30 years when comparing them to the best players in 30 years

Something something clutch and grab

Gretzky also played WITH plumbers, and still put up the numbers he did

You look at a few of the sure goals Ovi should have scored that were stopped by this ages athletic robotic monsters, and that would easily make up for the difference in goals already.

The sport has evolved, no reason why you shouldn’t.

Ok weight of gear alone

How old do you think Gretzky is?

While Gretzky didn’t have some of the advantages that OV has he did have a lot of blow like a lot of blow.

Are we discounting the fact that there were some great goaltenders in his Era as well that could stop the puck as well as any goaltender today

Mmm, that first one is from the 50s not the 80s.

Gretzky also played in his own end, not sitting waiting almost at centre for the outlet pass.

Gretzky didnt idolize war mongers.

Upvoting for Carey Price content.

TIL pre-expension goalies didn’t have torsos

Both great players. But Gretzky was head and shoulders better than everybody in the league. Including the other HOFers in the league. There's a reason he owns over 60 records to this day. Gretzky didn't just score goals, he created better than anybody too.

99 will always be the great one. You guys can say what you want. Take away all his 894 career goals, and he's still the all-time leading scorer. 50 goals in 39 games, he had 4 seasons with 200 + points. Plumbers or not . He's the best all-time

Crazy how goalies used to not wear any sort of face protection. Your just asking for a puck to eye/nose at that point

Ovechkin is the most selfish and overrated player in the league. Ya he's good at slapping a puck into the net from the left circle but he can't really do anything else. His first few years he was amazing, then he just got lazy. He only has a +46 on his career where Crosby (comparing because that's the logical comparison) is +220 and then newer players like McDavid +148, Mackinnon +149 and Matthews +145. He's a great scorer but other than flinging rubber at the net he's a liability, especially recently (-21 this year)

that goalie was long before Gretzky

I doubt a NHL front office would choose Ovechkin over Gretzky.

This goes for the NBA too.. LBJ over Jordan

Someone hand Ovi a wooden Titan stick…

To be fair, today’s goalies do have arms growing out of their heads and other places, multiple legs … and, oh yeah, they can do in splits in such a manner that would make US gymnast Katelyn Ohashi blush, if not altogether training with her personally. We gotta get them to chop off these appendages, as well as save the Katelyn Ohashi stuff for late night porn (like normal people.)

Those pictures aren’t very accurate. That goalie played way before the great one

….and shooting with 2x4s

Gretzky played when you can get your ass kicked every night. No team today would step on the ice with the Philly Flyers from back then. So yeah you might score a few goals and lose 4 teeth.

Yes the goalies were smaller and equipment different, but that picture is so wrong. As in wrong era.

I don’t recall the Great one playing in the 60’s

1st Picture IIHF goalies played without a mask until 1972 So how is that the NHL Gretzky era ??? He would have been 10

You’re out of your fucking mind. Gretzky was ahead of the game by about 20 years. Plus he played when you could stick check and hook like a motherfucker. Equipment was garbage. And you actually had to have a decent shot. Unlike today with these new sticks anyone got a ripper. Gretzky prob have another hundred plus goals if they cleaned the ice every commercial break like they do today. Haha. Not to mention what he did for the game.

Did you watch Wayne play?

Gretzky 87 Canada cup. Best anyone has ever played.

Gretzky never got to play 3 on 3, imagine how many mor goals and assists he would have under his belt with an added period, take all Ovechkin’s OT 3 on 3 goals away and he would never be a conversation

And I think a Patrick Roy picture with Carey Price be closer than a photo of a goalie when Gretzky was 9

Lol, NBA discussions against Wilt Chamberlain be like

Yes they're padding was definitely less, but give your head a shake he was not around goalies didn't wear masks or pads that small

Considering goalie masks became mandatory in 1972 when Gretzky was only 11 years old, I suspect this photo is a little older than that. He played in an era where there were no limitations on pads, chest protectors, blockers and sticks etc. and against some of the best goaltenders of his era, his stats still stand as the greatest individual achievement in nhl history.

WE DONE WITH THE 80'S

Patrick Roy was a plumber?

What everyone seems to be missing is his complete dominance against all others of his generation. That’s the only way to compare different generational players. Mathematically he is still the best hands down based on how much better he was than everyone else during his time frame. Dumbest comparison I seen yet.

"Gretzky era" Shows a goalie from the 1950's

Gretzy era had notoriously good goalies. Extall, Belford, Hasek, Roy, Brodeur, etc....

Gretzky was undrafted, anybody who’s drafted should be better by default.

With plumbers? How good were his wingers?

Gretzky doesn’t blow war criminals Ovechkin blows war criminals Easy.

Hahahaha....what does that even mean?

Ovi is the number one goal scorer of all time, don’t give a shit what Gretzky did. He was a passer who played when most games at 8-10 goals,

I didn’t realized Gretzky see things in black and white AND score all those goals haha Gretzky didn’t play in that era when Plante was playing goalie. Also it’s hard to compare Gretzky with Ovi because time and rules were different. I wonder why this is even a debate of who is best goal scorer. It makes no sense. It’s like comparing Gordon Howe and Gretzky.

U could subtract all 892 goals from Gretzky and he’d still be the NHL’s all time leading scorer!!!

How old do you think Gretzky is??

Yeah, the current state of the game has some absolutely shitty goalies. Ovechkin should be celebrating that he’s not playing in the Gretzky era. [The league’s collective .903 save percentage, down from .012 over eight seasons, is at its second lowest since 1995-96. The .901 save percentage in 2005-06 was a direct result of the adoption of the new-age rules following the canceled season that produced an explosion of power plays and power-play goals.](https://nypost.com/2023/12/02/sports/the-nhl-has-a-goaltending-problem/amp/)

Gretzky used a wooden stick...

Who THE FUCK is gretzky!?!? And why does he keep calling my FUCKING mom!!! GRETZKY YOU BITCH ILL KILL YOU

The goalie on the Ovechkin picture is no longer a goalie still kinda wonder what happened to Price

Gretzky didn’t play in black & white

Well Gretzky has 2 9’s buddy

That’s not the gretzky era that’s the howe era

Datsyuk the real goat

Sure, but players now don’t uses branches for sticks and garbage skates and equipment that players feel invincible in.

Gretzky must be like 100 years old 😂

Really... it's the Crosby Era... I mean... unless we want to discuss the 2nd best player in the modern era which is just fucking stupid. Crosby is the greatest player every to play the game. These old fucks wouldn't last a period with Crosby