Mario Lemieux circa 1988-89 = 65 goals and 88 assists for 153 points in 2022

[Johnny Cakes]

Exactly so why are people keep talking about hypotheticals that never happened/ or will happen.

Lemieux was great but we should only base his accomplishments on what he accomplished not some hypothetical argument

*scratching head* Why would you be here if you're not interested or don't dig the premise/basis of the thread?

It boggles my mind that certain people hit threads they don't like or don't have any belief in - like, why are you wasting your time here? Why bother posting a reply? What, you think we're all sitting here waiting to see how Kamus is going to weigh in on this thread? If you don't like it, move on. Save yourself the aggro.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

If my mom was my father would I be my own brother?

You should probably ask uncle dad.

 

[Salsa Shark]

Oh Jeez there's Lemieux and Forsberg hyperbole in the OP. We're in for a ride. Mario Lemieux the powerplay specialist is better than Wayne Gretzky. As if

 

[Mez]

#66 and #99 today would be putting up 300pts yearly. They would leave McDavid in the dust.

McDavid would score 500 in Their eras...would leave them in the dust.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

These always seem silly to me, Gretzky is the greatest of all time - full stop. Lemieux could have been the goat if he was healthier, but he wasn’t.

I think it’s absolutely right to say that Gretzky had the greatest career. There’s simply no way to dispute that.

Greatest player though is not as definitive. It depends on how you measure it.

I never saw Orr or Howe. I did see Gretz and Mario. I would take a healthy Mario over Gretz. He was just so unbelievable. There are at least three clips out there where he makes Ray Boutique look like a complete clown. And he did it on some terrible teams too. Just an unreal player. Before getting hurt in 89 he was on pace for a 230 point season. On a God awful team…

And I think in this era, he’d be the most dominant player we’d ever seen. He’d absolutely massacre the league and would be the best by a wide margin.

 

[tfwnogf]

McDavid would score 400 in the 80s, and Gretz/Lemieux with today's training, diet and stick quality would score 400+ today

 

[Regal]

Oh Jeez there's Lemieux and Forsberg hyperbole in the OP. We're in for a ride. Mario Lemieux the powerplay specialist is better than Wayne Gretzky. As if

Yea, calling Lemieux a PP specialist is the real sign of knowing what you’re talking about

 

[Johnny Cakes]

Yea, calling Lemieux a PP specialist is the real sign of knowing what you’re talking about

Oh yes, yes ... Salsa Shark is, I wager, a real hockey expert and historian.

 

[Cup or Bust]

If you look at how Mario and Gretzky did while playing on teams that did not score 340-400 goals a season, they are very comparable to McDavid. When Gretzky played on teams that scored 301, 287, and 294 goals he scored 137, 121, and 131 points. For Lemieux on teams that scored 276, 313, and 285, he scored 100, 141, and 122. That looks comparable to what McDavid likely would score under the similar circumstances, McDavid has never played for a team that scored 300 goals in a season. The Oilers are on pace for 300 goals this season and it is no coincidence that he is having his best season. He is on pace for about 150 points.

That does not mean he is as good as either player but Gretzky or Lemieux are not scoring 160-200 points playing on teams scoring 280-300 goals in a full season in today's NHL or even in 1995 NHL.

 

[Kamus]

*scratching head* Why would you be here if you're not interested or don't dig the premise/basis of the thread?

It boggles my mind that certain people hit threads they don't like or don't have any belief in - like, why are you wasting your time here? Why bother posting a reply? What, you think we're all sitting here waiting to see how Kamus is going to weigh in on this thread? If you don't like it, move on. Save yourself the aggro.

So you are saying that if someone doesn’t agree with a statement they should not respond????

It boggles my mind that certain people respond to other posters they don’t like or don’t have any belief in - like, why are you wasting your time here? Why bother posting a reply? What, you think we’re all sitting here waiting to see how Johnny Cakes is going to weigh on on people’s responses? If you don’t like it, move on. Save yourself the aggro…

Hint: none of our opinions matter, we are all here for validation of our views. Hence the like bottom. Don’t try to pretend your are some elevated poster above it all. Accept the suck

 

[Johnny Cakes]

If you look at how Mario and Gretzky did while playing on teams that did not score 340-400 goals a season, they are very comparable to McDavid. When Gretzky played on teams that scored 301, 287, and 294 goals he scored 137, 121, and 131 points. For Lemieux on teams that scored 276, 313, and 285, he scored 100, 141, and 122. That looks comparable to what McDavid likely would score under the similar circumstances, McDavid has never played for a team that scored 300 goals in a season. The Oilers are on pace for 300 goals this season and it is no coincidence that he is having his best season. He is on pace for about 150 points.

That does not mean he is as good as either player but Gretzky or Lemieux are not scoring 160-200 points playing on teams scoring 280-300 goals in a full season in today's NHL or even in 1995 NHL.

Just applied the formula to four McDavid seasons:

2020-21 24 EDM NHL 80 46 100 146 20:00
2021-22 25 EDM NHL 80 40 72 112 20:00
2018-19 22 EDM NHL 80 38 71 109 20:00
2017-18 21 EDM NHL 80 39 64 103 20:00

Wow, crazy. And the guy's only 26. Will be interesting to see where McDavid lands when he retires.

SIDE NOTE: McDavid 100 assists. Of course it must be borne in mind that Gretzky put in a full season with his 98 normalized assists in 1984-85 while McDavid's 2020-21 campaign was only 56 games long. Which makes #99's 98 assists "purer" in a sense, and reveals one basic shortcoming of the entire exercise, which is that it can and often does help those who played less games (knowing, as we do, that a full 80-game grind will wear down a player more - i.e., their numbers will often not be as sparkling by season's end as they were halfway through, when they had yet to really contend with the fatigue factor of a long season).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I'm all for providing my method, which is no great method at all & smth I would love for some of the stat heads on here to poke holes in & help tighten up:

Step 1: If ice time is not available, estimate it using a combination of three pieces:

(a) The NY Times' 1927-28 full season statistics, including shots and ice time (see full record below) as a relative marker (i.e., "If top-line players were getting between X and X minutes of ice per game in 1928, and in the modern era are getting between X and X minutes of ice per game, then...............");

(b) A visual inspection of the team roster on which X player played. At this stage era will be important. For example, in a modern four-line scenario, ice time would run roughly 20-16-14-10; in a three-line era it would run more along the lines of 26-20-14; in a bona fide two-line era it would become something like 38-22; and before that, in the pre-NHL leagues, you're looking at a 55-minutes-per-game for players with subs or (particularly going back even further) a full 60 with no subs.

(c) Any anecdotal evidence lying around in various old SIHR publications, books, or online.

Okay, so you arrive at a reasonable estimation of ice time for X player. Moving right along...

Step 2: So let's at this point say we're going to use Gordie Howe's monster 1952-53 season:

70

49

46

95

At this point, with his 26 minutes of estimated ice time in hand, we do the following:

1) We bring his numbers up to our "base" season - or the season we're going to "normalize" his stats to. In this case, let's go with last season 2021-22, in which each team played 82 games:

82

57.4

53.9

111.3

From here, we find our league averages for both 1952-53 and 2021-22 (goals per game, assists per game, PiM per game):

1952-1953

NHL

4.79

7.20

19.16

2021-2022

NHL

6.20

10.48

17.24

(And yes, I know these averages include the player being normalized, and this will provide a very slight skew; in the future I intend to have rough numbers, subtract players from the total, and calculate fresh league averages per exercise.....when I find more time lol)

Okay, so now we divide both Gordie Howe's goals and assists by the respective 1952-53 average (goals or assists per game) and then multiply these numbers by the 2021-22 averages. That leaves us with:

82

74.3

78.5

152.8

Final step is to take the above numbers and bring them to 2021-22 terms (focusing on ice time). In this instance, we have Howe's estimated 26 minutes a game. We divide both his goals and assists into 26 minutes and bring it down to a more 2022-like 20 minutes per game. That leaves us with our final numbers:

82

57

60

117

Where does that put Howe in 2021-22? Here:

Connor McDavid EDM C 80 44 79 123
Gordie Howe DET RW 82 57 60 117
Johnny Gaudreau CGY LW 82 40 75 115
Jonathan Huberdeau FLA LW 80 30 85 115
Leon Draisaitl EDM C 80 55 55 110

A perfect science? Far from it. No merit whatosever? Far from it. I think the best way to look at this is as a means of arriving at a rough snapshot of just how good the old players were. It makes me sick that players from yesteryear are all but forgotten. I mean, we hear so much about the big stars of the expansion era, but what about guys like Frank Frederickson or Fred "Cyclone" Taylor or Frank Nighbor or Duke Keats or Russell "Dubbie" Bowie? These guys would have been great in any era, and thanks to normalization exercises like this one, we can splash a little colour on what is otherwise a very dry, black-and-white picture. What's the harm in doing that?

BTW, here below is the full 1927-28 NY Times statistical record. Isn't it fascinating?


Team(s) Player Pos GP G A Pts S ToI

MtlC Howie Morenz C 43 33 18 51 387 1840
MtlC Aurele Joliat LW 44 28 11 39 418 1761
Det George Hay LW 42 22 13 35 191 1451
NYR Frank Boucher C 44 23 12 35 202 1674
MtlM Nels Stewart C 41 27 7 34 252 1561
MtlC Art Gagne RW 44 20 10 30 251 1614
NYR Bun Cook LW 44 14 14 28 318 1646
Tor Bill Carson C 32 20 6 26 167 1150
Ott Frank Finnigan RW 38 20 5 25 203 1407
NYR Bill Cook RW 43 18 6 24 267 1630
Chi-Det Duke Keats C 37 14 10 24 178 1181
Ott Hec Kilrea LW 43 19 4 23 322 1762
Pit Hib Milks C 44 18 3 21 275 1674
Chi Mickey MacKay C 36 17 4 21 161 1291
Det Johnny Sheppard C 44 10 10 20 115 1170
Bos-Tor Jimmy Herberts C 43 15 4 19 213 1273
MtlM Hooley Smith C 34 14 5 19 209 1552
NYA Normie Himes C 44 14 5 19 224 1437
Bos Harry Oliver RW 43 13 5 18 267 1619
Det Carson Cooper RW 43 15 2 17 275 1243
NYA Lionel Conacher D 35 11 6 17 180 1563
Bos Eddie Shore D 43 11 6 17 152 2339
Tor Hap Day LW/D 22 9 8 17 126 1087
MtlM Babe Siebert LW/D 39 8 9 17 200 1786
Det Larry Aurie RW 44 13 3 16 298 1551
NYR Ching Johnson D 42 10 6 16 136 2319
Tor Butch Keeling C/LW 43 10 6 16 242 1326
Pit Harold Darragh RW 44 13 2 15 281 1620
Tor Danny Cox LW 41 9 6 15 131 1067
Ott King Clancy D 39 8 7 15 297 1867
MtlC Sylvio Mantha D 43 4 11 15 79 1552
Bos Frank Fredrickson C 41 10 4 14 168 1466
Det Reg Noble LW/D 44 6 8 14 109 1979
Ott Alex Smith D 44 9 4 13 125 1325
MtlM Joe Lamb C/RW 21 8 5 13 55 366
MtlC Albert Leduc D 42 8 5 13 81 1038
Ott Frank Nighbor C 42 8 5 13 187 1985
MtlM Red Dutton D 42 7 6 13 139 2029
Chi Charley McVeigh RW 43 6 7 13 184 995
NYA Billy Burch C 32 10 2 12 242 1146
MtlM Jimmy Ward RW 42 10 2 12 172 1379
Pit Baldy Cotton LW 42 9 3 12 196 1193
Tor Ace Bailey RW 43 9 3 12 274 1534
Bos Dutch Gainor LW 42 8 4 12 125 948
MtlM Merlyn Phillips RW 40 7 5 12 178 1179
Tor Art Duncan D 43 7 5 12 132 2037
Ott George Boucher D 43 7 5 12 230 2406
Tor Gerry Lowrey C 25 6 5 11 108 509
Bos Percy Galbraith LW 42 6 5 11 256 1625
Chi-Tor Eddie Rodden 42 3 8 11 171 1152
MtlM Russell Oatman C 43 7 4 11 150 866
Pit-Tor Bert McCaffrey D 44 7 4 11 96 1581
Bos Harry Connor LW 42 9 1 10 124 726
NYR Murray Murdoch C/LW 44 7 3 10 115 849
Pit Herb Drury LW 44 6 4 10 171 1154
Chi-MtlC Ty Arbour LW 39 5 5 10 194 1362
Chi Cy Wentworth D 43 5 5 10 87 1968
NYA Leo Reise D 43 8 1 9 123 1872
Det Frank Foyston C/LW 23 7 2 9 126 775
Chi Dick Irvin C 12 5 4 9 78 478
MtlC Leo Gaudreault C 32 6 2 8 60 652
Tor Art Smith D 15 5 3 8 54 397
Pit Duke McCurry LW 44 5 3 8 88 1052
Bos Lionel Hitchman D 44 5 3 8 194 2295
NYR Paul Thompson LW 42 4 4 8 112 715
NYR Leo Bourgeault D/RW 37 7 0 7 114 1525
NYR Alex Gray C 43 7 0 7 138 878
NYA Red Green LW 40 6 1 7 177 1227
MtlM Dunc Munro D 43 5 2 7 94 1882
NYA Billy Boucher RW 43 5 2 7 200 1000
MtlC Herb Gardiner D 44 4 3 7 92 2112
Pit Tex White RW 44 5 1 6 152 1142
Chi-Det Gord Fraser D 41 4 2 6 130 964
NYA Alex McKinnon RW 43 3 3 6 235 1719
Pit John McKinnon D 43 3 3 6 52 832
Det Jack Walker C 43 2 4 6 75 1053
Chi Corb Denneny C 18 5 0 5 95 462
MtlC Pit Lepine C 20 4 1 5 80 476
Bos Dit Clapper RW/D 40 4 1 5 73 478
Ott Punch Broadbent RW 43 3 2 5 129 1034
Bos Fred Gordon F 43 3 2 5 69 755
MtlC Gizzy Hart LW 44 3 2 5 88 717
NYR Bill Boyd RW 43 4 0 4 95 546
MtlC Wildor Larochelle RW 40 3 1 4 66 517
Det Percy Traub D 44 3 1 4 97 1626
Bos Sprague Cleghorn D 37 2 2 4 20 288
Det Pete Palangio LW 14 3 0 3 20 202
Ott Cy Denneny LW 44 3 0 3 144 682
Pit-MtlC Marty Burke D 46 2 2 4 111 1913
NYA Clarence Boucher D 36 2 1 3 55 1008
Det Clem Loughlin D 43 1 2 3 82 953
Ott Len Grosvenor C 43 1 2 3 62 568
Chi Cecil Browne LW 13 2 0 2 25 336
Chi Eddie McCalmon RW 23 2 0 2 55 521
NYA Joe Simpson D 24 2 0 2 100 981
Det Stan Brown D 24 2 0 2 13 311
MtlM Bill Touhey LW/C 29 2 0 2 23 208
Chi-MtlC Leo Lafrance C/LW 29 2 0 2 25 441
Det Frank Sheppard C 8 1 1 2 2 44
Chi Earl Miller LW 21 1 1 2 32 449
Chi Ralph Taylor RW 22 1 1 2 22 584
Chi Amby Moran D 23 1 1 2 37 506
Tor-MtlC George Patterson RW 28 1 1 2 37 313
Chi Bob Trapp D 38 0 2 2 49 1134
Tor Beattie Ramsay D 43 0 2 2 59 1235
NYA Marty Barry C 9 1 0 1 14 112
Chi Nick Wasnie RW 14 1 0 1 26 223
MtlM Fred Brown D 19 1 0 1 3 34
Chi Ted Graham D 19 1 0 1 9 393
Bos Hago Harrington LW 22 1 0 1 22 182
NYA Edmond Bouchard LW 39 1 0 1 151 835
Pit Rodger Smith D 43 1 0 1 57 748
Ott Al Shields D 7 0 1 1 3 16
MtlM Hap Emms LW/D 10 0 1 1 4 87
Chi Val Hoffinger D 18 0 1 1 36 554
Tor Ed Gorman D 19 0 1 1 20 330
MtlM Frank Carson RW 21 0 1 1 21 204
NYR Clarence Abel D 23 0 1 1 32 612
NYR Laurie Scott LW 23 0 1 1 26 193
Chi Barney Stanley F 1 0 0 0 1 16
Chi Bobby Burns LW 1 0 0 0
MtlM Flat Walsh 1 0 0 0 0 6
Tor Joe Primeau C 2 0 0 0 0 10
Pit Odie Cleghorn C 2 0 0 0 0 22
Bos Martin Lauder D 3 0 0 0 7 42
Pit Mickey McGuire D 4 0 0 0 0 23
Bos Nobby Clark D 5 0 0 0
Ott Gene Chouinard D 8 0 0 0 0 1
Chi Babe Dye RW 10 0 0 0 20 84
MtlC Marty Burke D 11 0 0 0 111 1913
Ott Milt Halliday F/D 13 0 0 0 2 48
NYA-Pit Sam Rothschild D 17 0 0 0 52 271
Ott Sam Godin W 24 0 0 0 9 60
NYR Patsy Callighen D 36 0 0 0 37 602
Pit-MtlC Charlie Langlois D 40 0 0 0 30 799

Team(s) Goalie GP Mins W L SO Sv SA Pct
Tor Joe Ironstone 1 1 44 44 1.000
NYA Normie Himes 1 9 9 1.000
Tor Ace Bailey 1 1 1 1.000
MtlC George Hainsworth 44 1371 1419 .966
Ott Alex Connell 44 1401 1458 .961
Pit Roy Worters 44 1635 1711 .956
Bos Hal Winkler 44 1399 1469 .952
NYR Lorne Chabot 44 1542 1621 .951
Det Hap Holmes 44 1381 1460 .946
Tor John Ross Roach 43 1522 1610 .945
MtlM Flat Walsh 1 17 18 .944
MtlM Clint Benedict 44 1273 1349 .944
NYA Earl Miller 28 1085 1162 .934
NYA Jake Forbes 16 714 765 .933
Chi Charlie Gardiner 40 1372 1486 .923
Chi Hugh Lehman 4 125 145 .862

Thanks for the response and the transparency about the method. A few comments:

Yes, Howie Morenz was great. It's a shame the NHL has done such a poor job promoting its history. Imagine the MLB not promoting Babe Ruth. But you'll get a better response to this in the History forum.

Not to nitpick the ice time estimates, but Maurice Richard getting 20 minutes per game in 1951 seems low. Star plays from that era were generally in the 23-25 minute range. You have Gordie Howe at 26 minutes for 1953 (seems reasonable) and Milt Schmidt at 24 minutes for 1950 (also seems reasonable), so this one jumps out.

I think the ice time adjustment makes sense between eras, but not within a given era. What I mean by that is, of course, you need to take into account Howie Morenz playing 40+ minutes per game. Otherwise he'll get credit for 200+ points in a season, and that's clearly unreasonable. But going back to my previous example (Forsberg vs Jagr), I don't think Jagr should be penalized for playing more minutes. Those season were only a few years apart. It's a credit to Jagr that he was healthy and durable enough to get so much ice time. (Jagr vs Morenz is a different story, due to structural issues in how teams were designed 70 years apart, but Jagr and Forsberg played at the same time, so it's not an issue there).

The other point about ice time is you need to consider the type of ice time. For example, Joe Sakic played 23:01 in 2001, but he was playing 2:01 per game on the PK, because he was a good two-way forward. Joe Thornton played 20:19 per game in 2007, but he was only playing 27 seconds per game on the PK. The method, as it currently exists, is showing that Sakic played 13% more per game than Thornton. But backing out time on the penalty kill, the difference is only about 6%. Sakic shouldn't get his offense downgraded because he played so much on the PK. The method has Thornton ahead 115-114 but, after any reasonable adjustment, Sakic would come out ahead. (The method would also hurt other good two-way players who were deployed on the PK - Gordie Howe and Sergei Fedorov are two names that really jump out).

For Lemieux's 1989 season - the best estimate that I've seen has him playing 26 minutes per game (link). The same site has Lafleur at around 21:20 per game in 1977 (link).

(EDIT - one other post on the topic. See here. Sometimes two seasons can have very similar GPG levels, but top players score at very different levels, largely due to how often PP's are called).

 

[Bear of Bad News]

If my mom was my father would I be my own brother?

It's pretty clear what this thread is, and you've definitely figured it out.

Ignore the thread if you don't want to participate - if enough people agree with you, it solves itself.

Many people are enjoying it and participating in it. The terms of service here no longer require you to have an opinion on every thread on the board.

 

[Johnny Cakes]

So you are saying that if someone doesn’t agree with a statement they should not respond????

It boggles my mind that certain people respond to other posters they don’t like or don’t have any belief in - like, why are you wasting your time here? Why bother posting a reply? What, you think we’re all sitting here waiting to see how Johnny Cakes is going to weigh on on people’s responses? If you don’t like it, move on. Save yourself the aggro…

Hint: none of our opinions matter, we are all here for validation of our views. Hence the like bottom. Don’t try to pretend your are some elevated poster above it all. Accept the suck

Fail. Wow. Huge fail. Monumental fail - from the very first sentence, where you stumbled to your knees with the head-scratching deduction that I am only interested in opinions that agree with my own. You are either failing to take in words and sentences properly or ..... you're just being willfully obtuse.

You really have come off very, very badly in this thread, bro. You have added nothing of value. But again I shall ask the question:

Why not just move on if you don't like the thread?

No one is holding a gun to your head to participate.

 

[authentic]

If you look at how Mario and Gretzky did while playing on teams that did not score 340-400 goals a season, they are very comparable to McDavid. When Gretzky played on teams that scored 301, 287, and 294 goals he scored 137, 121, and 131 points. For Lemieux on teams that scored 276, 313, and 285, he scored 100, 141, and 122. That looks comparable to what McDavid likely would score under the similar circumstances, McDavid has never played for a team that scored 300 goals in a season. The Oilers are on pace for 300 goals this season and it is no coincidence that he is having his best season. He is on pace for about 150 points.

That does not mean he is as good as either player but Gretzky or Lemieux are not scoring 160-200 points playing on teams scoring 280-300 goals in a full season in today's NHL or even in 1995 NHL.

Totally agree with this. This is why when we had this discussion 10 years ago I had 150 as the absolute upper limit of what they could score. Today I would bump that up to about 170 in the most generous of circumstances even if I still don't believe they would score that much. 150-160 even today seems reasonable to me.

 

[Johnny Cakes]

Thanks for the response and the transparency about the method. A few comments:

Yes, Howie Morenz was great. It's a shame the NHL has done such a poor job promoting its history. Imagine the MLB not promoting Babe Ruth. But you'll get a better response to this in the History forum.

Not to nitpick the ice time estimates, but Maurice Richard getting 20 minutes per game in 1951 seems low. Star plays from that era were generally in the 23-25 minute range. You have Gordie Howe at 26 minutes for 1953 (seems reasonable) and Milt Schmidt at 24 minutes for 1950 (also seems reasonable), so this one jumps out.

I think the ice time adjustment makes sense between eras, but not within a given era. What I mean by that is, of course, you need to take into account Howie Morenz playing 40+ minutes per game. Otherwise he'll get credit for 200+ points in a season, and that's clearly unreasonable. But going back to my previous example (Forsberg vs Jagr), I don't think Jagr should be penalized for playing more minutes. Those season were only a few years apart. It's a credit to Jagr that he was healthy and durable enough to get so much ice time. (Jagr vs Morenz is a different story, due to structural issues in how teams were designed 70 years apart, but Jagr and Forsberg played at the same time, so it's not an issue there).

The other point about ice time is you need to consider the type of ice time. For example, Joe Sakic played 23:01 in 2001, but he was playing 2:01 per game on the PK, because he was a good two-way forward. Joe Thornton played 20:19 per game in 2007, but he was only playing 27 seconds per game on the PK. The method, as it currently exists, is showing that Sakic played 13% more per game than Thornton. But backing out time on the penalty kill, the difference is only about 6%. Sakic shouldn't get his offense downgraded because he played so much on the PK. The method has Thornton ahead 115-114 but, after any reasonable adjustment, Sakic would come out ahead. (The method would also hurt other good two-way players who were deployed on the PK - Gordie Howe and Sergei Fedorov are two names that really jump out).

For Lemieux's 1989 season - the best estimate that I've seen has him playing 26 minutes per game (link). The same site has Lafleur at around 21:20 per game in 1977 (link).

Excellent point about Richard. And now, as I revisit the roster, I see I took Hockey-Reference's listing of Bert Olmstead as a RW (like Richard) to be somewhat off as Olmstead, who was versatile and would play wherever needed, as often as needed, was natively a LWer. So that leaves us with:

Maurice Richard RW 65 42 24 66
Floyd Curry RW 69 13 14 27
Bernie Geoffrion RW 18 8 6 14
Leo Gravelle RW 30 4 3 7

As we know the Rocket wasn't out there killing penalties, we still then must bump up his ice time. Let's put it at the lower end of your 23-25 minute "spectrum." So then his normalized line for 1950-51 becomes:

80 51 35 86 20:00

I can definitely live with that.

 

[Kamus]

Fail. Wow. Huge fail. Monumental fail - from the very first sentence, where you stumbled to your knees with the head-scratching deduction that I am only interested in opinions that agree with my own. You are either failing to take in words and sentences properly or ..... you're just being willfully obtuse.

You really have come off very, very badly in this thread, bro. You have added nothing of value. But again I shall ask the question:

Why not just move on if you don't like the thread?

No one is holding a gun to your head to participate.

Because like most people here, I use HF as escapism to pretend the conversations here and opinions matter. I’m ok with my choices. If you don’t like them, click ignore.

Oh no I have come off really badly on an anonymous Internet forum. Yet my life and happiness will not change.

And I like the thread but I don’t agree with the premise of always adding the hypothetical argument for Lemieux. Hence I felt obliged to respond to that aspect of thread.

 

[Johnny Cakes]

Totally agree with this. This is why when we had this discussion 10 years ago I had 150 as the absolute upper limit of what they could score. Today I would bump that up to about 170 in the most generous of circumstances even if I still don't believe they would score that much. 150-160 even today seems reasonable to me.

Glad to see my normalized numbers jive with your upper-limit of 150ish:

Mario Lemieux 1988-1989 80 65 88 153 20:00 (23:00)
Wayne Gretzky 1984-1985 80 51 98 149 20:00 (23:00)
Howie Morenz 1927-1928 80 48 90 138 20:00 (43:00)

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

I firmly believe that Mario would actually be better in todays game than he was back then.

He had guys hanging off him. With the no obstruction rules of today he’d be unstoppable. As an old man he came back and dominated. In his prime with todays rules he’d be the best ever. Just an insanely good player.

The 89 season he was on pace to absolutely destroy Gretzky’s record. But his back got mangled and his pace dropped off. He had guys tying his skates it was so bad. Without the obstruction he’d have been a lot healthier and drawn a crap ton of penalties. I just don’t see what teams could’ve done against him.

Same could be said for many dead puck era players who were beasts like Jagr, Lindros, Forsberg etc. These guys would have been unstoppable without hooking and whatever crap you could do.

But yes Mario is one step higher than all those.

 

[The Grim Reaper]

Player............................Season....................GP....G......A.....Pts.......Ice Time.....(Estimated Ice Time)
Mario Lemieux 1988-1989 80 65 88 153 20:00 (23:00)
Wayne Gretzky 1984-1985 80 51 98 149 20:00 (23:00)
Howie Morenz 1927-1928 80 48 90 138 20:00 (43:00)
Peter Forsberg 2002-2003 80 37 99 136 20:00 (19:20)
Nikita Kucherov 2018-2019 80 42 89 131 20:00 (19:58)
Guy Lafleur 1976-1977 80 52 77 129 20:00 (20:00)
Evgeni Malkin 2011-2012 80 59 69 128 20:00 (21:01)
Duke Keats 1921-1922 80 31 90 121 20:00 (55:00)
Patrick Kane 2015-2016 80 51 67 118 20:00 (20:25)
Frank Boucher 1928-1929 80 21 96 117 20:00 (38:00)
Jaromir Jagr 1998-1999 80 40 76 116 20:00 (25:51)
Gordie Howe 1952-1953 80 56 59 115 20:00 (26:00)
Joe Thornton 2006-2007 80 23 92 115 20:00 (20:19)
Sergei Fedorov 1993-1994 80 53 61 114 20:00 (20:00)
Joe Sakic 2000-2001 80 52 62 114 20:00 (23:01)
Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 80 63 45 108 20:00 (23:06)
Bobby Hull 1965-1966 80 59 48 107 20:00 (23:00)
Martin St. Louis 2003-2004 80 43 64 107 20:00 (20:35)
Sidney Crosby 2013-2014 80 37 69 106 20:00 (21:58)
Steve Yzerman 1992-1993 80 43 59 102 20:00 (22:00)
Milt Schmidt 1939-1940 80 39 62 101 20:00 (24:00)
Maurice Richard 1950-1951 80 59 40 99 20:00 (20:00)
Pavel Bure 1999-2000 80 59 37 96 20:00 (24:23)

Sorry, was going cross-eyed trying to read this, here:

 

[authentic]

Glad to see my normalized numbers jive with your upper-limit of 150ish:

Mario Lemieux 1988-1989 80 65 88 153 20:00 (23:00)
Wayne Gretzky 1984-1985 80 51 98 149 20:00 (23:00)
Howie Morenz 1927-1928 80 48 90 138 20:00 (43:00)

This is adjusted to 2022 where scoring is a fair bit higher than the 2010-16 period I was referring to. It's even higher this season so far, so in that case I could see them scoring about 160 with McDavid's ice time atleast, 23 minutes. Which is likely what they would be playing on most teams.

Same could be said for many dead puck era players who were beasts like Jagr, Lindros, Forsberg etc. These guys would have been unstoppable without hooking and whatever crap you could do.

But yes Mario is one step higher than all those.

A big part of what made them so dominant is that they were strong and skilled enough to fight through all of the obstruction whereas today you could argue that advantage would diminish since the smaller/weaker players would have been more affected by it.

In the case of Lemieux vs. Gretzky though there is a massive difference in how they were played by the opposition. Literally every full game of these two in existence will paint a pretty clear picture there if you need to see it for yourself. One was mauled and the other was largely left untouched.

 

[tarheelhockey]

So I only today digested an old thread from 2017 - it had 1,000 replies! - around the topic of how good Wayne Gretzky really was. The thread was incredibly entertaining, and I got a lot out of it. Didn't care too much for the idea that #99 would have been a 70-80 point guy in today's game - as if he wouldn't have (like today's players) also been on a blue-ribbon diet and fitness regimen. He 1000% would have.

I have a spreadsheet that I created a number of years ago that contains league average goals per game, assists per game, PiM per game etc. for every professional hockey season going all the way back to 1886 - and including the NHL, NHA, PCHA and WCHL, ECAHA, ECHA, CAHL and AHAC.

I have been tinkering around with a cross-translation/NORMALIZED statistical formula for many years, and have along the way come to admit that it's a very inexact science. However, assessments can be made - and a lot can be revealed when you have two ingredients: (1) Reliable estimated ice time for a player, and (2) Their goals, assists & penalty minutes.

Anyway, long story short, the long thread about Gretzky touched on some excellent points and inspired me to do some calculations - basically to see how some of the greats from yesteryear stack up in a cross-era comparison to some of the dudes who currently haunt the dreams of NHL goaltenders (Kucherov, for example). Check it out (below) and let me know what you think.

Player............................Season....................GP....G......A.....Pts.......Ice Time.....(Estimated Ice Time)
Mario Lemieux 1988-1989 80 65 88 153 20:00 (23:00)
Wayne Gretzky 1984-1985 80 51 98 149 20:00 (23:00)
Howie Morenz 1927-1928 80 48 90 138 20:00 (43:00)
Peter Forsberg 2002-2003 80 37 99 136 20:00 (19:20)
Nikita Kucherov 2018-2019 80 42 89 131 20:00 (19:58)
Guy Lafleur 1976-1977 80 52 77 129 20:00 (20:00)
Evgeni Malkin 2011-2012 80 59 69 128 20:00 (21:01)
Duke Keats 1921-1922 80 31 90 121 20:00 (55:00)
Patrick Kane 2015-2016 80 51 67 118 20:00 (20:25)
Frank Boucher 1928-1929 80 21 96 117 20:00 (38:00)
Jaromir Jagr 1998-1999 80 40 76 116 20:00 (25:51)
Gordie Howe 1952-1953 80 56 59 115 20:00 (26:00)
Joe Thornton 2006-2007 80 23 92 115 20:00 (20:19)
Sergei Fedorov 1993-1994 80 53 61 114 20:00 (20:00)
Joe Sakic 2000-2001 80 52 62 114 20:00 (23:01)
Alex Ovechkin 2007-2008 80 63 45 108 20:00 (23:06)
Bobby Hull 1965-1966 80 59 48 107 20:00 (23:00)
Martin St. Louis 2003-2004 80 43 64 107 20:00 (20:35)
Sidney Crosby 2013-2014 80 37 69 106 20:00 (21:58)
Steve Yzerman 1992-1993 80 43 59 102 20:00 (22:00)
Milt Schmidt 1939-1940 80 39 62 101 20:00 (24:00)
Maurice Richard 1950-1951 80 59 40 99 20:00 (20:00)
Pavel Bure 1999-2000 80 59 37 96 20:00 (24:23)

I know some of you would think #99 played more than "just" 23 minutes a game, but one of the posters on the Gretzky thread I referred to earlier demonstrated quite to my satisfaction that 23 minutes is a reasonable guess. Of course there are going to be games where a player plays more, and other games where he plays less; but for #99 I set the guess at 23 minutes of ice.

Items of interest:

* Forsberg ended up with 99 "translated" assists - one more than the Great One!
* Lemieux 1988-89 "Super Mario" ended up with four more points than Gretzky and two more goals than Ovechkin. I suspect Brett Hull would end up with more than Mario's 65 if I were to apply my method to his sick 1990-91 stat line.
*Rocket Richard, Bobby Hull and MALKIN tied with 59 translated goals apiece

I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong, but 20 minutes per game seems low for Maurice Richard. He was being rolled in even shifts with the other 2 RWs, while outscoring them by 2x-3x and nearly winning the Hart? Seems more likely that Richard would be well over 20 minutes and the 3RW would be well under.


edit: Just noticed the same thing with Guy Lafleur.

edit: Just noticed that you've already addressed this so I'm just padding the post count in the thread

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Because like most people here, I use HF as escapism to pretend the conversations here and opinions matter. I’m ok with my choices. If you don’t like them, click ignore.

Let me be more clear, as an admin of the site. Complaining about this thread's existence is not on the menu for you. If you need more rigor behind my statement, see here:

What we need around here is an anti-whining ordinance.

This has gotten worse over the past few months, so I'm posting here about it now. There are a fair number of people on these boards who only want to read two types of things on the NHL Talk board: (1) good news about their team and players, and (2) bad news about their rivals' teams and...

forums.hfboards.com

We're not going to debate this thread's existence. Move along.

 

[authentic]

Sorry, was going cross-eyed trying to read this, here:

View attachment 637311

I always thought Duke Keats was really underrated

 

[tarheelhockey]

I always thought Duke Keats was really underrated

It's a bit of a strained comparison for many reasons, but he gives me Phil Kessel vibes. Polarizing player who will more likely be over/underrated than properly rated.