Haha ! Neither are number one all star goalies"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"
Haha ! Neither are number one all star goalies"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be"
Interesting, thanks for posting. This has been out there for years. I had always thought this was the case.From Wiki:
The myth that McCreary never played another shift in the NHL is false – the January 3 game was McCreary's second game in his 12-game NHL career.
Interesting, thanks for posting. This has been out there for years. I had always thought this was the case.
It's been out there for a long time. After you posted this I found that Cherry and Strachan had perpetuated this.Indeed:
Bill McCreary Jr. - Disappearance from the NHL
There is a myth that Bill McCreary Jr. hit on Gretzky in 1981 ended his NHL career because he hurt badly the face of the league, when in fact it was only his 2 of 12 NHL games. Why did he not make it in the NHL, was he not good enough?forums.hfboards.com
It is a myth accepted only among people who couldn't be bothered to check. It's complete crap, as is the myth that Gretzky wasn't hit because players weren't allowed to hit him due to some league-wide conspiracy.
You would have to provide some awfully strong evidence to convince me that every single player on the 80s Islanders or Flyers wouldn't have cleaned Gretzky's clock if they could have. They all hated each other. Denis Potvin himself said that trying to hit Gretzky was like "trying to wrap your arms around fog". And other players have said something similar.
So we can believe the internet idiots who think that fiercely competitive NHL players trying to earn their living would go out of their way to leave the greatest threat to their success untouched. Or we can make the very logical leap that Gretzky's quickness and legendary vision (not to mention the fact that he spent his ENTIRE life playing against players much larger than him from the time he was a child) also made him very difficult to hit. Seriously, I can't understand the obsession with this unwritten rule when it doesn't pass the smell test after 2 seconds of consideration by somebody with even modest critical faculties.
It's been out there for a long time. After you posted this I found that Cherry and Strachan had perpetuated this.
As for Gretz being slippery... absolutely true and I said so earlier. But there was still a sense that he couldn't be touched. And the Oilers had not one but two goons to protect him. He also wasn't the massive guy Lemieux was and you didn't see guys tackling him. His prime mostly comes in the 80s when it was more freewheeling than the 90s were.
And for the record, I think Gretzky would kill in this league as well. He was an astonishingly good player. I just think Lemieux would benefit from the new rules far more than Gretzky would.
Yep, all those stars had people to protect them.Gretzky had Semenko (later McSorely). Yzerman had Probert. Clarke had Schultz. Bossy had Gillies (not a goon, but a protector nonetheless). Lafleur had Robinson (same). And so on. The Oilers were hardly unique to have an enforcer to keep other players honest around their stars.
I think "don't touch Gretzky" only truly became a thing in his last couple years. Guys knew he was winding down and nobody wanted to be the one to end the career of a legend.
Yep, all those stars had people to protect them.
Except Mario Lemieux. He was fending for himself.
And again, I look at Kasparitis on Lemieux in '93... crazy. He was basically mugged throughout the series.
I've read many posts in the thread but not every one.
I personally see no point in adjusting scoring for ice time. I would prefer a player scoring 3 points in 20 actual minutes of ice time, rather than someone scoring 1 point in 5 actual minutes, even though the latter has "more points per minute".
Also, it's easier to score during power play than penalty killing, so guys playing plenty of penalty killing will be punished.
Regarding Gretzky, he not only scored for a very high scoring team (EDM). His share of points (Gretzky points / EDM goals) were much higher than any other player in the league, being around 50 %. So he stood out much more among teammates like Kurri, Coffey, Messier et al, than any other player stood out among his teammates.
(Mario, Kariiya/Selänne and in recent hockey McDavid are other examples of being fairly near 50 %, I believe.)
This has always interested me. I posted a thread a while back on adjusting season scoring totals to league goals per game and comparing the results of the shooting gallery years with the dead puck era. I used Hockey Reference data rather than any science of myself so it was hardly a thesis paper but Gretzky, Lemieux and Ovy were dominant in any era. This allows for the differences in rules and the fluctuation in competition after expansions. Easy enough for anyone to go there and "normalize" to a target year and then try to figure out the holes there might be in doing this.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
Someone will have to tell that to Dan Frawley, Rod Buskas, Jay Caufield and the like..
Back on the topic of this thread: there are some serious issues with your adjustments, OP. That is all.
Mario in today's game with diet and technology. I think he would put up better numbers than McDavid.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.
Mario in today's game with diet and technology. I think he would put up better numbers than McDavid.
But you, BraveCanadian, think this has "serious issues"? What issues in particular? I'm curious. Thanks in advance for letting me know.
In his prime years, Gretzky scored about 27.7% of his points on the PP. The percentage markedly increased from 1991-92 onward, after his three back injuries (the third being the 'Suter-ing').60% facetious but look up the numbers. The man destroyed on the Powerplay. Lemieux scored 40% of his career points on the man advantage, Gretz just 31.2.
Håkan Loob, who played for Calgary Flames the years when the Battle of Alberta was at its peak, has said in interviews that before each game against Oilers their number one objective was always to stop Gretzky by any means necessary.It is a myth accepted only among people who couldn't be bothered to check. It's complete crap, as is the myth that Gretzky wasn't hit because players weren't allowed to hit him due to some league-wide conspiracy.
You would have to provide some awfully strong evidence to convince me that every single player on the 80s Islanders or Flyers wouldn't have cleaned Gretzky's clock if they could have. They all hated each other. Denis Potvin himself said that trying to hit Gretzky was like "trying to wrap your arms around fog". And other players have said something similar.
Gretzky has the highest-scoring season in NHL history before the Oilers were stacked and when they were one year removed from expansion.McDavid is disciplined on his training, and also has strength, I think he would pass 200 pointsbat least once in his career in the mid 80s.
And of the two Gretz and Lemeiux, I think the game today favours Lemeiux. Less grab, I think he would hold his 2pt/game clip.
The thinc with Gretz, except he played on a stacked Oilers team, he played almost 30 min each game. Either McDavid, Crosby, Lwmeiux has had that advantge when comparing numbers. I bet Lemeiuxs career pt/60 min is higher than Gretz pt/60 mim.
Lemeiux thou even kept smoking, and has se to blame himself.
But I would guess Lemeiux could end up with around 230
Pts, playing 10 min more each game.
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.
I'm not so sure about that.McDavid is not doing anything that we didn't see from Crosby and Jagr, and Jagr was clearly a level below Mario.
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.