35yr old Mario Lemieux and 28yr old Jaromir Jagr scaringly take over a game in the final minutes in front of a packed Mellon Arena crowd. ๐ฃ๏ธ ๐๏ธโ๐จ๏ธ
Does it get any better than this? ๐จ ๐จ
Honestly excited to watch us suck this year we need to rebuild this thing and Iโm excited to see what the twins can do to fix the place they made so special a decade and a half ago
Ok, we're doing Wayne Gretzky vs Mario Lemieux again? Let's do a DEEP dive to put things in perspective and really establish just how far away Gretzky was.
Seasons of 2+ points per game:
Gretzky: 10
Lemieux: 6
5 year peak:
Gretzky (82-86; age 21-25): 394gp, 375g, 661a, 1,036p, 2.629 p/g
Lemieux (86-90; age 20-24): 354gp, 302g, 436a, 738a, 2.084 p/g
Gretzky's 5 year peak (1,036 points) would tie him for 87th place in all-time scoring. Lemieux's 5 year peak (738 points) would place him outside the top-250.
If you wanted to do the next-best 5 year peaks:
Gretzky (87-91; age 26-30): 372gp, 237g, 568a, 805p, 2.163 p/g
Lemieux (91-96; age 25-30): 242gp, 218g, 316a, 534p, 2.206 p/g
In Lemieux's cup winning years when he had Jagr, Francis, Recchi, Coffey, Murphy, Mullen, Stevens, Tocchet and Zubov around him, his points per game was only 0.043 better than Gretzky's next-best 5 year peak, while Gretzky left Messier, Kurri and Anderson for Robitaille, Sandstrom and Blake.
Seasons in which they outscored the 2nd place scorer in the NHL by 30+ points:
Gretzky: 6 seasons; 81-82: 65p, 82-83: 74p, 83-84: 79p, 84-85: 73p, 85-86: 74p, 86-87: 75p
Lemieux: 1 season; 88-89: 31 points
Highest margin of outscoring the 2nd place scorer on their team:
Gretzky: 107 points - Glenn Anderson in 81-82
Lemieux: 89 points - Dan Quinn in 87-88
How many games to reach 1,000 career points:
Gretzky: 424 & 433 (1st & 2nd fastest in NHL history)
Lemieux: 513
Season in which they were when they reached 1,000 career points:
Gretzky: 6th season
Lemieux: 8th season
Top-5 highest scoring players on the all-time list and how they fared without Gretzky/Lemieux (Min. 200 GP together):
Messier: 715gp, 277g, 576a, 853p, 1.193 p/g
Robitaille: 480gp, 245g, 261a, 506p, 1.054 p/g
Kurri: 393gp, 121g, 223a, 344p, 0.875 p/g
Anderson: 538gp, 164g, 251a, 415p, 0.771 p/g
Taylor: 642gp, 284g, 457a, 741p, 1.154 p/g
Jagr: 768gp, 387g, 557a, 944p, 1.229 p/g
Francis: 1,229gp, 375g, 837a, 1,212p, 0.986 p/g
Recchi: 1,091gp, 417g, 689a, 1,106p, 1.013 p/g
Murphy: 1,137gp, 185g, 623a, 808p, 0.710 p/g
Mullen: 708gp, 350g, 372a, 722p, 1.019 p/g
Note: Dave Taylor is the only player listed above not in the HHOF.
Paul Coffey played with both Gretzky and Lemieux.
With Gretzky: 526gp, 208g, 456a, 664p, 1.262 p/g
With Lemieux: 244gp, 79g, 257a, 336p, 1.377 p/g
So the argument that Lemieux had the worse supporting cast only works in the 80's, as in the 90's, Lemieux had a much better supporting cast during their cup-winning years. Furthermore, if you look at other key players not listed above, Gretzky had Esa Tikkanen and Kevin Lowe. Lemieux also had Kevin Stevens and Rick Tocchet.
Mario is an absolute legend. If I wanted to build the perfect hockey player, I'd clone him. However, Wayne is the most dominant athlete a major professional sport has ever seen. It's not close either. Mario would be somewhere in my top-4, depending on how much you value Howe and Orr's dominance over their peers and how much Orr changed the game.