I think Lemieux absolutely did crack the cheat code with breakaways. He was as close to unstoppable as there ever was. I say this on decent authority: He was the best 1 on 1 player in the history of the game. I don't even understand really where he got it from, he is inimitable, he is an original. You can trace some of it back to Jean Beliveau, but Mario was 5 or 6 when Le Gros Bill stopped playing. Plus, he didn't play defensively like Beliveau did. No one was doing this stuff, I give a lot of points for being an innovator.i think OV now and prime OV are also very different players. like sid, he just doesn't move around much anymore compared to the old days (but at least sid can dust this off and wear it around every so often).Well, we all should know my feelings on this pretty well and good at this point...I stand with them.
That said, what if we flip the coin...Mario Lemieux, with new knowledge of training, new ways to correct back issues, new non-wood sticks, not having Jax Erixon dry humping him up and down the rink for 35 minutes a night...you think Nikita Kucherov is even in the range of his rear view with his 93 points? No way.
Mario quit, didn't play a game for like four years...walks into a league where teams are scoring 2.75 goals per game as a 35 year old cancer survivor and scores 35 goals in 40 games or whatever it was with 76 points. He finished top 20 in the NHL in goals after not picking up a stick for four years and even so, he only played half the games that everyone else did...he was on pace to score 67 in a league that only had three guys score over 45...
Don't get me wrong, Ovechkin is an all-time scorer...bigly. But Lemieux could score in ways that Ovechkin can't. Ovechkin has a rocket, he can one-time pucks. He can't score shorthanded and frankly, he struggles to beat goalies when in alone...famous moments of Marc-Andre Fleury robbing him in the playoffs aside, he doesn't have Lemieux's ability to make a goalie consider quitting hockey with a move...
Lemieux's famous moments are breakaways and 1v1 situations where he destroys Shawn Chambers or Ray Bourque...he was 6 for 8 in career penalty shots.
Ovechkin is just 2 for 12 in penalty shots and just a 31% shooter in the shootout.
When you're talking greatest goal scorer in history, you better bring a lot more than a one timer from the left circle. You need to score a myriad of ways in a myriad of situations. Lemieux could do it all and he could still put it away off a moving puck as well as anyone...
I'd also want to vet Bobby Hull fully before committing to Ovechkin too...
but of course there were several variations of lemieux also - the 80's version was going to score on a breakaway. it was a joke how easy it was. but once goalies actually started being useful, it didn't play out that way. point being that lemieux didn't crack the cheat code with breakaways. he struggled just like everyone else once goaltending changed.
I don't care about the raw totals. I know it was easier to score in the 80's, but he worked the entire league better than anyone else minus Gretzky. And that carried over even when goalies "started being useful" -- 161 points in 1996...the next non-teammate had 120. Next year, 122 points in 76 games, only one other guy eclipsed 100.
Then he strolls in, fresh off the back nine, plays for an expansion team and scores 91 points in 67 games in the thick of the dead puck era. The guy in second on that team was Alex Kovalev: 64 points; Straka had 46; Tarnstrom had 41; Hrdina 39 then Morozov 25. Colorado's 6th highest scoring player was Derek Morris at 48 points. Our guy, an offense-only winger has 25. It was Lemieux vs. the world and his points-per was still 2nd best to Forsberg in his prime.
The guy is a machine in any era. He happened to play in an era that amplifies raw totals. If he had played when goaltending was better or in the late 90's, he wouldn't have as pronounced numbers, but we know he would still murder all comers.
Yeah, I just don't penalize George Washington for not nuking the British. That's tough to pin on him.none of the above is THAT linked to the original point, but i wanted to mention it because...i dunno.
i like how you framed the argument, though. this isn't about what player X would do 30 years ago. It's about what player Y would do today. and with Mario, it's a promising theory. he would have been in better shape. his back wouldn't have crumbled. he would have watched his shifts on the bench and improved in real time. and he may have put up numbers we can only dream of. his dominance in 2001 is also compelling.
...but i'm still blocked by the fact that modern players are simply better. they had it handed to them, but it is what it is. and not only does this skew at he individual level, but at the macro level, teams are better. the competition is better. goalies are a different species. which makes OV's achievements unique, IMO. the infrastructure is now preventing outliers like lemieux and gretzky.
Alexander Ovechkin, who doesn't take training as seriously as some other stars, would be more likely to wear out at 30 or 31 like many other Soviet players...that's assuming he's magically in the league in the 1980's, he wouldn't have had that opportunity really...
Vladimir Krutov: Murking everyone until 1988 or 1989. By 30, he's toast: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=18370
Vladimir Petrov: again, look at that drop off at around 31 or 32...http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=42832
Even Vlad Tretiak, done by 32: http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=21348
No matter how you frame it, it still needs to be adjusted for the era. DOB bias isn't something to be proud of.
How would Ovechkin deal with the no-touching game that we have today compared to the 1980's? How does he manage small roster sizes? How does he manage two line pass rules? How does he manage his shifts? 40 second shifts all throughout his development arc...Mario had 90, 100, 110 second shifts...shift management is a lost trait as coaches now manage it for you with the short shift game we see today -- wasn't always the case.
Re: teams. Expansion creates an easier road for all (apparently, with one exception). So guys like Howe had to go against the five best goalies in the world every night, five best defensive pairings every night...every night: Harvey, every night: Pilote, every night: Horton. Meanwhile, Gretzky - bad back and all - just lit up Norm Maciver to put the Kings up 10-2 over the Senators...Gretzky and Lemieux had a pretty even hand in this regard...but Mario carried it well into the 2000's with an expansion-level team and still showed he could shoot the lights out...
Meanwhile, when Ovechkin goes into best on best situations...like in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Olympics...he rarely comes out on top. Never really adjusts his game like Mario was able to, doesn't help his teammates become better...he shoots and he scores and they win...or he shoots and he's stopped by Fleury and they lose...
Lemieux had more dimension than that...more dimension in all regards...
