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Edmonton. That's odd... I hate Toronto, because they were my best friends fav team growing up...

They're easing him back into the lineup after his injury. Pretty standard really.

It's GretZky not Gretsky... How the f*** can you misspell the greatest hockey player of all time 99 times in the span of 24 hours?

uhhhh have you seen their GM in action?

They are indeed a masochistic bunch aren't they?

The argument is not "who had the greatest single goal scoring season of all time", if it was no question that Gretzky's 81/82 or 83/84 seasons are at the top, but that is not the question. The question is who is the greatest goal scorer of all time. Now I already said that I pick Lemieux #1 (which now I am second guessing after all the stats I pulled), but your biggest source of contention appears to be me putting Ovie above Gretzky, you want me to explain my logic, here it is: Goals Per Game Ovie - 0.612, Gretzky - 0.601. Ovie in his career scored more goals per game then Gretzky. League Averages During Gretzky's career the mean for GPG in a season was 3.50. During Ovie's career it was/is 2.85. Despite Ovie playing in an era where goal scoring was down 0.65 GPG, Ovie still managed to outscore Gretzky per game. Leading the league in scoring Gretzky led the league in goals 5 times in his career Ovie has led the league in goals 8 times and counting. Again, I admit Gretzky had a two seasons where he dominated (81/82 & 83/84) those are the two best goal scoring season of all time, but as far as who was the stronger goal scoring threat throughout their career, its not even close. 8 Richard trophies is pretty damn impressive and IMO puts Ovie above Gretzky. In Response to your "The fact is, Ovechkin in his best years never dominated his peers in goal scoring like Gretzky did." Comment Sure, Ovie never outscored his peers by "25 or 30 goals", but come on thats a silly thing to say in this era and you know it. Its not possible to do that when the best goal scorer in the world is scoring in the 50's. Do you really expect #2 to be in the 20's? More goals being scored opens the league up to these types of numbers. Its similar to what the NFL is seeing now with TD's and Passing Yards. The only thing you can look at is percentages, here they are as I did a deep dive: Lets look at each season each respective player won the goal scoring title and how close #2 was: 81-82 - Gretzky scored 92 - #2 scored 64 --- 44% better then #2 82-83 - Gretzky scored 71 - #2 scored 66 --- 8% better then #2 83-84 - Gretzky scored 87 - #2 scored 56 ----55% better then #2 84-85 - Gretzky scored 73 - #2 scored 71 --- 3% better then #2 86-87 - Gretzky scored 62 - #2 scored 58 ---- 7% better then #2 07-08 - Ovie scored 65 - #2 scored 52 --- 25% better then #2 08-09 - Ovie scored 56 - #2 scored 46 --- 22% better then #2 12-13 - Ovie scored 32 - #2 scored 29 --- 10% better then #2 13-14 - Ovie scored 51 - #2 scored 43 --- 19% better then #2 14-15 - Ovie scored 53 - #2 scored 43 --- 23% better then #2 15-16 - Ovie scored 50 - #2 scored 46 --- 9% better then #2 17-18 - Ovie scored 49 - #2 scored 44 --- 11% better then #2 18-19 - Ovie scored 51 - #2 scored 50 --- 1% better then #2 Ovie actually outscored his competition in the years he won the rocket by double digits 6 times. Gretzky did it twice. This dominance you speak of only happened twice, by reading your post you would think he did this every year. Again, no doubt that '81-82 & '83-84 are the best single seasons a player has ever had in terms of scoring goals, but Ovie has dominated for a MUCH longer duration the Gretzky winning scoring titles for over 11 years. Gretzky did most of his damage in a much shorter period of time as it was all in 6 seasons. Other Factors Gretzky in the early part of his career ONLY played against the best North American players in the world. Ovie throughout his career has played against the very best the entire world has had to offer, not half. Ovie outperformed Gretzky statistically against stronger competition. If you remove every non North American player ever (for conversation sake pretending Ovie was a NA player), I think Ovie does start to score at the level Gretzky did, just like when the rest of the world came into the NHL, Gretzky's dominance diminished. Whats even more impressive, Ovie is winning scoring titles in his 30's, Gretzky never won a single title after he was 26. Both are great, I'm not trying to tear Gretzky down. We're comparing the best of the best here. But statistically all indicators point towards Ovie being the better goal scorer. Gretzky just had the best single season ever which is appearing to cloud peoples judgement. I will say this though, after reviewing Gretzky's stats so closely, I do switch him and Bure. But ya, I'm full of it.

Who was the next highest goal scorer that year? I'll answer that for you. It was Mike Bossy with 64 goals. If it was an easy era to score goals, how come Bossy didn't score more? Why did only two other players score 60 besides Gretzky? When has Ovechkin ever dominated his peers like that? The fact is, Ovechkin in his best years never dominated his peers in goal scoring like Gretzky did. He never finished with 25 or 30 more goals than the next player. All the people bringing up the high scoring in the 80's have no reply to that. We're supposed to believe that Ovechkin would score 100 goals, while the next highest guy not counting Gretzky would have 60. When has Ovechkin ever shown that kind of statistical gap versus his peers? You guys are full of it.

Just imagine the average Wings game at the LCA, but in the playoffs.

Ovechkin. Come on. No one has scored like he has so consistently in an era like this. You can talk about injuries and whatnot but f*** that, gotta stay healthy to score goals and he’s been incredibly durable. Health shouldn’t be held against him nor used to prop others up. You get to an upper echelon of talent like all these guys and it’s almost silly debating who’s the greatest as they’re all basically the .00001% in goal scoring, but no one’s done what Ovechkin’s still doing in an era even easier to score goals in than this.

U of M has John Beecher and Cam York, I think they're just young right now MSU has been a mess for years since Ron Mason left the program.

I'm unsure about the Pac 12 as a conference, hockeywise. But Arizona State seems like they keep improving their hockey program. Currently sit at 13th in the NCAA https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/icehockey-men/d1/uschocom

By 0.01. It's basically a tie. Then you have to default to, ya know, the actual number of goals scored. Only here on LGWs would someone actually have to go into the weeds to try and drive home an obvious point. Jesus.

When Seider returns and finally lands on Namek after training in x100 artificial gravity the past few weeks

All you're doing is dragging everything into the weeds. Ovie scores more goals per game than Gretsky, and he does it in a lower scoring league. Everything else is long-winded BS.

Same

I'm with Philly this go round. Who is everyone else cheering for?

Your "devil's advocate" Schick is getting old. I've seen you rail against "big goalies with big pads" for years.

Huh? Why are you arguing with yourself. If you read through my posts, I never ranked either player. If you want to rank Ovechkin as a better goal scorer, that's your opinion. An argument can certainly be made. I don't care. People started diminishing Gretzky's accomplishments during the 1980's, Bobby Hull's era and the goalies in it, etc. Ovechkin would score 100 goals in the 1980's, etc. I responded with what I think about player sizes during Hull's era vs. today and what I think about the 1980's in general and Gretzky's peers. You said you couldn't judge Gretzky's totals based on the era he was in. I told you what I think about that. There's nothing wrong with Gretzky's era and no reason why it cannot be judged fairly.

I'm glad you had a good time! :)

Agreed. It's Ofechkin.

I think Lemieux and Ovie are 1 & 2 however you wanna rank them.

He has exactly 0 Blashill's coaching him

Gagner has been a nice addition. Hoping he sticks around for a couple years to help mentor the youth.

what a fun game. The 90's night theme was full of nostalgia, including my Vipers jersey Got to meet McCarty, who was super nice.. signing autographs and taking pictures with everyone. And it was an exciting game, despite the loss. Some of the big hits helped a lot (thanks Fabbri) All in all, glad I was there.