GMRwings1983

Off the top of my head, if we're just looking at regular season and not the playoffs: 1. Lemieux 2. Hull 3. Ovechkin / Gretzky 5. Howe 6. Richard A few more dominant seasons for Ovechkin, and I can see him passing Hull. Richard's playoff resume was amazing but if we ignore the playoffs, it goes down slightly (not much though). He should be in the discussion here. I think he's a better overall player than Ovechkin, but just regular season goals, I have to give Ovechkin the nod. We've already discussed Ovechkin and Gretzky. I have no issue with flipping those players around any way you want them. I know we're supposed to ignore Gretzky's assists, but it's hard doing that when you consider how many goals he scored despite being a pass first guy. Would Ovechkin still score as many goals if he was less selfish and didn't lead the league in shots every season? It's a fair point to consider. How do you define greatest? Who scored the most goals? Who had the best shotmaking ability? Who could score lots of goals despite other areas of his game? Shooting percentage? I'm surprised Howe hasn't been mentioned more. This is a Red Wings message board last time I checked. He played when they only had 70 game seasons. His best years in the 1950's were during an era where there weren't lots of goals scored. So we have to look at where he finished relative to the competition. He led the league in goals 5 times and finished runner up 5 times. Those runner-up finishes were at the hands of Richard, Hull, and Beliveau. No offense to Ovechkin or Gretzky, but they never had to compete with three of the ten greatest players ever for goal scoring trophies. Get this. Howe led the league in goals in his 17th season! That's pretty impressive. He finished as high as 3rd in his 22nd season. He would be the most durable goal scorer ever. I can see Ovechkin claiming that title as well if he continues with high finishes in his waning years.

In goal scoring he is.

No, he'd probably be closer to 6'3 and would actually know how to throw a punch without hurting his hand. Power forwards are beta males these days. Anyway, how do people feel about Lemieux as the best goal scorer ever? His name hasn't been mentioned too often so far in this thread. 690 goals scored in 915 games.

Mantha playing for the Red Army? Come on now. Tikhonov would bench his lazy ass every other night.

I grew up in Russia during the 80’s. I can tell you there weren’t too many well fed people around.

Huh? I’m saying he wouldn’t even be allowed on the plane. You think Gorbachev allows a 6’3 235 lb guy to defect?

It's a mindless point you make considering the similarity in their GPG. Lots of people care about Richard trophies. People have no issue pointing out Ovechkin's Richard trophies. Why can't I do the same for Hull? Their career finishes are similar relative to their peers in goal scoring titles and high finishes even in seasons where they didn't win the trophy. I pointed out that during his NHL career, Hull finished top 5 in goals pretty much every season and won numerous Richard trophies during that span. Boohoo if kipwinger doesn't think trophies are relevant.

Or kickazz. Gone, but not forgotten casualties of Kenny Holland's final years as GM.

My point is he probably wouldn't be that size. That's larger than pretty much any forward in the league that time, discounting maybe some enforcers. Mantha would wreck the 80's too if just traveled back there via time machine and wasn't any smaller.

Hard to blame her there, unless it's in Vancouver, Montreal, or Toronto. Edmonton is like way north of Montana. BTW, nobody wants to live in Wisconsin either, unless you dig serial killers.

What does that mean, though? Of course players aren't getting significantly taller after they've already entered the NHL. Or are you saying taller people enter developmental hockey at later ages? So for instance, a 12 year old suddenly begins playing hockey because someone told him he'd be a good goalie due to his size.

So from your observations of following hockey (however long that's been) you haven't noticed any trend with either skaters or goalies getting bigger? I thought this was pretty much an accepted fact.

I forget, were you this annoying under your previous user names?

The average hockey player now is 6'1, 199 lbs. Gordie Howe was considered big for his era, and he was 6'0, 205 lbs. I haven't found any study specifically on hockey player sizes. The average person is one thing. However, shorter people usually don't have as good a pathway to sports like hockey, football, or obviously basketball. So I'm not too sure you can use the average person height and say that a similar pattern exists in hockey. I don't remember too many 6'5 or above players even when I was a kid watching hockey. Certainly not goalies. Shorter goalies don't exist anymore. Someone like Osgood would be a relic nowadays. Vernon even more so. Ovie's size is consequential when certain idiots try to argue that he'd score 1,000 goals if he played in some prior era. It's not relevant to his competition, you're right.

How about penis sizes? In all seriousness, are you going to argue NHL players haven't gotten bigger? How many guys were there Ovechkin's size back in Hull's era? Or players who are even bigger than Ovechkin, say 6'5 or higher? Goalies have also gotten a lot bigger. You can hardly find a goalie today under 6'0 or even 6'2. You can take your Norwegian study and shove it.

LOL. Exaggerate much? Would his wife be able to defend herself nowadays from domestic abuse? Ah. So you're like those folks who consider all movies from 1930 to 1979 be under the same genre known as "classic movies". Technically, fans under 20 probably consider the 1980's and 1990's to be olden too.

That ***** had money and could spend all her days at that huge Edmonton mall. What else did she want in life?

Is Ovechkin close to Gretzky then? Because 700 isn't 894 either. This thread is about all time great goal scorers. Hull is one of them. Not Brett. Brett isn't even top 5 in my book. Maybe not even top 10 best goal scorer (though I have to think about that one). We're talking about Bobby Hull. He had enough Richard trophies and top 5 goal scoring finishes to get serious consideration.

Very minor differences there. Hull has a similarly minor advantage in playoff GPG. Look, a few more seasons of Ovechkin winning the Richard trophy, and I'd have no problem placing him above Hull in goal scoring. Not in overall ranking, as Hull was just a better all-around player. But in goals only I can see it happening soon. If you already have him there, good for you. Also, Hull isn't even close to Gretzky's record because he left the NHL to play in another league. You know this. Same as Lemieux, though injuries were the reason he didn't approach the record. We can only speculate what those guys would have scored. Just like we're speculating Ovechkin will break Gretzky's record. He may choose to go to the KHL or have a serious injury. You never know.

What is this a ******* political debate? What history of mine are you referring to? You keep changing this topic to make it more personal for some reason. I also don't remember all these times I apparently refused to provide a list of rankings. I can give you my top 10 all time ranking right now if you want. Crosby would likely be in it. Ovechkin would be top 20, not top 10 all time. Lidstrom same as Ovechkin. That's not a knock on any modern players. I'm not entirely against modern players in all time ranking. As far as goals only, I can see Ovechkin ranked anywhere from 3rd to 5th. I can't put him above Lemieux or Hull just yet but I can see that changing if he keeps his current pace. It's not that I don't respect modern players. It's that many posters like to point out the weakness of prior eras when lauding today's players. I think we can't be that dismissive of prior eras. Gretzky outscored everyone else in the 80's by a wide margin when it comes to goals. Yes, there were only two seasons where he outscored them by 25+ goals but overall, he was far ahead of Bossy and Goulet for goal leaders in the decade. I won't repeat those same stats but I posted them earlier. So his dominance in goals over his peers, in his prime, is significant.

No, I was ******* kidding. Yes, it's a serious question. How many goals do you think Ovechkin would score in the 80's? How about Hull? None of us have any idea. We can only compare how that player scored compared to his peers and make guesses as to the rest. Gretzky widely outscored his peers in goals during the 80's. Ovechkin has done the same in his career. To suggest that Ovechkin would score 1,000 goals easily in Gretzky's era is stupid because it only takes into account GPG as compared to eras. Players change over time. They get bigger, stronger, better equipment, etc. Anthony Mantha would score 60 goals every season if he suddenly got transported to the 1980's, with no other adjustments. Doesn't work that way. You need to think harder on this.

Gretzky scored 626 goals in the 80's. The next highest is Kurri, with 474, followed by Goulet, with 438. What does it matter how many GPG the 1980's had when one player outscored his peers by a wide margin?

Based on that, Mike Bossy was a better goal scorer than Gretzky. Also, Cy Denneny and Cecil Dye are better goal scorers than Ovechkin. Bure has a better GPG than Ovechkin, in spite of playing with linemates that were subpar compared to a Backstrom or Kuznetsov. GPG by itself is lazy.

Do you also root for the Nazis when watching war movies?

I can play the bolded game too. Bold 1: I understand you're talking about goal scoring. You can certainly make a good argument that Ovechkin is a better goal scorer over his career than Gretzky, even though his peak and dominance isn't as high. Why did I bring up points and not just goals? Simply because Gretzky still led the league in points in the 90's, despite the expansion of European players. Why wouldn't he still lead the league in goals, during the 80's, when he was younger and better, even if the best European players (Soviets) were playing in the NHL in the 80's? I'm pretty sure Soviets playing in the NHL wouldn't have changed Gretzky's goal numbers in the 80's. He did very well in International competitions. If you're suggesting his goal scoring in the 90's went down because of more European players, I don't agree. There were other reasons. Bold 2: This is simply false. I can see how goalies are better schooled nowadays, but outside of Tretiak, Gretzky was playing against the best goalies of his era. You can't just transport Ben Bishop with his giant pads into the 80's, as he would instantly become the best goalie in the world. Even Jimmy Howard would look good playing back then. Conversely, Grant Fuhr or Billy Smith transported via time machine would struggle in today's era. This doesn't mean Gretzky didn't face any good goalies or that goaltending sucked in the 80's. This is not the way to compare different eras. He dominated who he had to play against. Ovechkin is playing against giant goalies who are well schooled and wear lots of pads, but he's also bigger, stronger, and uses better hockey equipment. Gretzky, Kurri, and Bossy didn't use the kind of sticks players use today. I don't see how the forwards or defensemen are better today. The best defensemen of the 80's are Bourque, Potvin, Coffey, Robinson , Chelios, MacInnis, Stevens, Langway. Fetisov would be the big omission who didn't play in the league during his prime. Are you going to tell me that Ovechkin's era has seen a higher caliber of defensemen when it comes to all-time ranking? I doubt it. Do I need to name all the great forwards of the 80's besides Gretzky? Yes, there were some NHL omissions like Makarov, Larionov, and many other Soviets, but on the whole the 80's didn't lack great forwards in the NHL. That era is loaded will Hall of Fame forwards, even if you eliminate accumulators like Andreychuk, Gartner, and a few others. Bold 3: I covered this already. This is not a knock on Gretzky's era, minus the Soviet players. Sweden, Finland, and many other countries weren't loaded with stars back then as compared to today. We're not talking hundreds of players being held back from playing in the league. I'm not being presumptuous when I say Gretzky would still dominate that decade regardless of who came to the NHL from the Soviet Union, Sweden, Finland, Czechoslovakia, etc. Yes, there are more players now from other countries, more diversity, etc. If that is going to be held against Gretzky's era, you can do so with any era pre-Gretzky. Maybe Crosby is better than Howe because he's playing against more European players from different countries? Neither Wayne nor Gordie should be blamed for world hockey not being as developed during their era. This isn't like Fedor not fighting in the UFC during his prime or Jack Dempsey refusing to fight black fighters. Bold 4: OK, you didn't have a bold 4, but you mentioned something in another post I wanted to touch upon. You said that it's silly to expect anyone today to outscore the competition by 25 goals. It's certainly hard to envision it, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Before Orr or Gretzky came along, many would say it's impossible to envision a defenseman outscoring forwards by a wide margin, or a forward to score close to 200 points every year, while nobody else was close to 150. Same thing with Gretzky's best goal scoring seasons. Imagine if today a player came along with Gretzky or Mario like greatness (so someone better than Crosby, Ovechkin, or McDavid). Is it impossible that guy could score 160 points every year while the next highest would be approaching 120 or 115? Nobody is going to score 90 goals in today's era, but is it impossible that such a player could score 70+ goals for many consecutive seasons while the next highest is in the low 50's? You can call it "silly" until someone does it. Gretzky, Orr, and Lemieux did it in hockey. Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain had many seasons in their sports where they were lapping the field in PPG or home runs. And what's wrong with that? Goalies nowadays do wear too much equipment. But it's also true that skaters have better equipment and are bigger and stronger than they were in the 80's, let alone during Hull's era. That's why you cannot just transport 5'10 Bobby Hull, with his wooden stick and no helmet to today's era. Just like you cannot transport Ovechkin via time machine into an era where he'd be one of the biggest players in the NHL and would have a composite stick and a helmet. Time machine transportation is not how to compare players. If you judge those two players based on their peers, you'd see a similar dominance if we're just looking at goal scoring. Hull had five 50 goal seasons. In two of those seasons, he didn't even play 70 games. He obviously didn't play 80 games in any of those five seasons. He also won three Art Ross trophies, and was runner up three more times, so he wasn't just being a one-sided offensive player. He was scoring goals while doing other things. Hull won the Richard trophy 7 times. He finished runner up twice. Between 1960 and 1972, he had twelve top 5 finishes in goals. Just one season where he finished 6th during that span. That's pretty damn dominant. Then he went to play in another league. If he doesn't go to another league, Ovechkin is likely chasing him for all-time leader in goals. If you're going to diminish Hull's accomplishments because of the era (or because you don't like him personally) you can also pick apart other eras similarly. Players should only be judged by their era and their peers. And before you go there, there wasn't a lot of NHL ready talent in Europe during Hull's time. He played against the best professionals there were. As if kipwinger isn't annoying enough, he now has an avatar we all want to punch.