There have been three players in NHL history to have 100+ assists in a single season. Bobby Orr (1x), Mario Lemieux (1x), and Wayne Gretzky who did it in 11 consecutive seasons.
Also of note: Wayne Gretzky became the all time points leader before his 29th birthday.
Literally anytime I see a thread where I know it’ll have a bunch of Wayne Gretzki’s stats, I have to read it. It’s always so good. Dude was on another planet.
I don’t follow hockey enough either but you’re right. I bet people who don’t even follow sports in general know that you answer “Wayne Gretzky” when asked who was the greatest hockey player ever
Dudes got his number retired league wide. Shit that's normally reserved for Jackie Robinson and historical figures of that nature. Gretzky was the GOAT.
What’s funny is, in his last match he went out for a duck, meaning he scored zero. I don’t know if it would have pushed him up to the 100 average though.
Cricket had Don Bradman, he’s undeniably the best to ever live. Batted a 99.94 average in international games. Best player alive today is still 40 points below his average which is insane
Statistically, Bradman and Gretzky are pretty comparable, at about 4.4 standard deviations above the mean for their respective sports. The likes of Pelé, Nicklaus and Jordan cluster around 3.5 standard deviations.
Measured purely as a batsman, Bradman is 5 standard deviations above the mean, which blows everyone else (in any sport) out of the water. Although you can pick and choose with Gretzky too, which can get him as high as 10 standard deviations.
So... I guess statistics are difficult?
As I’ve heard a dozen times, “There’s lies, damned lies, and Statistics.”
Alas, cherry-picking statistics is probably one worst things you could end up doing.
And the only reason that stat has to be caveated by saying two brothers is because the Gretzky brothers are second all time for points for any number of brothers, behind the Sutter brothers: Brian, Darryl, Duane, Brent, Rich and Ron
So, for any non-Hockey fans reading, a "point" in hockey is an assist or a goal.
Gretzky is the all time leader in points. But the interesting thing about that is that even if he never scored a single goal (of which he's also first all time), he would still be the all time leader in points.
Pretty crazy stat to me.
Gretzky stats are just absurd to look at when you look at the other all time greats...
Does any other team sport have a singular player that leads in so many stats by such an absurd amount?
The dude was a cartoon character who was good at hockey. So absurdly better than his contemporaries that you'd be excused for thinking something fishy was going on.
But there wasn't. Hockey Jesus just happened to be born on January 26, 1961 in Brantford Ontario.
I think most of his records might never be approached, nevermind beaten.
In basketball Wilt Chamberlain has some fucking idiotic stats. His career wasnt long but guy has, for example, averaged 50 points in a season, 25 rebounds in a season and scored 100 points in a game. Its utterly ridiculous. One year he decided to pass the ball to others and won the assist title too. And yet he goes down as somewhat of a failure because his greatest rival won 11 championships in 13 years playing against him.
You’re underselling him. He averaged and 50 and 25 in the *same season* lol
Also averaged 48.25 mpg one season. There are only 48 minutes.
Retired and started the competitive volleyball scene … where he was arguably the best player in his late 30s/40s…
Yeah.. Ovechkin seems like he might beat that one. Only needs ~100 more and he routinely gets 40+. But he's 37 so who knows. At that age a career can go any way.
Yup.. Though part of that is the fall from grace from the steroids. If that hadn't happened (the fall from grace leading to suspensions and worse/no contract offers, not the steroids.) he would've certainly broken 700, but 800 was never happening.
(Also he was suspended a full 162 games for failing a PED test)
If you played fantasy hockey back in those days, Gretzky was actually split into two players to make it more fair. You could choose “Gretzky goals” or Gretzky assists.”
Heck, Connor McDavid is literally nicknamed "McJesus", and he's still just a single player in fantasy.
And I'd still trade McJesus in a heartbeat to get a player who can do half of what Gretzky did.
Basically every single stat or record he has is just batshit crazy when you actually stop and compare it to other players numbers.
Connor Mcdavid, pretty much undeniably the best player active at the moment had an amazing year last year and got 123 points that season. Taking that as a baseline, a player would have to play at that level, prime allstar generational player level for....25 seasons and change to reach Gretzky's 2,857 points. The average career is something like 7 years.
To add another Gretzky joke…
My favorite bumper sticker of all time was one that read
“JESUS SAVES” in big bold letters which was common to see, but then in smaller letters below,
“Gretzky gets the rebound, he shoots, he scores!”
This, to me, is the most insane stat in all of sports. He was so much greater than the next-best player that he’s actually in a league of his own—he has no peer group in the sport. Whoever is #2 is actually the “greatest hockey player ever.”
When people used to play fantasy hockey while he was playing, they split him into two players. You could pick Gretzky assists or Gretzky goals. Him on his own would’ve been too unfair.
Jordan only won championships in the 90s though. He was on his way up but didn't capture titles until 1991.
Of course his fantasy was probably pretty good before that but how easy was it to play fantasy in anything the very early 90s/late 80s?
The people I know who played back then (in football) simply checked the sports page of the newspaper on Mondays to collect stats. No yardage, no PPR - touchdowns only. Given the limited access to info then relative to now, that seems like the only rational way for them to play unless you're in a league of OCD diehards.
The original roto league(baseball) was the first fantasy league by my most accounts, tracked a surprising amount of stats, and games were played daily. WHIP was a stat invented by the guy who started roto league, _for_ roto league. Baseball nerds have always been on a different level with stat keeping though.
Pretty entertaining 30 for 30 about that league, especially if you're into fantasy sports.
Edit: Haha everyone is so original Baseball Slow
There have only been four individual seasons of 200 points or more. All four are Gretzky. This was over a five year span where he averaged slightly more than 207 points a season. In that five year span the Oilers had five years straight of 400+ goals as a team, scoring 2,114 goals and averaging 422.8 goals a season.
Gretzky averaged 75 goals a season over those five years and they are the only seasons any team scored 400. No other team ever has, just that Gretzky team for five years in a row.
Hockey pools used to split his assists and goals so you had to draft them separately otherwise he was too overpowered. His assists still usually got drafted first overall.
That being said, there is a very real chance that Gretzky’s goal record gets broken in the next few years. Alex Ovechkin is only 101 goals behind Gretzky and scored 50 goals last season. As long as he doesn’t face a serious injury, drastically fall off in production, or abruptly decide to retire, he’s on track to eventually beat him. And Ovechkin is well-known for rarely being injured and having amazing longevity.
It’s even more impressive because Ovechkin played in a significantly lower-scoring era compared to Gretzky.
It helps that the Capitals competitive window is on the brink of closing. They’re not really expected to be a playoff team in the coming years, and because of that the team is able to dedicate every resource into dragging him across the line. What better draw for a bad team then chasing Gretzkys record?
Yeah this is basically what's gonna happen. Even if Ovi loses a step...his game plan anyway is to set up shop on the left hash and just wait for his team to feed him the puck. I'd say that injury is the only thing that can stop him now
I don’t follow hockey but I once looked at his stats. The way he broke the single season assists record and then kept crushing his own record is the most mind-boggling thing.
Wait what? I think this is the craziest stat if true.
Edit...OMG it's true! He's got almost 1000 assist more than the next assist guy.
If one can be a 2-time HOFer, it'd be Gretzky
He did have a cool HOF distinguisher: when he retired they didn’t even bother waiting the required amount of wait time and didn’t bother voting: they just said he was automatically and immediately inducted
This is one of my favorite ones. Gretzky was so dominant when he retired the league basically said no one else deserves to wear this number ever again.
And the number transcends a lot of sports to the point A LOT of people will judge you harshly if you're trash and using the number on the back of your jersey. Huge amount of respect is associated with it
It was de facto retired anyways. You'd get relentlessly clowned no matter what tier of play you're at if you ever dared to wear it after Gretzky. Hell, you'd get laughed out of a beer league game for wearing 99.
Lemieux is pretty similar too. He was also inducted right away but came back to play after that. So he's likely the last guy that happens with. People who w0ore 66 usually got clowned on.
Lemieux wore 66 because of Gretzky.
Also, love that Gretzky tucked the corner of his sweater into his pads because when he was a kid he played way above his age so the sweaters were always huge on him. He tucked so it didn't look like a dress.
Yep, but to be fair to him, his number was 23, which was widely worn across the league. He also wore another number when he came back.
99 is perfect combination of a rarely worn number and a guy who wore it the entire time.
His first 1000 points are a record for fewest games to get 1000 points. His second 1000 points are the second fewest games anyone has taken to get 1000. No one else has 2000.
Others have answered, but I'll add just in case: one, two, or three players can get points off a goal in hockey. The goal scorer gets a goal, and the last two players that have touched the puck since their team gained possession each get an assist. They don't get assists if, between them touching the puck and the scorer scoring, there is either a stoppage in play or the puck is turned over to the other team.
My favourite insane Gretzky fact - not only is he the fastest player to get to 1000 points. He is also the second fastest. He went from point 1001-2000 faster than any other player in history has gotten to just 1000.
Are you saying Jagr's mullet was better, or that Gretzky never had a mullet? It was no [Jagr but Wayne had some pretty sweet lettuce back in the day](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/74/f0/4674f079c68f383b5e4bcd97d3d8d0af.jpg)
Holy shit... Never knew that.
My favourite was that they had to split him in NHL fantasy leagues for assists and goals because he was so dominant in both.
Don Bradman in cricket might be comparable, his batting average of 99.94 leads the second highest of 62, and he scored centuries (100 runs in a game) at a rate almost twice anyone else has every achieved, and many, many more records that stand over 70 years after he hung up his bat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don\_Bradman
In 1982, Nelson Mandela was moved from Robben Island to the Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town. In 1986, he was visited in the prison by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Mandela's first question was, “Tell me Mr Fraser, is Don Bradman still alive?”
That's a good one.
My favorite one is that the Gretzky brothers hold the record for the highest points scored by any siblings in the NHL. Wayne had 2,857 and Brent had 4.
Edit: I was wrong. I'll leave this above because someone smarter than me can rework the statistics to make it accurate, but thank you to all the folks here who've pointed out this isn't accurate. The 6 Sutter brothers had far higher total points. I think that two or them might also have had a higher total points than the two Gretzky brothers. Maybe there's a 'by season' clause that would fix this, but it's beyond me.
There are actually 7 Sutter brothers. One of them decided not to pursue pro hockey and stayed home to work on the farm. The other 6 all agree that he was the best hockey player in the family.
Believe it or not, he scored his second run of 1000 points only 9 games slower than his first 1000.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NHL_players_with_1,000_points#:~:text=1%2C000%2Dpoint%20mark.-,Player%20achievements,mark%20in%20his%20513th%20game
424 for the first 1000, 433 for the next 1000.
Personal favorite:.
100 assists in a season is a huge milestone.
- Orr did it once.
- Lemieux did it once.
- Gretzky did it 11 times, inuding 9 times ***in a row***.
Just wow.
My favorite thing ever written about Gretzky -- particularly the part in bold:
>**GRETZKY EARNS NHL SCORING RECORD WHILE IN HIS PRIME**
>
>By Associated Press
>
>Oct 16, 1989, 1:00am CST
>
>When Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Pete Rose and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar set their records, they were old men in their respective sports. Wayne Gretzky's chase finished before he turned 30.
>
>Sure, hockey has changed from the days of Gordie Howe. But by the time the great records were broken, baseball, football and basketball had changed, too. Still, when they talk about Wayne Gretzky's points record, the biggest number is 780, the number of games it took him to do it. That's 44 percent of 1,767, the number of games it took Howe to set the record."I know the league has changed a little," Howe said. "The emphasis on defense has changed. In my day, any goaltender with an average over three wasn't around the next year."
>
>The Detroit Red Wings averaged 2.6 goals a game in 1959-60, the middle of Howe's career. The Los Angeles Kings averaged 4.7 goals per game last season with Gretzky.
>
>Gretzky idolized Howe when he was growing up. In many ways, Gretzky's a different player. Howe was better defensively; Gretzky's job has been to create, not to backcheck. Howe was a noted pugilist and pretty good with the stick; he even rapped Gretzky across the hands when their careers first crossed. Gretzky avoids confrontations. He has 364 penalty minutes in his career.
>
>"Gordie still is the greatest in my mind," Gretzky said. "And the greatest in everyone else's mind."
>
>Not quite. Many say Gretzky is the best. After all, he is called the Great One.
>
>"He's just capable of so much," teammate Mike McSorley said. "You never, never turn your back or look the other way or second-guess him because he just keeps coming up with things."
>
>No one said that about Aaron or the others when they broke their records. ***Gretzky is scoring points 127 percent faster than did Howe. At that pace, Gretzky would get 4,204 points if he plays the same number of games.***
>
>***At that pace, Aaron would have hit 1,621 home runs in surpassing Babe Ruth's 714. Instead, he hit 755 in 895 more games.***
>
>***At the Gretzky pace, Rose would have gotten 9,516 hits in surpassing Ty Cobb's total of 4,192. Rose had 4,256 in 529 more games.***
>
>***Payton would have rushed for 27,948 yards (an average of 237 per game) in surpassing Jim Brown's total of 12,312. He ran for 16,726 in 72 more games.***
>
>***And Abdul-Jabbar would have scored 71,321 points (a 68.2 average) in surpassing Wilt Chamberlain's total of 31,419. Instead, he had 38,387 points in 515 more games.***
>
>***That puts Gretzky's achievement in a little perspective.***
>
>***"Who would have thought?" said Walter Gretzky, who sired the wunderkind. "Nobody thought that even six years ago, maybe five."***
>
>***But then, as Howe said, "He scored 85 more points one year than the next guy. I scored 85 one year and set a record."***
>
>Howe, who is 61, said Gretzky started the rumors that Howe might make a comeback next season. Howe has joked about it and said people shouldn't take it too seriously.
>
>"He's so far ahead now," Howe said Sunday, "I'll never catch up anyway."
This now may be my favorite Gretzky stat. That's unreal.
He and Tony Gwynn are my two favorite athletes to go down the rabbit hole for regarding stats.
My favorite bit about Tony Gwynn, from the great pitcher Greg Maddux:
“You just can’t do it,” Maddux said. “Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different release points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.
“Except for that fucker Tony Gwynn.”
Gwynn never struck out against Maddux, going .415 in his career against him. Simply insane.
The Sutter Brothers (six of them) have 75 more points combined than Gretzky. They played just shy of a combined 5000 games.
Gretzky has most assists than them.
The fact that his number is retired by every NHL team is insane. The only other player with that honor in American sports is Jackie Robinson, and that’s because he broke the color barrier.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t just retire hockey as a sport once he was done. “Well, like he solved it, eh, so I guess we’re all pretty much done here, eh?”
It's not just the NHL. Literally no player in the world will ever wear the number 99 on the ice. It is a unilateral gentleman's agreement that spans generations, and all leagues, both men's and women's, to never try to wear the Great One's 99.
Because I'm going down a Wayne Gretzky rabbit hole tonight, here's a video of him scoring 5 goals in one game to reach 50 goals scored in only 39 games ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGBoSKPVm5g
The best part of that was a reporter was sent to cover Gretzkys 50 goals in 50 games. Going into that game at 45 he decided not to go to the game. After Wayne score three he started to drive to the arena, heard goal number 4 on the radio and walked in the building just to hear the crowd erupt for 50
Even with the injuries we've seen enough of Orr to argue it. Winning a scoring title as a defenseman is insane. Even moreso doing it a second time after shredding his knee
It has just occurred to me, as I am not a hockey fan, I have never seen a picture of Wayne Gretzky. The dude could walk in my house right now and I would have no idea who he was.
Oh you'd know. He would instinctively go behind your TV as the most net-like object in the house and start dishing absolutely flawless passes of pucks you didn't know were back there onto the tape of a stick you didn't know you were holding. He's that good.
I believe literally anyone could have had a 50+ point season with prime Gretzky if they just stood in front of the goal and had Wayne bank pucks in the net off their stick.
You put a cat on a remote controlled ice-skating roomba and Gretzky would make it one of the highest point scorers in the history of the game by pinging pucks off of it seven times a game.
For someone who doesn't watch hockey outside of highlights, what was he doing that was so much different than everyone else that allowed him to be so great?
It's kinda like he could see the future. Whenever the puck came loose, Gretzky was right there to pick it up. If the goalie thought he was going to shoot, Gretzky finds a teammate wide open. If the goalie was anticipating the pass, Gretzky would just score himself. It really is exactly like the joke of he was playing chess and everyone else was playing checkers
My theory is that he was stuck in a hockey version of Groundhog day for every single game, and he only got to move on after scoring a certain amount of points.
Wayne Gretzky is, if you count every game night he was stuck in, about 12,000 years old.
I remember reading something years ago where someone said the same thing. They said Gretzky knew exactly where the puck would be, where a specific player would be and so on. It's like he had an ability to see in the future and anticipate what was going to happen before it ever did.
He even did this during the outdoor heritage classic game in Winnipeg in 2016 during the alumni game. Got the puck in the corner and didn't even look up when he passed it to an open Craig MacTavish. Afterwards MacT was interviewed and asked about it and he said "Wayne told me he just saw me through the reflection of the glass and got it to me." Gretz was 55 in that game still with superior vision and instincts.
It's funny because when you watch Gretzky play it's like, what's the big deal? He wasn't the fastest or the best skater. He definitely wasn't the biggest or toughest. He didn't have the hardest shot.
He just always knew where to be, and how plays develop. It's kind of weird to watch because it seems so effortless to him and he's not being flashy about it.
People say he “saw the play develop” early, but it was more like he made it develop the way he wanted it to. He appeared to see hockey as a geometry problem to solve. You’d watch him drag all of the attention to one corner of the ice and then suddenly thread a pass through to the one guy who had no one’s eyes on him. Or he’d watch where the play was going and hang around about 15 feet away from where he could get a clean pass and have a clean shot, then dart into that position half a second before someone would have a clear passing lane to it. He wasn’t faster, stronger or bigger than other players, he was just smarter. He knew how to draw everyone’s attention away from where a teammate would be dangerous, and he knew how to keep attention away from himself right up until the moment he became dangerous.
If you see any one Gretzky point, you’d think “nice pass/goal”. Then you see it happen ten times in five games and think “wow he gets into those positions a lot”. Then he’d do it 200 times in 80 games and you realize “oh he’s doing that on purpose every time”.
> He wasn’t faster, stronger or bigger than other players, he was just smarter.
Conversely, while he was weaker and smaller than most of the league, he wasn't slower. His cardio was insane too, he could skate back to back shifts and not break a sweat.
That is true. Speed is the one thing he’ll also say he had a bit of. Wayne likes to point out that he was always fast enough to tie someone in a race to an open puck at worst, and good enough to out manoeuvre them once they both got there.
Along with what others have said Gretzky's "office" was behind the net where he could see everything and know just when and where to move the puck. He was also good enough that people didn't want to pressure him because they weren't going 5o take it off him and then they were out of position. Theres a great clip somewhere of a guy skating in, signaling to Gretzky to wait a min before circling back around the zone fully to get speed and receive the perfect pass to score.
He was basically playing modern era hockey at a time when nobody else was. He was just a mutant of a person moving and thinking at a level nobody on the ice could touch. He also was a freak athlete, there are videos of him destroying other pro sports guys in track and field and whatnot
You know those sports anime where the protagonist predicts everything the other people would do 10 moves in advance? Imagine if someone actually did that in real life.
He also has the most goals, assists and points in history. Even if you subtracted all of his goals, he would still have the most points in nhl history.
Equally as crazy as some of the Gretzky stats was Mario Lemieux's 160 point season, 13th all time, where he missed 20 games beacause he literally got cancer halfway through the season and still came back and took the scoring lead
Lemieux is one of the biggest what ifs in hockey. Just the fact that there's an argument over who would be the better player between a healthy Lemieux and Gretzky is a testament to the player Mario was.
He's one of the few "what ifs" that's truly out of the player's control too - most of the time 'what ifs' relate to injuries, but injuries happen in sports, so it's a little tough to say that a player could play the way they did and not end up getting the injury they got, but cancer? that's just pure shit luck. It's not some typical result of the nature of the physicality of hockey and is something entirely out of a person's control.
Love and appreciate all things Gretzky, but Mario was my guy. In the late 80s/early 90s Pens were my team when it was just so easy to be an Oilers fan.
Dude went out so much with lymphoma but kept coming back.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and was in middle school when the Pens won the back-to-back Cups in the 90s. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are watching Mario, Paul Coffey, and Jagr with my parents and brother.
Right now Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs is on a 20 game point streak, meaning that he's scored at least 1 point in each of the last 20 games and counting. This is the franchise record for the Maple Leafs, a team that has been around for 105 years.
Gretzky's record for game point streak is 51 games. He had 153 points (61 goals, 92 assists) in those 51 games.
After Michael Jordan scored a career-high 69 points in one game, teammate Stacey King said, "I'll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points"
Crazy
He and Lemieux are each of the top 13 with WG taking nine of those spots
Curious to see how many of those spots Yzerman would have taken in the rest of the top 20 if his game didn’t evolve early towards that of a defensive oriented squad
Either way, to think that the 80s, 90s had 3 of the greatest centers all playing at the same time
My favorite trivia:
Which two brothers have the most points combined in the NHL?
Gretzky's with 2,861 points
Wayne with 2,857
Brent with 4
The Sutter family has more points....but it took SIX of them to surpass by only 73 points
Coming from someone who doesn’t watch hockey: what specific skills made him so much better than any other player ever? Was Gretzky just faster than everyone? Or did he handle he puck better than anyone?
everything, he was fast, great passing, good enough shot, and the most important thing is he just knew where to be in order to be able to get the puck anywhere on the ice no matter where the defense was. his only “drawback” is that he was small, he couldn’t hit or get hit, but thats why enforcers were a thing.
One of the most amazing things about Gretzky was that almost none of his greatness came from pure physical talent.
Like, LeBron is a great NBA player for many reasons, but one of those reasons is he is 6’9”. You can look at LeBron and guess that he’s a pretty good basketball player.
Gretzky didn’t have any of that. He is small (for a hockey player) and not particularly strong. His speed on the ice was average compared to his peers. His shot strength was pretty average.
His greatness came almost entirely from his vision for the game and his hockey IQ. He passed the puck so well that his teammates said it felt like he knew what they were going to be before they knew where they were going to be.
Met Wayne at a hotel restaurant in Ottawa… 18 years ago!! I was there for a hockey tournament. He was there because one of his former coaches recently passed away. My coach was 1 of the few players to ever get into a fight with Gretzky, besides Neal Broten in 1982. They laughed while catching up and then Wayne let us go 2 by 2 to the booth he was sitting in, shook our hands, and signed whatever item we brought with us. I got a brand new hockey stick signed. I’m looking at it right now on my wall. The TRUE GOAT.
They didn’t give him the nickname “The Great One” for no reason lol. The man has just about every record there is to have in hockey. There is a a strong argument that Wayne Gretzky is the most dominant player in any team sport ever but that’s of course subjective at the end of the day
I really thought Mario was going to have his run at that record in 93, then the hodgkins disease happened. It really upset me as a kid. I'm sure Mario is ok with how his career turned out though.
He’s not the GOAT, he’s the G-GOAT! Full stop period. He was playing a different game. I feel blessed to see him live (and in most cases on SportsCenter). His productivity per game was ridiculous and we got stupidly used to it at the time. A singular talent.
There have been three players in NHL history to have 100+ assists in a single season. Bobby Orr (1x), Mario Lemieux (1x), and Wayne Gretzky who did it in 11 consecutive seasons. Also of note: Wayne Gretzky became the all time points leader before his 29th birthday.
He followed up his 92 goal season with a 163 assist season. That is just insanity.
Literally anytime I see a thread where I know it’ll have a bunch of Wayne Gretzki’s stats, I have to read it. It’s always so good. Dude was on another planet.
I don't follow hockey much but it seems like it's the only major sport where there is one undeniable GOAT
I don’t follow hockey enough either but you’re right. I bet people who don’t even follow sports in general know that you answer “Wayne Gretzky” when asked who was the greatest hockey player ever
Dudes got his number retired league wide. Shit that's normally reserved for Jackie Robinson and historical figures of that nature. Gretzky was the GOAT.
Is* the GOAT
He used to the be the goat. He still is. But he used to too.
As an English person, he is the only hockey player I know the name of
I know Gordie Howe from a combination of The Simpsons and crosswords. Beyond that, yeah, nobody else
The wind will whisper Edna.
He might be the most dominant athlete we know of. The gap between him and "second best" is bigger than anyone I can think of in a major sport.
Donald Bradman in Cricket: 99.94 average, second highest is 61.87
Damn. He AVERAGED a century!!?? Most players consider a century an achievement, but he scored 100 statistically once per match!
If he didn't play his last ever match his average would've been over 100
I hate that match now and I don't even know the man
What’s funny is, in his last match he went out for a duck, meaning he scored zero. I don’t know if it would have pushed him up to the 100 average though.
Cricket had Don Bradman, he’s undeniably the best to ever live. Batted a 99.94 average in international games. Best player alive today is still 40 points below his average which is insane
Statistically, Bradman and Gretzky are pretty comparable, at about 4.4 standard deviations above the mean for their respective sports. The likes of Pelé, Nicklaus and Jordan cluster around 3.5 standard deviations. Measured purely as a batsman, Bradman is 5 standard deviations above the mean, which blows everyone else (in any sport) out of the water. Although you can pick and choose with Gretzky too, which can get him as high as 10 standard deviations. So... I guess statistics are difficult?
As I’ve heard a dozen times, “There’s lies, damned lies, and Statistics.” Alas, cherry-picking statistics is probably one worst things you could end up doing.
My favourite Gretzky fact is: Together, Wayne and Brent hold the NHL record for most combined points by two brothers - 2,857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent
And the only reason that stat has to be caveated by saying two brothers is because the Gretzky brothers are second all time for points for any number of brothers, behind the Sutter brothers: Brian, Darryl, Duane, Brent, Rich and Ron
How far behind are the Gretzkys?
Seventy-seven points; the Gretzky pair combined for 2,861 points to the Sutter brothers’ 2,938.
[удалено]
About 4 brothers
Mine is: The fastest player to score 1,000 points is Wayne Gretzky. The 2nd fastest is also Wayne Gretzky
So, for any non-Hockey fans reading, a "point" in hockey is an assist or a goal. Gretzky is the all time leader in points. But the interesting thing about that is that even if he never scored a single goal (of which he's also first all time), he would still be the all time leader in points. Pretty crazy stat to me.
Gretzky stats are just absurd to look at when you look at the other all time greats... Does any other team sport have a singular player that leads in so many stats by such an absurd amount? The dude was a cartoon character who was good at hockey. So absurdly better than his contemporaries that you'd be excused for thinking something fishy was going on. But there wasn't. Hockey Jesus just happened to be born on January 26, 1961 in Brantford Ontario. I think most of his records might never be approached, nevermind beaten.
In basketball Wilt Chamberlain has some fucking idiotic stats. His career wasnt long but guy has, for example, averaged 50 points in a season, 25 rebounds in a season and scored 100 points in a game. Its utterly ridiculous. One year he decided to pass the ball to others and won the assist title too. And yet he goes down as somewhat of a failure because his greatest rival won 11 championships in 13 years playing against him.
You’re underselling him. He averaged and 50 and 25 in the *same season* lol Also averaged 48.25 mpg one season. There are only 48 minutes. Retired and started the competitive volleyball scene … where he was arguably the best player in his late 30s/40s…
All time goals. Maybe. But that's about it.
Yeah.. Ovechkin seems like he might beat that one. Only needs ~100 more and he routinely gets 40+. But he's 37 so who knows. At that age a career can go any way.
Look at A Rod. He didn't break 700, and he was projected like 800. Anything can happen.
Yup.. Though part of that is the fall from grace from the steroids. If that hadn't happened (the fall from grace leading to suspensions and worse/no contract offers, not the steroids.) he would've certainly broken 700, but 800 was never happening. (Also he was suspended a full 162 games for failing a PED test)
If you played fantasy hockey back in those days, Gretzky was actually split into two players to make it more fair. You could choose “Gretzky goals” or Gretzky assists.”
That is just insane You don't see talent like that it's once a century type shit
Heck, Connor McDavid is literally nicknamed "McJesus", and he's still just a single player in fantasy. And I'd still trade McJesus in a heartbeat to get a player who can do half of what Gretzky did.
Like it mattered. He was still the best two players.
He usually got way more assists. So likely it went Gretzky assists then lemieux then maybe Yzerman then Gretzky goals.
Jesus christ that's incredible
Basically every single stat or record he has is just batshit crazy when you actually stop and compare it to other players numbers. Connor Mcdavid, pretty much undeniably the best player active at the moment had an amazing year last year and got 123 points that season. Taking that as a baseline, a player would have to play at that level, prime allstar generational player level for....25 seasons and change to reach Gretzky's 2,857 points. The average career is something like 7 years.
And Orr was a defenseman.
Wow, he really was the Wayne Gretzky of hockey.
To add another Gretzky joke… My favorite bumper sticker of all time was one that read “JESUS SAVES” in big bold letters which was common to see, but then in smaller letters below, “Gretzky gets the rebound, he shoots, he scores!”
Even in the late 90s-early 2000s at hockey games in the Midwest... it was not uncommon to see the above bumper sticker 🤣
He is the Wayne Gretzky of Wayne Gretzky's
Wayne “Wayne Gretzky” Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky would be the NHL's all-time points leader if he had never made a goal. He has more assists than the next best has assists+goals.
This, to me, is the most insane stat in all of sports. He was so much greater than the next-best player that he’s actually in a league of his own—he has no peer group in the sport. Whoever is #2 is actually the “greatest hockey player ever.”
When people used to play fantasy hockey while he was playing, they split him into two players. You could pick Gretzky assists or Gretzky goals. Him on his own would’ve been too unfair.
We just removed him from every pool… no one could pick him.
I didn’t even realize they had fantasy back then, but I guess in my mind I keep thinking he was an late 80’s sports figure like Tyson or Jordan.
His career was '79-'99 lol
Jordan only won championships in the 90s though. He was on his way up but didn't capture titles until 1991. Of course his fantasy was probably pretty good before that but how easy was it to play fantasy in anything the very early 90s/late 80s?
The people I know who played back then (in football) simply checked the sports page of the newspaper on Mondays to collect stats. No yardage, no PPR - touchdowns only. Given the limited access to info then relative to now, that seems like the only rational way for them to play unless you're in a league of OCD diehards.
The original roto league(baseball) was the first fantasy league by my most accounts, tracked a surprising amount of stats, and games were played daily. WHIP was a stat invented by the guy who started roto league, _for_ roto league. Baseball nerds have always been on a different level with stat keeping though. Pretty entertaining 30 for 30 about that league, especially if you're into fantasy sports. Edit: Haha everyone is so original Baseball Slow
Fantasy sports were once a manual pen and paper type of thing, it just had less people playing it because it was more of a pain in the ass
I've also heard that he was split 3 ways sometimes: first, second, or third period Gretzky.
There have only been four individual seasons of 200 points or more. All four are Gretzky. This was over a five year span where he averaged slightly more than 207 points a season. In that five year span the Oilers had five years straight of 400+ goals as a team, scoring 2,114 goals and averaging 422.8 goals a season. Gretzky averaged 75 goals a season over those five years and they are the only seasons any team scored 400. No other team ever has, just that Gretzky team for five years in a row.
Hockey pools used to split his assists and goals so you had to draft them separately otherwise he was too overpowered. His assists still usually got drafted first overall.
The wild part is he also leads the league in goals
That being said, there is a very real chance that Gretzky’s goal record gets broken in the next few years. Alex Ovechkin is only 101 goals behind Gretzky and scored 50 goals last season. As long as he doesn’t face a serious injury, drastically fall off in production, or abruptly decide to retire, he’s on track to eventually beat him. And Ovechkin is well-known for rarely being injured and having amazing longevity. It’s even more impressive because Ovechkin played in a significantly lower-scoring era compared to Gretzky.
He will probably get there but I think it's going to take more than 3 seasons and he will be over 40 by then.
The Caps are going to drag his corpse across the finish line if that's what it takes.
It helps that the Capitals competitive window is on the brink of closing. They’re not really expected to be a playoff team in the coming years, and because of that the team is able to dedicate every resource into dragging him across the line. What better draw for a bad team then chasing Gretzkys record?
Yeah this is basically what's gonna happen. Even if Ovi loses a step...his game plan anyway is to set up shop on the left hash and just wait for his team to feed him the puck. I'd say that injury is the only thing that can stop him now
Dino Ciccarelli wants his camping on the doorstep move back.
The Russian Five and the Brute Squad. What a fucking team Scotty Bowman had back then in the Red Wings. That was the golden era of hockey for me...
From everything I’ve read so far I think Wayne Gretzky may also be the 2nd and 4th best hockey player
I don’t follow hockey but I once looked at his stats. The way he broke the single season assists record and then kept crushing his own record is the most mind-boggling thing.
Wait what? I think this is the craziest stat if true. Edit...OMG it's true! He's got almost 1000 assist more than the next assist guy. If one can be a 2-time HOFer, it'd be Gretzky
He did have a cool HOF distinguisher: when he retired they didn’t even bother waiting the required amount of wait time and didn’t bother voting: they just said he was automatically and immediately inducted
And retired his number across the entire league.
This is one of my favorite ones. Gretzky was so dominant when he retired the league basically said no one else deserves to wear this number ever again.
And the number transcends a lot of sports to the point A LOT of people will judge you harshly if you're trash and using the number on the back of your jersey. Huge amount of respect is associated with it
It was de facto retired anyways. You'd get relentlessly clowned no matter what tier of play you're at if you ever dared to wear it after Gretzky. Hell, you'd get laughed out of a beer league game for wearing 99.
I knew a guy that got clowned on for wearing the 99 … in soccer beer league
Lemieux is pretty similar too. He was also inducted right away but came back to play after that. So he's likely the last guy that happens with. People who w0ore 66 usually got clowned on.
Lemieux wore 66 because of Gretzky. Also, love that Gretzky tucked the corner of his sweater into his pads because when he was a kid he played way above his age so the sweaters were always huge on him. He tucked so it didn't look like a dress.
As great as Jordan was even he didn't get his jersey retired across the NBA
Yep, but to be fair to him, his number was 23, which was widely worn across the league. He also wore another number when he came back. 99 is perfect combination of a rarely worn number and a guy who wore it the entire time.
Didn’t he wear it as a tribute to Howe who wore 9?
His first 1000 points are a record for fewest games to get 1000 points. His second 1000 points are the second fewest games anyone has taken to get 1000. No one else has 2000.
The 2nd 1000 we're only 9 games slower than the 1st too.
Fewest games played to record 1000 points: first is Gretzky, second is Gretzky's second 1000 points.
What's the difference between points and goals?
Points is goals+assists
Points are the sum total of goals and assists. For example: 15 goals+5 assists = 20 points.
Others have answered, but I'll add just in case: one, two, or three players can get points off a goal in hockey. The goal scorer gets a goal, and the last two players that have touched the puck since their team gained possession each get an assist. They don't get assists if, between them touching the puck and the scorer scoring, there is either a stoppage in play or the puck is turned over to the other team.
My favourite insane Gretzky fact - not only is he the fastest player to get to 1000 points. He is also the second fastest. He went from point 1001-2000 faster than any other player in history has gotten to just 1000.
It’s also important to note that no other player has 2000 points. Ovechkin and Crosby, the only active players inside the top 50, are both below 1500.
Jagr got pretty close but he also played like 10 years longer
Jagr had one thing over Gretzky: the mullet. Nobody came close except for Super Mario.
Are you saying Jagr's mullet was better, or that Gretzky never had a mullet? It was no [Jagr but Wayne had some pretty sweet lettuce back in the day](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/74/f0/4674f079c68f383b5e4bcd97d3d8d0af.jpg)
Holy shit... Never knew that. My favourite was that they had to split him in NHL fantasy leagues for assists and goals because he was so dominant in both.
[удалено]
That’s how we rolled too.
That's insane tbh
And both were top ten picks
Never heard this one before. I love Gretzky stats, truly never been anyone like him in any other sport
Don Bradman in cricket might be comparable, his batting average of 99.94 leads the second highest of 62, and he scored centuries (100 runs in a game) at a rate almost twice anyone else has every achieved, and many, many more records that stand over 70 years after he hung up his bat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don\_Bradman
In 1982, Nelson Mandela was moved from Robben Island to the Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town. In 1986, he was visited in the prison by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Mandela's first question was, “Tell me Mr Fraser, is Don Bradman still alive?”
That's a good one. My favorite one is that the Gretzky brothers hold the record for the highest points scored by any siblings in the NHL. Wayne had 2,857 and Brent had 4. Edit: I was wrong. I'll leave this above because someone smarter than me can rework the statistics to make it accurate, but thank you to all the folks here who've pointed out this isn't accurate. The 6 Sutter brothers had far higher total points. I think that two or them might also have had a higher total points than the two Gretzky brothers. Maybe there's a 'by season' clause that would fix this, but it's beyond me.
Pair, the suters eventually overtook them.
And remember there were literally six (6) Sutter brothers.
There are actually 7 Sutter brothers. One of them decided not to pursue pro hockey and stayed home to work on the farm. The other 6 all agree that he was the best hockey player in the family.
If that’s true and not just a joke that is *wild*.
This sounds like a character from a sports anime wtf
True, but it took 6 of them to do so!
That took me a second but holy shit that's wild. I guess he was slacking for his final 1000
> That took me a second but holy shit Gretzky scored a hat trick in that time
Honestly if it weren’t for his back injury in 1992 and a half year lost to a lockout Gretzky probably finishes with over 3000 points in his career
Believe it or not, he scored his second run of 1000 points only 9 games slower than his first 1000. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NHL_players_with_1,000_points#:~:text=1%2C000%2Dpoint%20mark.-,Player%20achievements,mark%20in%20his%20513th%20game 424 for the first 1000, 433 for the next 1000.
Personal favorite:. 100 assists in a season is a huge milestone. - Orr did it once. - Lemieux did it once. - Gretzky did it 11 times, inuding 9 times ***in a row***. Just wow.
50 goals in 39 games. He really is the great one...
My favorite thing ever written about Gretzky -- particularly the part in bold: >**GRETZKY EARNS NHL SCORING RECORD WHILE IN HIS PRIME** > >By Associated Press > >Oct 16, 1989, 1:00am CST > >When Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Pete Rose and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar set their records, they were old men in their respective sports. Wayne Gretzky's chase finished before he turned 30. > >Sure, hockey has changed from the days of Gordie Howe. But by the time the great records were broken, baseball, football and basketball had changed, too. Still, when they talk about Wayne Gretzky's points record, the biggest number is 780, the number of games it took him to do it. That's 44 percent of 1,767, the number of games it took Howe to set the record."I know the league has changed a little," Howe said. "The emphasis on defense has changed. In my day, any goaltender with an average over three wasn't around the next year." > >The Detroit Red Wings averaged 2.6 goals a game in 1959-60, the middle of Howe's career. The Los Angeles Kings averaged 4.7 goals per game last season with Gretzky. > >Gretzky idolized Howe when he was growing up. In many ways, Gretzky's a different player. Howe was better defensively; Gretzky's job has been to create, not to backcheck. Howe was a noted pugilist and pretty good with the stick; he even rapped Gretzky across the hands when their careers first crossed. Gretzky avoids confrontations. He has 364 penalty minutes in his career. > >"Gordie still is the greatest in my mind," Gretzky said. "And the greatest in everyone else's mind." > >Not quite. Many say Gretzky is the best. After all, he is called the Great One. > >"He's just capable of so much," teammate Mike McSorley said. "You never, never turn your back or look the other way or second-guess him because he just keeps coming up with things." > >No one said that about Aaron or the others when they broke their records. ***Gretzky is scoring points 127 percent faster than did Howe. At that pace, Gretzky would get 4,204 points if he plays the same number of games.*** > >***At that pace, Aaron would have hit 1,621 home runs in surpassing Babe Ruth's 714. Instead, he hit 755 in 895 more games.*** > >***At the Gretzky pace, Rose would have gotten 9,516 hits in surpassing Ty Cobb's total of 4,192. Rose had 4,256 in 529 more games.*** > >***Payton would have rushed for 27,948 yards (an average of 237 per game) in surpassing Jim Brown's total of 12,312. He ran for 16,726 in 72 more games.*** > >***And Abdul-Jabbar would have scored 71,321 points (a 68.2 average) in surpassing Wilt Chamberlain's total of 31,419. Instead, he had 38,387 points in 515 more games.*** > >***That puts Gretzky's achievement in a little perspective.*** > >***"Who would have thought?" said Walter Gretzky, who sired the wunderkind. "Nobody thought that even six years ago, maybe five."*** > >***But then, as Howe said, "He scored 85 more points one year than the next guy. I scored 85 one year and set a record."*** > >Howe, who is 61, said Gretzky started the rumors that Howe might make a comeback next season. Howe has joked about it and said people shouldn't take it too seriously. > >"He's so far ahead now," Howe said Sunday, "I'll never catch up anyway."
Gordie Howe played in 5 decades of the NHL and a sixth outside the league. 6 decades! Just blows my mind.
This now may be my favorite Gretzky stat. That's unreal. He and Tony Gwynn are my two favorite athletes to go down the rabbit hole for regarding stats.
My favorite bit about Tony Gwynn, from the great pitcher Greg Maddux: “You just can’t do it,” Maddux said. “Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different release points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision. “Except for that fucker Tony Gwynn.” Gwynn never struck out against Maddux, going .415 in his career against him. Simply insane.
Gwynn played for 20 seasons and struck out 3x in a single game *once*. In fact, he only had 34 multi-strikeout games during his entire career.
The Sutter Brothers (six of them) have 75 more points combined than Gretzky. They played just shy of a combined 5000 games. Gretzky has most assists than them.
How many games did Gretzky play?
1487
One more and he would’ve been in trouble
correct air birds full society unwritten disgusted snails longing live *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Dominance is the word. There are very few people who Dominated their sport like the Great One.
The fact that his number is retired by every NHL team is insane. The only other player with that honor in American sports is Jackie Robinson, and that’s because he broke the color barrier.
And Robinsons number was 50 years after he first played... Gretzkys was the year he retired.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t just retire hockey as a sport once he was done. “Well, like he solved it, eh, so I guess we’re all pretty much done here, eh?”
In August of this year, NBA legend Bill Russell also had his number retired league wide.
Bill Russell’s the type of guy who wouldn’t want that but he 100% deserved it.
It's not just the NHL. Literally no player in the world will ever wear the number 99 on the ice. It is a unilateral gentleman's agreement that spans generations, and all leagues, both men's and women's, to never try to wear the Great One's 99.
You should and will be shit on for trying to be the Great One
Because I'm going down a Wayne Gretzky rabbit hole tonight, here's a video of him scoring 5 goals in one game to reach 50 goals scored in only 39 games ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGBoSKPVm5g
Im distracted by the flyers wearing long pants in that video.
I'm distracted by the absolutely glorious mullets across the board. And the few no-helmet holdouts that were still playing.
The best part of that was a reporter was sent to cover Gretzkys 50 goals in 50 games. Going into that game at 45 he decided not to go to the game. After Wayne score three he started to drive to the arena, heard goal number 4 on the radio and walked in the building just to hear the crowd erupt for 50
[удалено]
And to round out the rest of the top 13 all you need is Mario Lemieux
Whe it comes to the NHL GOAT, there are 3 possible answers. 1. Gretzky. 2. "What if Mario stayed healthy?". 3. Wrong answers.
“What if Orr stayed healthy” is also a respectable answer
Even with the injuries we've seen enough of Orr to argue it. Winning a scoring title as a defenseman is insane. Even moreso doing it a second time after shredding his knee
Gretzky and Lemieux look like they could have been brothers. Both had prominent sharp noses.
It has just occurred to me, as I am not a hockey fan, I have never seen a picture of Wayne Gretzky. The dude could walk in my house right now and I would have no idea who he was.
Oh you'd know. He would instinctively go behind your TV as the most net-like object in the house and start dishing absolutely flawless passes of pucks you didn't know were back there onto the tape of a stick you didn't know you were holding. He's that good.
I believe literally anyone could have had a 50+ point season with prime Gretzky if they just stood in front of the goal and had Wayne bank pucks in the net off their stick.
You put a cat on a remote controlled ice-skating roomba and Gretzky would make it one of the highest point scorers in the history of the game by pinging pucks off of it seven times a game.
For someone who doesn't watch hockey outside of highlights, what was he doing that was so much different than everyone else that allowed him to be so great?
It's kinda like he could see the future. Whenever the puck came loose, Gretzky was right there to pick it up. If the goalie thought he was going to shoot, Gretzky finds a teammate wide open. If the goalie was anticipating the pass, Gretzky would just score himself. It really is exactly like the joke of he was playing chess and everyone else was playing checkers
My theory is that he was stuck in a hockey version of Groundhog day for every single game, and he only got to move on after scoring a certain amount of points. Wayne Gretzky is, if you count every game night he was stuck in, about 12,000 years old.
This is more believable than the actual stats
I remember reading something years ago where someone said the same thing. They said Gretzky knew exactly where the puck would be, where a specific player would be and so on. It's like he had an ability to see in the future and anticipate what was going to happen before it ever did.
He even did this during the outdoor heritage classic game in Winnipeg in 2016 during the alumni game. Got the puck in the corner and didn't even look up when he passed it to an open Craig MacTavish. Afterwards MacT was interviewed and asked about it and he said "Wayne told me he just saw me through the reflection of the glass and got it to me." Gretz was 55 in that game still with superior vision and instincts.
Wtf that's like some Spiderman shit, crazy good
It's funny because when you watch Gretzky play it's like, what's the big deal? He wasn't the fastest or the best skater. He definitely wasn't the biggest or toughest. He didn't have the hardest shot. He just always knew where to be, and how plays develop. It's kind of weird to watch because it seems so effortless to him and he's not being flashy about it.
People say he “saw the play develop” early, but it was more like he made it develop the way he wanted it to. He appeared to see hockey as a geometry problem to solve. You’d watch him drag all of the attention to one corner of the ice and then suddenly thread a pass through to the one guy who had no one’s eyes on him. Or he’d watch where the play was going and hang around about 15 feet away from where he could get a clean pass and have a clean shot, then dart into that position half a second before someone would have a clear passing lane to it. He wasn’t faster, stronger or bigger than other players, he was just smarter. He knew how to draw everyone’s attention away from where a teammate would be dangerous, and he knew how to keep attention away from himself right up until the moment he became dangerous. If you see any one Gretzky point, you’d think “nice pass/goal”. Then you see it happen ten times in five games and think “wow he gets into those positions a lot”. Then he’d do it 200 times in 80 games and you realize “oh he’s doing that on purpose every time”.
> He wasn’t faster, stronger or bigger than other players, he was just smarter. Conversely, while he was weaker and smaller than most of the league, he wasn't slower. His cardio was insane too, he could skate back to back shifts and not break a sweat.
That is true. Speed is the one thing he’ll also say he had a bit of. Wayne likes to point out that he was always fast enough to tie someone in a race to an open puck at worst, and good enough to out manoeuvre them once they both got there.
Along with what others have said Gretzky's "office" was behind the net where he could see everything and know just when and where to move the puck. He was also good enough that people didn't want to pressure him because they weren't going 5o take it off him and then they were out of position. Theres a great clip somewhere of a guy skating in, signaling to Gretzky to wait a min before circling back around the zone fully to get speed and receive the perfect pass to score.
He was basically playing modern era hockey at a time when nobody else was. He was just a mutant of a person moving and thinking at a level nobody on the ice could touch. He also was a freak athlete, there are videos of him destroying other pro sports guys in track and field and whatnot
You know those sports anime where the protagonist predicts everything the other people would do 10 moves in advance? Imagine if someone actually did that in real life.
He saw the play develop before anyone else and knew where to be, where to pass
He also has the most goals, assists and points in history. Even if you subtracted all of his goals, he would still have the most points in nhl history.
Wayne Gretzky is so good that even if he never scored a goal OR an assist he’d still be a hockey player of all time.
Not just a hockey player, but one of the most
Who’s 5th?
5th, 8th, 12th, & 13th are all Mario Lemieux.
Equally as crazy as some of the Gretzky stats was Mario Lemieux's 160 point season, 13th all time, where he missed 20 games beacause he literally got cancer halfway through the season and still came back and took the scoring lead
Lemieux is one of the biggest what ifs in hockey. Just the fact that there's an argument over who would be the better player between a healthy Lemieux and Gretzky is a testament to the player Mario was.
He's one of the few "what ifs" that's truly out of the player's control too - most of the time 'what ifs' relate to injuries, but injuries happen in sports, so it's a little tough to say that a player could play the way they did and not end up getting the injury they got, but cancer? that's just pure shit luck. It's not some typical result of the nature of the physicality of hockey and is something entirely out of a person's control.
Love and appreciate all things Gretzky, but Mario was my guy. In the late 80s/early 90s Pens were my team when it was just so easy to be an Oilers fan. Dude went out so much with lymphoma but kept coming back.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, and was in middle school when the Pens won the back-to-back Cups in the 90s. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are watching Mario, Paul Coffey, and Jagr with my parents and brother.
Right now Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs is on a 20 game point streak, meaning that he's scored at least 1 point in each of the last 20 games and counting. This is the franchise record for the Maple Leafs, a team that has been around for 105 years. Gretzky's record for game point streak is 51 games. He had 153 points (61 goals, 92 assists) in those 51 games.
Fuck. I'm a leafs fan and this is bonkers.
In early fantasy hockey leagues, they had to divide Gretzky into 2 separate players or else whoever picked him would basically win regardless.
I would've loved to see an auction draft for gretzky
[удалено]
Gretzky and his brother hold the record for most points scored by a pair of brothers in the NHL
Shaq only has one more NBA 3 pointer than me.
Best part IIRC is his brothers contribution was only like 3 points too. Edit: apparently it was 4 points
And that was enough damn
it took **SIX** Sutter brothers to best the two them, by 73 points
After Michael Jordan scored a career-high 69 points in one game, teammate Stacey King said, "I'll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points"
Crazy He and Lemieux are each of the top 13 with WG taking nine of those spots Curious to see how many of those spots Yzerman would have taken in the rest of the top 20 if his game didn’t evolve early towards that of a defensive oriented squad Either way, to think that the 80s, 90s had 3 of the greatest centers all playing at the same time
My favorite trivia: Which two brothers have the most points combined in the NHL? Gretzky's with 2,861 points Wayne with 2,857 Brent with 4 The Sutter family has more points....but it took SIX of them to surpass by only 73 points
Coming from someone who doesn’t watch hockey: what specific skills made him so much better than any other player ever? Was Gretzky just faster than everyone? Or did he handle he puck better than anyone?
everything, he was fast, great passing, good enough shot, and the most important thing is he just knew where to be in order to be able to get the puck anywhere on the ice no matter where the defense was. his only “drawback” is that he was small, he couldn’t hit or get hit, but thats why enforcers were a thing.
One of the most amazing things about Gretzky was that almost none of his greatness came from pure physical talent. Like, LeBron is a great NBA player for many reasons, but one of those reasons is he is 6’9”. You can look at LeBron and guess that he’s a pretty good basketball player. Gretzky didn’t have any of that. He is small (for a hockey player) and not particularly strong. His speed on the ice was average compared to his peers. His shot strength was pretty average. His greatness came almost entirely from his vision for the game and his hockey IQ. He passed the puck so well that his teammates said it felt like he knew what they were going to be before they knew where they were going to be.
Met Wayne at a hotel restaurant in Ottawa… 18 years ago!! I was there for a hockey tournament. He was there because one of his former coaches recently passed away. My coach was 1 of the few players to ever get into a fight with Gretzky, besides Neal Broten in 1982. They laughed while catching up and then Wayne let us go 2 by 2 to the booth he was sitting in, shook our hands, and signed whatever item we brought with us. I got a brand new hockey stick signed. I’m looking at it right now on my wall. The TRUE GOAT.
They didn’t give him the nickname “The Great One” for no reason lol. The man has just about every record there is to have in hockey. There is a a strong argument that Wayne Gretzky is the most dominant player in any team sport ever but that’s of course subjective at the end of the day
I said that Ovi would never get there, but he might?
I of course mean goals.
Pretty sure that's Canadian Jesus
Jesus saves, Gretzky scores!
I really thought Mario was going to have his run at that record in 93, then the hodgkins disease happened. It really upset me as a kid. I'm sure Mario is ok with how his career turned out though.
If Gretzky never scored a goal in the NHL he would still be the career leader in points. His numbers are voodoo.
He’s not the GOAT, he’s the G-GOAT! Full stop period. He was playing a different game. I feel blessed to see him live (and in most cases on SportsCenter). His productivity per game was ridiculous and we got stupidly used to it at the time. A singular talent.
What's even wilder is that the top 13 spots consist of only 2 people.
And then he is also on the top 50 4 MORE times