I find it very difficult to comment on a player if you never saw him play. That does not mean that you cannot have an opinion, but a few clips of a player on "you tube" does no justice for the game of hockey. Have you ever seen a montage of player’s bad plays, I have not?
There are a lot of old games on the TV, and you will be able to see the entire game, so you can better form an opinion on the player, and the game.
One other way to see what players did in the past is to look at stats. But some stats are misleading, for example: when you played, the number of teams in the league, the size of goalie equipment, the type of sticks, etc.
When you take a player and compare him to his pears that played during his era you can then see the value of stats. Comparing stats from the 70’s to the 80’, and then the 90’s become skewed with variables.
Since Gretzky seems to be at the center of attention most of the time, I was trying to see, was he really that good, or was it the era he played in that allowed him to amass so many points. If the latter is true then many of the great players that played during his prime would be right behind him.
I have put a list of players together that had careers during the eighties. Any player of significance that played any time from 1977 to 1991, I totaled up ten years of stats for each of those players, here are the results.
Name GP G A Pts P/G
Wayne Gretzky 774 637 1200 1837 2.37
Mario Lemieux 453 364 519 883 1.95
Mike Bossy 752 573 553 1126 1.50
Marcel Dionne 775 461 640 1101 1.42
Peter Stastny 749 385 674 1059 1.41
Jari Kurri 754 474 569 1043 1.38
Denis Savard 736 351 662 1013 1.38
Bryan Trottier 758 378 657 1035 1.37
Steve Yzerman 594 342 458 800 1.35
Guy Lafleur 516 275 416 691 1.34
Dale Hawerchuk 793 410 608 1018 1.28
Bernie Federko 758 299 643 942 1.24
Bernie Nicholls 705 364 504 868 1.23
Michel Goulet 756 440 460 900 1.19
Mark Messier 719 335 506 841 1.17
Dave Taylor 684 321 473 794 1.16
Ron Francis 728 266 566 832 1.14
Glenn Anderson 754 389 452 841 1.12
Joe Mullen 693 358 404 762 1.10
Rick Middleton 750 369 455 824 1.10
I think he was outstanding compared to the rest of the players in his era. I threw Lemieux's stats in up to 91 just for the heck of it...
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
- - Marshall McLuhan
80's The Gretzky Era 
Posted - 10/16/2007 : 10:20:41
