RESOLVED: Wayne Gretzky is actually *way* underrated
The greatest team sport athlete. By a lot.
On Monday night, Conor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers notched his 100th assist of the season.
Which is amazing!
I was reading about the history McDavid made when I came across this paragraph on NHL.com:
McDavid is the first player to achieve the feat since 1990-91, when Wayne Gretzky had 122 assists for the Los Angeles Kings. Mario Lemieux (114 assists with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1988-89) and Bobby Orr (102 with the Boston Bruins in 1970-71) are the other two players to have reached the mark along with McDavid and Gretzky, who did it 11 times.
Ok, so four players ever have handed out 100 assists in a season. McDavid, who is widely seen as the best player in the modern game, did it this year. Mario Lemieux, an all-time great, did it once in the 1988-1989 season. Bobby Orr, an all-time great, did it once in the 1970-1971 season. And Wayne Gretzky did it ELEVEN times.
Like, WHAT????
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I did a quick check and the stat is actually even more amazing than that paragraph makes it sound. Because Gretzky not only had more than 100 assists in a season 11 times, he had more than 100 assists in 11 STRAIGHT seasons from the 1980-1981 season all the way through the 1990-1991 season.
Oh, and in five of those 11 seasons, Gretzky ALSO led the NHL in goals scored.
All of which leads me to an argument I like to make to anyone who will listen: Wayne Gretzky is actually UNDERRATED. Yes, the guy whose nickname is “The Great One” and who is widely accepted as the greatest hockey player of all time does not get ENOUGH credit for how incredibly dominant he was, how much better he was (and is) than anyone who has ever played the game before or since.
Let me just make the case through a few more statistics — starting with when Gretzky was a little kid.
Playing in a league filled with 10 and 11 year olds, Gretzky scored 378 goals — not a typo! — in a single season. (That’s an average of more than 4 goals a game. All season.) His team finished with a 76-2-4 record.
When he turned pro at 17, the records didn’t stop.
In the history of hockey, only one player has ever scored more than 200 points (goals plus assists) in a single season. Gretzky did it four times. In fact, of the 10 highest point-scoring seasons ever, Gretzky has eight of them.
By way of comparison, the points leader in the NHL right now (with one game left in the season) is Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning with 142. (McDavid is 3rd with 132.)
But, wait, there’s more. Six times during his career, Gretzky’s won the the scoring title by 70 points or more, according to The Hockey News. The biggest margin ever in the scoring race other than Gretzky’s? When Lemieux won it by 31 points.
And even more: Even if Gretzky had NEVER scored a SINGLE goal, he would STILL be the all-time points leader in NHL history.
Gretzky had 2,857 career points — of which 894 were goals. Subtract out the goals and he would have had 1,963 points. Which would still be 42 more than Pittsburgh Penguins great Jaromir Jagr.
I say again: WHAT???
So dominant was Gretzky that he won 8 straight most valuable player awards from 1980-1987. (He won a 9th when playing for the Los Angeles Kings in 1989.) Gordie Howe is second with 6 MVPs. No other hockey player has won more than 4.
How does that compare to other team sports? Kareem Abul-Jabbar has won the most MVP awards in NBA history with 6. Bill Russell and Michael Jordan won 5. Peyton Manning won 5 MVPs during his NFL career. Aaron Rodgers is second with 4. Barry Bonds won 7 MVPs during his (steroid-aided) career. Mike Trout has three MVPs and is still in his prime.
The closest you get to Gretzky’s MPV record in major sports is Lionel Messi, who has won 8 Ballon d’Or’s over his career — including four straight from 2009-2012.
There are a many more statistics that highlight just how remarkable Gretzky was. (Read this on that.) But, even with just the stats I outlined above, I think it’s fair to say this: Wayne Gretzky was the single greatest team sport athlete ever.
As in, the gap between Gretzky and the best hockey player ever is wider than the gap between any other athlete in any other sport and the person who is considered second best.
Prove me wrong!
That's pretty compelling evidence. I can't argue with you.
It would be interesting to do a similar post on the most dominant athlete in an individual sport. Michael Phelps would be hard to beat. He won 28 Olympic medals in swimming, 23 of them gold. He won about 2 1/2 times more golds than Mark Spitz (9) and total medals than Ryan Lochte (12).
Agreed completely! Of all the great seasons he had, 1985-86 is perhaps the most amazing. He had 215 points (remember, he is the only player in NHL history with a 200-point season), and his record-setting 163 assists would have won him the scoring title even if he hadn't score a single goal. Simply astonishing. It got to the point where we almost took for granted what he did, forgetting that no player before had ever done it, nor has anyone ever done it since. I am glad that I got to see him play at his peak.