Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Yoda
Spot on there. I feel that Gretzky lost his otherworldly goal scoring numbers waaay to early for it be only becouse age and certianly becouse of the Suter thing becouse he was allready in a steady decline goal scoring wise before that.
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http://www.hockey-reference.com/play...order_by=goals
29 times it has happened in a single season where a player was 28 at the beginning of a 50 goal season. Maybe that sounds like a lot, but it isn't really when you consider the amount of 50 goal seasons in NHL history which are 191. Let's look at the names as well:
Phil Esposito - 4
Marcel Dionne - 3
Bobby Hull - 2
Dave Andreychuk - 2
Mario Lemieux - 2
The rest did it once: Brett Hull, Bossy, McDonald, Bure, Kehoe, Sakic, Jagr, Leach, Hadfield, Geoffrion, Hodge, Mullen, Bucyk, Bondra, Iginla, Pronovost
Let's analyze them for a second. Esposito had goal scoring seasons well above 50 but there's Dionne, Hull and Lemieux. All three are among the greatest goal scorers to ever play. You can argue two of them are the top 2. Andreychuk had his only two 50 goal seasons at a time when it was heavily influenced by Gilmour's prime years. Andreychuk was a 35-40 guy otherwise. Then there are the one timers. Brett Hull was a late bloomer and still only had one. Bossy had his back mess up on him. McDonald had a year that is a clear abberation in his career (66 goals) despite usually being good for 40-45. Kehoe, Pronovost, Mullen, Hadfield are others who had one year clearly better than any other, and only one year. Hadfield had the GAG line at its peak help him with that. Sakic and Jagr had an unusual year at that age, Geoffrion did it once and Bondra and Iginla had their final 50 goal season.
Now, here's the thing. None of these guys had a run of 51, 55, 92, 71, 87, 73, 52, 62, 40 and 54 before finally settling into a normal 40 goal year for a few years. Gretzky's goal scoring dropped more than anyone simply because he had further to fall. How in the world can you maintain a goal a game your whole career? You can't. Yet Gretzky was still getting two points a game as late as 1991 with a season that boasted 122 assists. I just find it arbitrary to knock his goal scoring when in reality this happens to the best of goal scorers (see Ovechkin) and there wasn't a sharp decline in his overall points until after 1991 when you could see the affect of his back injuries taking place.
I'm not sure what you wanted the man to do? Should he have put up 50-60 goal seasons into his mid 30s? I really think in many ways Gretzky has a career where you have to stop and say to yourself "What more could the man have done?" Don't you agree?