The Great One, The Magnificent One, or The Next One?

The great debate of who the best hockey player of all-time always comes down to Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux and rightfully so.  Gretzky dominated the league throughout the 80's shattering every scoring record while Lemieux was revered as the most gifted scorer in NHL history.  But, lets add a new face to the debate, his name is Sidney Crosby.  Crosby was dubbed the Next One at a very young age and has all but exceeded the expectations set for him.  The man has won every major individual award in the NHL including the Hart, Pearson, Art Ross, and Richard trophies and team awards such as a Stanley Cup championship and a Gold Medal while representing Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympics.  He did all that by the age of 24.

So, who is the greatest NHL player of the three? It really is a tough question, but the numbers never lie and the only way to distinguish such a player is to look at the numbers.  A statical analysis of these players will give us the answer we have all been waiting for.  Here. We. Go.

First, lets start off with how each player compares against one another in terms of attributes.  Their was no doubt Gretzky had the best vision, Lemieux the best hands, and Crosby the best skating, but we're talking about the most complete player.  This chart will breakdown each player in terms of sheer skills and the score is out of 100.

Attributes	Lemieux	Gretzky	Crosby
Shooting	9	8	8
Vision	9	10	9
Goal Scoring Touch	10	9	8
Skating	9	7	10
Hands	10	7	8
Power-Play	9	8	6
Penalty Kill	10	10	4
Clutch Gene	9	10	7
Hockey IQ	10	10	10
Defensive/Neutral Zone Play	7	7	9
Overall	90	83	80

Now, these rankings are our opinion, but you get a chance to see the strengths and weaknesses of each player.  Going in to this, Lemieux was going to be the best ranked player, but I didn't think Gretzky and Crosby would be that far behind.  Crosby is really low mainly because of special teams play.  The Penguins power play throughout his tenure has been average at best and the guy is rarely out there to kill penalties.  Some of you are saying that Crosby isn't a penalty killer and the Penguins have better suited players for those roles, and I completely agree with that, but Lemieux was not a penalty killer either earlier in his career, but he willed his way onto the rink. So, Crosby has to be penalized for his lack of skills in that area because Lemieux and Gretzky overcame the same ordeal.  Other than special teams play, I see no argument with the numbers assigned.  In this ranking system, Lemieux is by far the best player with a ranking of 90 out of 100.   In terms of skills, the Magnificent One reigns as the greatest to ever grace the ice.

Second, their is always that argument of the certain era each played in.  The NHL was completely different in the 80s than it was in the 90s.  The Dead Puck era occurred from 1994-2005 and with the emergence of the neutral zone trap around 1994, the NHL seen its goal per game drop from 7.46 in 1977-1987 to 5.32 in 1997 to 2007.  That 2 goals a game is a huge difference and the neutral zone trap was just one reason for this harsh decline.   Lets look at how the era's affected each player.

The easiest decade of scoring in NHL history occurred during 1977-1987, which yielded 7.46 goals per game.  In that decade, Gretzky played the prime of his career scoring .842 gpg and 2.33 ppg.  Those are fantastic numbers and no one can argue that Gretzky was not the best player in that era after seeing them.  In my opinion, Mario Lemieux's peak of his career was between 1987-1997.  In those years,  NHL scoring was around 6.7 ppg, an entire goal lower than that of Gretzky's prime and the neutral zone trap was in full effect.  Lemieux scored .883 gpg and 2.16 ppg.  Now, Sidney Crosby's prime is going on right now or still may be ahead of him, but lets analyze his first 8 years for this section.  The NHL has averaged about 5.45 goals per year from 2001-2011.  That decade ended as the 4th lowest decade of scoring in NHL history, with 2 of the others occurring in the early part of the 20th century.  Since 2004-2005, Crosby has scored .522 gpg and 1.38 ppg.  So, lets recap of the numbers so far.

	Lemieux (Prime)	Gretzky (Prime)	Crosby (So far)
GPG	.883	.842	.522
PPG	2.16	2.33	1.38

Now, lets analyze Lemieux and Gretzky's numbers during the Dead Puck Era, which occurred between 1994-2005 and Crosby's as of right now.

	Lemieux (Dead Puck)	Gretzky (Dead Puck)	Crosby (So far)
GPG	.66	.31	.522
PPG	1.68	1.8	1.38

The first aspect of these stats that really caught my eye was the decrease in both gpg and ppg with Gretzky from his prime years into the Dead Puck era.  Now, some of that has to do with Gretzky entering the era at age 33 with his best years behind him.  But, I believe Gretzky's game was based on space and the neutral zone trap took that space away.  Lemieux, however, didn't miss a step entering the era and had one of his best statistical years in 1995-96 with 69 goals and 161 points.  Gretzky and Lemieux's numbers in their prime's were downright scary.  Gretzky shattered records with that Oilers dynasties scoring 2.3 ppg and Lemieux averaged 2.16 ppg and .883 gpg all while dealing with a herniated disc in his back and Hodgkin's disease throughout those years.  He still seems to find ways to amaze us today.  Next, a lot of people think of Alexander Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos as the greatest goal scorers of today's NHL, but Crosby's numbers prove he shouldn't be overlooked.  In these tables, Crosby doesn't just compare with Ovechkin and Stamkos, he compares with the two greatest hockey players of all-time.  Another thing to keep in mind was the emergence of the butterfly goaltenders in the early 2000's.  Crosby has played all of his career during this time period with goaltenders playing the game more effectively than ever before.

Gretzky averaged 1.921 ppg over his career while Lemieux averaged 1.883, the best two scoring averages in league history.  Lemieux played in 600 less games that that of Gretzky because of the health issues I brought up earlier.  Those 600 games were all during Lemieux's prime so it would be reasonable to say that Lemieux would have exceeded Gretzky's numbers if he remained healthy.  Mike Gartner, a former NHL all-star, once claimed Lemieux would score 1,000 goals in his career.  He didn't quite get there, but boy did he have that ability.

After analyzing the statistics of the three players and the NHL they played in, Mario Lemieux proves to be the greatest player hockey of all-time while Gretzky comes in at a close second.  Its hard to argue against all the points Gretzky put up, but Lemieux was just the more talented, better overall player.  For now, Crosby comes in at third, but if his game continues to evolve, he could climb to the top of this list.


So, there you have it.  A statistical breakdown of the greatest players in NHL history.  The greatest players in the greatest game.