Mike Bossy was a better goal scorer than Wayne Gretzky

[blogofmike]

For Bossy, I'll put forward the following:
Goal 2. The Islanders are moving the puck well on the power play and the Bruins are chasing but I don't see anyone out of position. Bossy finds a little space in the high slot, so the one high forward could have covered him more closely, but it's a well timed pass and Bossy gets the one timer away with what looks like not much space and no time at all.

The last two goals in game 6 aren't terrible D. Bossy just beats the defender to a rebound both times, and does a lot of work for it the second time. The defenders are engaged even if they lose the battle.

For the rest:
Goal 1: Krushelnyski chases Jonsson too far and leaves Bossy wide open. Or maybe Brad Park should have rotated up? For that matter, Ray Bourque had just been on the boards with Bossy before he skated back to the front of the net to help Park cover Trottier and Kallur. Not sure who their coach would point to in the film session.
Goal 3: Hillier gets caught playing the puck, gets turned around, and loses Bossy during the one-two.
Goal 4: Multiple Bruins get caught in between, looks like they didn't expect Jonsson to make that pass.
Goals 5 and 7: Bourque gets caught flat footed and Bossy gets a step on him both times
Goal 6: Peeters gives it away

Gretzky's goals had some pretty bad mistakes though. None as bad as Peeters' giveaway, but several where a defender just takes himself out of a play and I can't understand what they were thinking. To me they look worse than the Boston errors because they're constantly leaving the net unprotected.

Goal 1: Why does Doug Crossman just skate away from the net with Coffey after Coffey centres it? Why does Poulin just turn away from the net instead of staying with Gretzky, leaving Gretzky to beat Howe in a race for the rebound by the open net?

Goal 2: Coffey and Kurri run this quick, tight cycle in the right circle. Well done, good play by them. But Thomas Eriksson follows Kurri to the top of the circle and then just disappears. Where did he go? And why is Dave Poulin just standing on his heels in the high slot without engaging with first Kurri and then Gretzky skating uncovered to the net? I don't think Huddy is even at the left point behind him.

Goal 3: Poulin catches an edge while skating with Coffey, and takes himself out of the play by skating behind the net. Which forces Howe to skate out after Coffey, meaning Crossman has to cover the net alone, but Crossman doesn't realize Gretzky is behind him, stays too high, and lets the pass get between him and Lindbergh.

Goal 4: Good play by Messier, overlapping with Coffey and forcing defensive decisions. The Phillys RD steps up to take Messier, the F1 backchecker tracks back on Messier, and nobody takes Gretzky as he goes wide. Main mistake is by the Philly RD (or forward? Possibly 3 forwards at 4-on-4) who stepped up on Messier and let Gretzky get behind him.

Goal 6: Crossman and Ron Sutter both commit to covering Glenn Anderson as he drives the net. Bad mistake when killing a 5-on-4 as they both go behind the net, and the worst happens as they let Anderson hook it back into the open space they vacated.

For the other two, first Crossman and then Howe both just gave Gretzky a bit too much space around the net on each goal.

I am not qualified at all to evaluate 80s goaltending but I could totally believe Peeters had a bad series, based on these goals.

Why did the defense break down in 1985?

I don't know.

Why did they break down in 1997, against teams that gave up 201 GA (4th), 182 GA (1st), and 217 GA (8th)?

Gretzky 1997 Goals

I don't think there are any 4-on-4 goals, but there's a whole bunch of chaos.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I think Nigel Dawes gets a little bit of a bad rap. He could always score, look how much he scored in his last year in the AHL. It's just if you aren't playing top line in NHL you gotta find other ways to contribute, once you hit a certain age, teams are looking in other directions with younger guys. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting opportunity which he got with Barys Astana to find a good deal of success as the "go to guy" in obviously a league that is below NHL. You really get until your Waiver-Exempt years expire and then maybe a couple more, but then they're going to be done with you if you're not willing to just stick around on the waiver bus indefinitely and don't want to pursue a KHL payday (if available)

 

[Dingo]

It's odd for someone to even make this thread (let alone bump it again) when both players played in the same era and had their prime in the same seasons as well and Gretzky outscored Bossy by quite a large margin. I mean if Bossy did better in tight situations maybe it could be said he was a better clutch player? I don't know. Statistically it's not close at all. A weird angle. I think Lemieux was a better goal scorer though.

ya, im not very invested in this, but i came here to say the same. Also agree about Lemieux.

On top of what you have said, Bossy had a very high end ice-tilting/plamaking centre glued to him at all times. Gretzky.... was that centre and had a Bossy-type on his wing at all times.

It is a weird take, to say the least.

 

[Midnight Judges]

You have to really focus on a small subset of the data while disregarding the preponderance in order to agree with this thread title.

 

[wetcoast]

I think Nigel Dawes gets a little bit of a bad rap. He could always score, look how much he scored in his last year in the AHL. It's just if you aren't playing top line in NHL you gotta find other ways to contribute, once you hit a certain age, teams are looking in other directions with younger guys. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting opportunity which he got with Barys Astana to find a good deal of success as the "go to guy" in obviously a league that is below NHL. You really get until your Waiver-Exempt years expire and then maybe a couple more, but then they're going to be done with you if you're not willing to just stick around on the waiver bus indefinitely and don't want to pursue a KHL payday (if available)

Why is a guy who scored 39 goals in 232 NHL games coming up in a thread about Bossby/Gretzky goal scoring?

I mean if Trevor Jobe didn't have a drinking problem and was more focused......

You have to really focus on a small subset of the data while disregarding the preponderance in order to agree with this thread title.

Not really as the idea of "better" goal scorer comes with some subjectivity even though I don't agree with the OP's conclusion Bossy is definitely an all time sniper and the argument isn't preposterous in the least.

Also the idea of "disregarding the preponderance of data" is ironic don't you think?

 

[Staniowski]

There's an interesting phenomena with this comparison: those who didn't watch hockey in the '70s and '80s will overwhelmingly say Gretzky was the better goal-scorer (just based on simple numbers); but the vast majority of those who were watching them play thought Bossy was better.

I don't think there is really any doubt that Bossy was the better goal-scorer, and I don't think it's that close. Bossy was a real goal-scorer, natural and pure. He could score in many different ways and from all over the offensive zone. His scoring was adaptable

Gretzky, on the other hand, wasn't a natural goal-scorer, and that's why he had difficulty scoring for the bulk of his career. There were too many things missing from the goal-scorers toolbox. He had very little physical strength, his shooting was sub-standard for a goal-scorer, he wasn't a great skater, or deker. Most of his goals were scored very close to the net, and he couldn't get there for most of his career. And he couldn't score from a distance to make up for it.

Gretzky's goal-scoring was very era-dependent. Bossy's wasn't; Lemieux's wasn't.

Gretzky never looked like a real goal-scorer. McDavid also doesn't.

Bossy, Krutov, Lemieux, Hull, Bure were all easily better goal-scorers than Gretzky during his era.

 

[Staniowski]

Two recent goals that look like Gretzky goals are the McAvoy goal and the Lafreniere goal.

The McAvoy goal, he just walks into the slot, wide open space and shoots from pretty close, right inthe centre of the ice. Gretzky scored many similar goals, and would often use his slapshot from the slot, pretty close to the net.

The bad-angle Lafreniere goal was classic Gretzky. Early in Gretzky's career, he practically invented these bad-angle goals. I'd say it's his biggest contribution to goal-scoring, historically. He certainly popularized them, very intelligent goals. Guys like Hawerchuk, Turgeon, Reichel, and others, followed him in scoring on bad-angle shots, and they became commonplace.

 

[JackSlater]

There's an interesting phenomena with this comparison: those who didn't watch hockey in the '70s and '80s will overwhelmingly say Gretzky was the better goal-scorer (just based on simple numbers); but the vast majority of those who were watching them play thought Bossy was better.

That's what happens with Gretzky overall. He very well may be the best player ever but for people who didn't watch him it seems he is unquestionably the best ever, while people who did watch him thought/think that there is competition.

 

[The Panther]

Gretzky's goal-scoring was very era-dependent. Bossy's wasn't; Lemieux's wasn't.

The logical gymastics here are amazing. You must be in contortions now.

So... to summarize your argument:
-- A guy who played 1977 to 1987 wasn't era dependent.
-- A guy who played 1984 to 1997 (first retirement) wasn't era dependent.
-- A guy who played 1979 to 1999 was era dependent.

I mean, okay.

 

[Overrated]

There's an interesting phenomena with this comparison: those who didn't watch hockey in the '70s and '80s will overwhelmingly say Gretzky was the better goal-scorer (just based on simple numbers); but the vast majority of those who were watching them play thought Bossy was better.

I don't think there is really any doubt that Bossy was the better goal-scorer, and I don't think it's that close. Bossy was a real goal-scorer, natural and pure. He could score in many different ways and from all over the offensive zone. His scoring was adaptable

Gretzky, on the other hand, wasn't a natural goal-scorer, and that's why he had difficulty scoring for the bulk of his career. There were too many things missing from the goal-scorers toolbox. He had very little physical strength, his shooting was sub-standard for a goal-scorer, he wasn't a great skater, or deker. Most of his goals were scored very close to the net, and he couldn't get there for most of his career. And he couldn't score from a distance to make up for it.

Gretzky's goal-scoring was very era-dependent. Bossy's wasn't; Lemieux's wasn't.

Gretzky never looked like a real goal-scorer. McDavid also doesn't.

Bossy, Krutov, Lemieux, Hull, Bure were all easily better goal-scorers than Gretzky during his era.

Why not look at it from the perspective of potential? If Gretzky were utilized as a primary goalscorer he'd do better than Bossy, Krutov, Hull and Bure. It's hard to argue that when he had a season where he scored 92 goals and even back then he was more than just a goalscorer. Just because his goalscoring decreased substantially in his later years I don't think we can conclude it was era dependent.

 

[Dale53130]

I wondered that if wingers who were their team's primary goalscorers, were capped off to a large degree (vs the greatest goal scoring centermen of All Time), as to how many goals they could score, being overly reliant on their center to get them the puck (to finish). Brett Hull's '89-'92 run looks even more impressive today all things considered, seeing how he was the only winger to score over 80 in a single season; especially not playing as much 5v5 with Adam Oates as I had once thought and with no elite offensive defenseman in tow.

I also wonder if Bobby Hull is tossed into the mix as a formality, but isn't really getting enough serious recognition these days. By all accounts, he was an awesome (and complete) goal scorer.

Shifting to Bossy, the Islanders were pretty much always in the mix of a team going deep into the playoffs, or being a cup contender. He was never a young guy, on a bad-to-average team, who could be left to his own devices, and just fire away. Outside of his going for 50 in 50, I don't think of him as being a guy going for his own numbers over team dynamics. Was it necessary for him to get 80 or 90 goals, when the team's winning as much as they were? Perhaps he couldn't touch that level any way, or perhaps he wasn't interested in trying to find out either.

 

[Albatros]

If Gretzky were utilized as a primary goalscorer he'd do better than Bossy, Krutov, Hull and Bure.

If Gretzky was reduced to a trigger man he wouldn't be remembered as the great one. I'm not even sure he'd have more career goals than he does now, he'd have fallen off earlier in the 1990s and wouldn't have got to play 20+ minutes a night anymore. Against Bure he wouldn't even have got the chance to compete.

 

[JackSlater]

I wondered that if wingers who were their team's primary goalscorers, were capped off to a large degree (vs the greatest goal scoring centermen of All Time), as to how many goals they could score, being overly reliant on their center to get them the puck (to finish). Brett Hull's '89-'92 run looks even more impressive today all things considered, seeing how he was the only winger to score over 80 in a single season; especially not playing as much 5v5 with Adam Oates as I had once thought and with no elite offensive defenseman in tow.

I also wonder if Bobby Hull is tossed into the mix as a formality, but isn't really getting enough serious recognition these days. By all accounts, he was an awesome (and complete) goal scorer.

Shifting to Bossy, the Islanders were pretty much always in the mix of a team going deep into the playoffs, or being a cup contender. He was never a young guy, on a bad-to-average team, who could be left to his own devices, and just fire away. Outside of his going for 50 in 50, I don't think of him as being a guy going for his own numbers over team dynamics. Was it necessary for him to get 80 or 90 goals, when the team's winning as much as they were? Perhaps he couldn't touch that level any way, or perhaps he wasn't interested in trying to find out either.

It's something to consider and the logic makes sense regarding wingers vs centres, but the top ten all time type goal scorers generally had the puck very often, at least at their peaks. Bobby Hull had the puck whenever he wanted in Chicago, and even Brett carried the puck a fair bit during his peak days in St. Louis. When Bossy played with Sutter as his centre rather than Trottier his goal scoring didn't suffer all that much.

I think that team strategy and usage, as hinted at in the last paragraph, is a bigger factor.

 

[Overrated]

If Gretzky was reduced to a trigger man he wouldn't be remembered as the great one. I'm not even sure he'd have more career goals than he does now, he'd have fallen off earlier in the 1990s and wouldn't have got to play 20+ minutes a night anymore. Against Bure he wouldn't even have got the chance to compete.

Because Bure was much younger. Prime vs prime I am talking about.

 

[The Panther]

If Gretzky was reduced to a trigger man he wouldn't be remembered as the great one. I'm not even sure he'd have more career goals than he does now, he'd have fallen off earlier in the 1990s and wouldn't have got to play 20+ minutes a night anymore. Against Bure he wouldn't even have got the chance to compete.

Gretzky (post-prime) vs. Bure (60 goal season), head to head in playoffs 1993:

Gretzky
6 goals (+13)
Bure
1 goal (-2)

 

[Albatros]

Mm, and 7:1 for Bure in that regular season.

 

[Beau Knows]

I suppose you could argue that if you reduced Gretzky's playmaking abilities to Bossy's level, that Gretzky wouldn't catch goalies cheating on the pass or defenders protecting the pass over the shot as often as they did, hurting his ability to beat goaltenders enough to reduce his goal totals to below Bossy's. So if all else was equal, the claim would be that Bossy would score more goals at the end of the day.

But I don't see a case there. For all the advantages Gretzky's playmaking ability might have granted him over a sniper without the all-time great vision he had, I think he lost out on far more goal scoring opportunities by being a pass first player instead of a triggerman.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Bossys prime overlapped with gretzkys prime. Gretzky demolished him and reached heights 87 n 92 goals that bossy (68) could not fathom. Not much more to it.

 

[Staniowski]

The logical gymastics here are amazing. You must be in contortions now.

So... to summarize your argument:
-- A guy who played 1977 to 1987 wasn't era dependent.
-- A guy who played 1984 to 1997 (first retirement) wasn't era dependent.
-- A guy who played 1979 to 1999 was era dependent.

I mean, okay.

There's no "gymnastics" at all. When we say a player - and what they are able to do - is era-dependent, that obviously doesn't mean that everybody who plays in that era is era-dependent.

Gretzky's goal-scoring was era-dependent, and for the reasons that I've already discussed. This was clear to just about everybody who watched his career.

Lemieux's goal-scoring was not era-dependent. He was bigger and stronger, an overall better skater, much better shooter, better deker than Gretzky, and that's why his goal-scoring wasn't nearly as dependent on the quality of defense they faced.

And Bossy's goal-scoring talents were more similar to Lemieux's.

 

[MadLuke]

Why is a guy who scored 39 goals in 232 NHL games coming up in a thread about Bossby/Gretzky goal scoring?

I mean if Trevor Jobe didn't have a drinking problem and was more focused......

It is a 11 page thread by now, but it was about this idea

Bossys prime overlapped with gretzkys prime. Gretzky demolished him and reached heights 87 n 92 goals that bossy (68) could not fathom. Not much more to it.

Kovalchuck outscored him by a miles in the nhl, but Dawes outscored Kovalchuck by a good amount in the KHL are they both better each goalscorer than each other ?

I am sure we can come up with a long list of people that outscored future nhl star in the junior or AHL when they played at the same time has well, scoring more goal does not necessarily end the conversation (but it is obviously a very strong argument creating a very tall hill to climb)

 

[Staniowski]

That's what happens with Gretzky overall. He very well may be the best player ever but for people who didn't watch him it seems he is unquestionably the best ever, while people who did watch him thought/think that there is competition.

That's true, it's the same, e.g., mutatis mutandis, when comparing Gretzky with Orr as the greatest player ever.

 

[MadLuke]

Gretzky's goal-scoring was era-dependent, and for the reasons that I've already discussed. This was clear to just about everybody who watched his career.

One big issue even if someone bought that a lot of Gretzky goals does not work as well in say the 06 or 2023.... we need to assume he does not find other ways to do it.

And if we look at is Rangers playoff scoring, I am not so sure how era dependant it really was, in the sense maybe almost no one outside Gretzky do it, but maybe he still do pull off old school slap shoot goals and still able score 50 during his peak in the low scoring time.

Lot of Lafleur goals does not work today, a lot of Matthews/Bedard goals does not work with first generation of wood stick, some goalscorer would not need to adapt much because they out physical-athlete the rest of humans so much they would find a way (Bure-Ovechkin-Lemieux), Gretzky maybe would need to adapt but his not a bad candidate to bet that he would have.

 

[WarriorofTime]

That's true, it's the same, e.g., mutatis mutandis, when comparing Gretzky with Orr as the greatest player ever.

When it comes to Orr and particularly his skating, it's hard to not equate for the fact that much of 70s NHL players just weren't very good skaters in an absolute sense. Even if we take Orr to be the best skater today (modern equipment, power skating lessons from birth, etc. etc.) and improve in an absolute sense from when he played, the fact that there is such a premium on skating means the relative gap would be nowhere near what it is then. The skating advantage he had in his day was just so enormous. There is another thread talking about effects of watering down, expansion/WHA, 70s vs. early 80s. Without getting too dangeorusly close to "Maurice Richard couldn't make the NHL today" territory, it makes it a bit tricky sometimes. We are taught to judge players only by their era since that's all they can control.... In the case of Orr, there is a strong case that he may have been the best player in his prime ever relative to his competition/era. But it's hard to just completely ignore all the context surrounding the era of rapid expansion when looking at Orr.

 

[WarriorofTime]

One big issue even if someone bought that a lot of Gretzky goals does not work as well in say the 06 or 2023.... we need to assume he does not find other ways to do it.

And if we look at is Rangers playoff scoring, I am not so sure how era dependant it really was, in the sense maybe almost no one outside Gretzky do it, but maybe he still do pull off old school slap shoot goals and still able score 50 during his peak.

Lot of Lafleur goals does not work today, a lot of Matthews/Bedard goals does not work with first generation of wood stick, some goalscorer would not need to adapt much because they out physical-athlete the rest of humans so much they would find a way (Bure-Ovechkin-Lemieux), Gretzky maybe would need to adapt but his not a bad candidate to bet that he would have.

Yeah, while Gretzky may not go 68, 57, 69, 58, x, 52 adjusted for league-scoring levels goals exactly, he can probably still get 45-50ish goal totals perennially and possibly higher in a really good season just through his overall level of play.

 

[Midnight Judges]

I suppose you could argue that if you reduced Gretzky's playmaking abilities to Bossy's level, that Gretzky wouldn't catch goalies cheating on the pass or defenders protecting the pass over the shot as often as they did, hurting his ability to beat goaltenders enough to reduce his goal totals to below Bossy's. So if all else was equal, the claim would be that Bossy would score more goals at the end of the day.

So the argument is...if we pretend Gretzky isn't as good as Gretzky, then Gretzky likely wouldn't have been as effective as Gretzky?