It’s rare that the biggest “What if?” in the history of a sport also just happens to come from one of the greatest players that sport has ever seen. This is the weird intersection where Mario Lemieux’s resume exists. Lemieux missed four full seasons due to lymphoma, and large portions of several others as a result of a litany of physical ailments. He played in just 64% of Pittsburgh’s games during his playing career. However, what he did in that 64% is quite literally the highest level of play that hockey has ever seen. It’s fair to say that Lemieux’s relatively meager games total keeps him from being a serious challenger to Wayne Gretzky on the GOAT throne. Gretzky isn’t just the greatest hockey player of all-time, he’s the greatest athlete in the history of team sports. Joining Gretzky ahead of Lemieux is Alexander Ovechkin, who led the NHL in goals a record nine times and has the most goals in the history of the NHL. Throw in the fact that both Gretzky and Ovechkin played close to 600 more games than Lemieux and it becomes pretty hard to argue they are not the two greatest hockey players of all-time. That third spot, however, is a tight race between Lemieux and Gordie Howe. Bobby Orr had a remarkable peak, but he’s not a strong candidate for the third spot, having played only 657 games in the weakest era in NHL history. It’s hard to begrudge anyone for going with Howe in the third spot given his longevity, but he played in a league with just six teams, and never produced the high-end seasons that Lemieux did. As astonishing as it might seem, Lemieux–even playing just 64% of Pittsburgh’s games–seems to have done enough to lock down the 3rd spot.
The most telling statistic to convey Mario Lemieux’s historical magnificence is the fact that he won six Ross Trophies (league scoring titles) and three Hart Trophies (league MVP) while playing smack dab in the middle of Gretzky’s prime. Unbelievably, he did this despite playing 65+ games in a season just six times in his entire career. In the 13 seasons from 1984-85 to 1996-97, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux each won six Ross Trophies. During this same span, Gretzky won four Hart Trophies while Lemieux won three, and it should’ve been 4-3 in favor of Lemieux had MVP voters not lost their collective minds by awarding Gretzky the Hart following the 1988-89 season in which Lemieux outscored Gretzky by 31 points. Almost immediately after Lemieux entered the NHL, Gretzky’s stranglehold on league dominance ended. It was Lemieux who not only ended Gretzky’s run of eight consecutive Hart Trophies, but also his seven consecutive Ross Trophies.
While Lemieux’s greatest achievement was playing a stalemate with the greatest athlete who ever lived, the statistics that he compiled to do so are, unsurprisingly, out of this world. Gretzky holds the NHL record with a hilariously scalding 1.92 points per game. Lemieux is right on his heels at a similarly sizzling 1.88 points per game. No other retired player in the history of hockey even reached 1.50 points per game. Even more impressive, Lemieux is actually the record holder for most adjusted points per game (1.68), which attempts to equalize all NHL players based on competition level and playing conditions. Furthermore, consider there have been 13 seasons in the history of hockey that resulted in 160+ points. Gretzky has nine of them, Lemieux has four, and the rest of the players in NHL history combined have zero. Lemieux put up 199 points in the 1988-89 NHL season which is 45 more than any non-Gretzky player in NHL history. Lemieux even has Gretzky beat in career goals per game and goals created per game. While Lemieux’s regular season exploits are a marvel–and it’s definitely easy to lose hours of your life falling into the rabbit hole of Lemieux’s statistical greatness–it’s unlikely that his regular season output alone would be enough to claim the third spot in a sport that is built on the legacies of playoff immortals. If you don’t know if Lemieux is one of those immortals, well, this is Mario Lemieux we’re talking about.
Entering the 1990-91 NHL season, the Pittsburgh Penguins had not won a single playoff series in franchise history. Then Super Mario happened. Lemieux not only led the Penguins to their first ever playoff series win, he brought the Stanley Cup to Pittsburgh on the heels of a virtuoso playoff performance. Lemieux scored 44 points on his way to the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP). Lemieux’s 44 points were the second most in the history of the NHL playoffs behind only–you guessed it–Wayne Gretzky. Lemieux would go on to lead the Penguins to a second consecutive Stanley Cup in 1991-92, and once again took home the Conn Smythe, becoming the first skater ever to win back-to-back Conn Smythe trophies. Lemieux’s 78 points over two consecutive NHL playoffs are the second most in history behind only Gretzky (82 points in ‘83-84 and ‘84-85). He is second all-time (behind Gretzky) in points per game and goals created per game in the playoffs.
Eddie Vedder once sang, “I know I was born and I know that I’ll die…The in between is mine.” Mario Lemieux’s career left the hockey world wanting more, so much more. Injuries and health scares derailed what could’ve been the greatest career in the history of sports. Still, what Lemieux accomplished in between is so magnificent that it is very difficult to make the case that more than two players in NHL history deserve to be rated ahead of him on the all-time list. Le Magnifique gets the nod at three.