LogFAQs > #950591312

Retiring younger always makes your PPG look good. Lemieux's first retirement came when he was at 2.005 PPG. After the same number of seasons played Gretzky was at 2.31 PPG. It's the same reason Mike Bossy has the best GPG of anyone (barring guys from the days when players were on the ice the whole game) and likely always will - he retired before the age where goal scorers almost universally have their production go down. For the sake of comparison, Lemieux was the second fastest player to reach 1000 career points. Wayne Gretzky of course did it fastest. Gretzky also went from 1000 to 2000, which no one else has even done, in fewer games that Lemieux went from 0 to 1000. So Gretzky is essentially the fastest *and* second fastest player to reach 1000 points, which is beyond ludicrous. Makes no sense to discredit him solely for being healthy enough to keep playing mostly full seasons as he aged which naturally lowered his PPG like it has for almost every single player in NHL history. There's also the fact that he won more awards, led the league in scoring more often, scored more at even strength than on the powerplay relatively than Lemieux did, played way more games, won his last scoring title at roughly the same age Lemieux did anyway, was even better in the playoffs (not a small achievement given the competition), etc.