Wayne Gretzky scored 2,857 points in 1,487 NHL games. Gordie Howe scored 1,850 in 1,767. Gretzky scored 1.921 points per game and Howe scored 1.047, which makes Gretzky’s rate 1.84 times his.
The rate hides the shape. Howe played twenty-six NHL seasons across thirty-four calendar years, and his last one came at 51. He played all 80 games that season. He also scored 103 points at 41, more than he managed in any season of his twenties.
And they met. In 1979-80, Howe’s final season and Gretzky’s first, Hartford played Edmonton four times, and both men were in all four games.
Gretzky vs Gordie Howe: the career records
NHL regular season, both careers complete. Shots, shooting percentage, and plus-minus are deliberately absent: those fields do not exist for thirteen of Howe’s twenty-six seasons, so no career figure can be stated for him, and a half-career number next to Gretzky’s full one would mislead.
| Gretzky | Howe | |
|---|---|---|
| Position | Center | Right wing |
| NHL seasons | 20 | 26 |
| Games | 1,487 | 1,767 |
| Goals | 894 | 801 |
| Assists | 1,963 | 1,049 |
| Points | 2,857 | 1,850 |
| Points per game | 1.921 | 1.047 |
| Goals per game | 0.601 | 0.453 |
| Assists per game | 1.320 | 0.594 |
| Hart Trophies | 9 | 6 |
| Art Ross Trophies | 10 | 6 |
| Stanley Cups | 4 | 4 |
| Conn Smythe Trophies | 2 | 0 |
| Clubs | 4 | 2 |
| Best single season | 215 points | 103 points |
| Age in final season | 38 | 52 |
Gretzky leads every scoring measure and every trophy they both competed for. Howe leads in games, seasons, and longevity. The Stanley Cups are the one line where they tie, four each.
The Conn Smythe row needs a footnote rather than a conclusion: the award did not exist until 1965, by which point Howe had already won all four of his Cups.
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Did Gretzky and Gordie Howe ever play against each other?
Yes, four times, all in the 1979-80 regular season. Howe was with Hartford in the season the Whalers came into the NHL from the WHA, and Gretzky was a rookie in Edmonton.
| Date | Venue | Gretzky | Howe |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 November 1979 | Hartford | 0 goals, 0 assists | 0 goals, 1 assist |
| 9 December 1979 | Edmonton | 1 goal, 1 assist | 0 goals, 0 assists |
| 2 January 1980 | Edmonton | 0 goals, 1 assist | 0 goals, 0 assists |
| 19 February 1980 | Hartford | 0 goals, 0 assists | 0 goals, 0 assists |
| Total | 4 games | 1 goal, 2 assists, 3 points | 0 goals, 1 assist, 1 point |
Neither man missed a single one of the four meetings. They never met in the playoffs: that spring Hartford drew Montreal and Edmonton drew Philadelphia, and both series were swept 3-0 against them.
The ages are the thing. At the first meeting on 17 November 1979, Gretzky was 18 years and 295 days old, and Howe was 51 years and 231 days. The gap between them was 32 years and 300 days, and they were on the same sheet of ice in a league game.
That season Gretzky scored 137 points in 79 games and shared the Hart Trophy. Howe scored 41 in 80 and retired.
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How long was Gordie Howe’s career?
Twenty-six NHL seasons, from 1946-47 to 1979-80, which is a span of thirty-four years. The gap in the middle is the part people forget.
| Years | League | Club | Seasons | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946-47 to 1970-71 | NHL | Detroit Red Wings | 25 | 1,687 |
| 1971-72 to 1972-73 | none | retired | 0 | 0 |
| 1973-74 to 1976-77 | WHA | Houston Aeros | 4 | 285 |
| 1977-78 to 1978-79 | WHA | New England Whalers | 2 | 134 |
| 1979-80 | NHL | Hartford Whalers | 1 | 80 |
He retired in 1971 at 43, sat out two seasons, came back in a different league at 45 to play with his sons, and then returned to the NHL at 51 for one more year. He played 80 of 80 games in that final season.
His best NHL season by points came at 41: 103 points in 1968-69, with 44 goals.
How many goals did Gordie Howe score in the NHL?
Eight hundred and one, in 1,767 games, which stood as the NHL record until Gretzky passed it in 1994.
This is the number that gets quoted wrong more than any other in hockey, so it is worth being exact. Howe’s NHL career is 801 goals and 1,850 points. His NHL and WHA careers added together are 975 goals and 2,358 points. The NHL does not count WHA statistics in career totals, so 801 and 1,850 are the figures that belong in any NHL comparison, and 2,358 is not an NHL number.
The same rule cuts against Gretzky, for symmetry. He played the 1978-79 season in the WHA and scored 110 points in 80 games there. None of it is in his 2,857 either.
READ MORE: The hilarious reason Wayne Gretzky played defense as a kid
How many goals did Gordie Howe score in the WHA?
One hundred and seventy-four, in 419 games across six seasons, with 334 assists for 508 points. That is a rate of 1.212 points per game, which is higher than his NHL rate of 1.047.
| Season | Club | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973-74 | Houston | 70 | 31 | 69 | 100 |
| 1974-75 | Houston | 75 | 34 | 65 | 99 |
| 1975-76 | Houston | 78 | 32 | 70 | 102 |
| 1976-77 | Houston | 62 | 24 | 44 | 68 |
| 1977-78 | New England | 76 | 34 | 62 | 96 |
| 1978-79 | New England | 58 | 19 | 24 | 43 |
He was 45 in the first of those seasons and 51 in the last.
How many points did Gretzky have?
Two thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven: 894 goals and 1,963 assists in 1,487 games across twenty seasons, at 1.921 a game.
His 1,963 assists alone exceed Howe’s entire career point total of 1,850. That single comparison does more work than the rest of the table.
How do their trophies compare?
| Gretzky | Howe | |
|---|---|---|
| Hart Trophy (MVP) | 9 | 6 |
| Art Ross Trophy (scoring) | 10 | 6 |
| Stanley Cups | 4 | 4 |
| Conn Smythe Trophy | 2 | 0 |
| Ted Lindsay Award | 5 | 0 |
| Lady Byng Trophy | 5 | 0 |
Howe’s six Hart Trophies are the second-highest total in NHL history behind Gretzky’s nine, and his six scoring titles came in a thirteen-season span from 1950-51 to 1962-63. He finished in the top five in league scoring for twenty consecutive seasons, which is a record of consistency Gretzky’s career is too short to have challenged.
Howe won his four Cups with Detroit between 1950 and 1955. Gretzky won his four with Edmonton between 1984 and 1988.
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Which of them was better in the playoffs?
Gretzky by a wide margin on rate; Howe close on volume.
| Gretzky | Howe | |
|---|---|---|
| Playoff games | 208 | 157 |
| Goals | 122 | 68 |
| Assists | 260 | 92 |
| Points | 382 | 160 |
| Points per game | 1.837 | 1.019 |
Both men scored at almost exactly their regular-season rate in the postseason, Gretzky 1.837 against 1.921 and Howe 1.019 against 1.047, which is unusual on both counts.
Was Gordie Howe better than Gretzky?
By the numbers, no, and the gap is not narrow. Gretzky scored a thousand more points in 280 fewer games, won three more MVP awards and four more scoring titles, and his assist total on its own beats Howe’s career points.
The case that gets made for Howe is not really a scoring case. It is that he did it for twenty-six seasons against six-team and then twelve-team competition, that he was a physically dominant player in a way Gretzky never was or needed to be, and that he was still an NHL regular at 51. Gretzky himself has said publicly that he considers Howe the greatest, and so have Bobby Orr and Mario Lemieux. That is an argument about what the word greatest ought to measure, and it is not settled by a table.
What is settled by a table: in the one season they shared, Gretzky outscored Howe 137 points to 41, and in the four games they played against each other, 3 points to 1.
Did they play in the same league?
Only for one season, and the league changed almost beyond recognition between their primes.
| Season | Teams | Schedule | Whose peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1946-47 | 6 | 60 | Howe’s first |
| 1952-53 | 6 | 70 | Howe’s 95-point season |
| 1968-69 | 12 | 76 | Howe’s 103-point season |
| 1979-80 | 21 | 80 | the one they shared |
| 1981-82 | 21 | 80 | Gretzky’s 212-point season |
| 1985-86 | 21 | 80 | Gretzky’s 215-point season |
Howe’s six scoring titles were won in a six-team league, where he faced the same five opponents fourteen times each, and every one of them was an established club. Gretzky’s ten were won in a twenty-one-team league diluted by two waves of expansion and the absorption of four WHA clubs, in the highest-scoring era the NHL has had.
Neither of those observations settles anything, and the honest version says so. A six-team league is a harder league and a shorter schedule. A twenty-one-team league is an easier league and has more games to accumulate.
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