Gretzky vs Lemieux: Head to Head Record and Career Stats

Wayne Gretzky finished with 2,857 points in 1,487 games. Mario Lemieux finished with 1,723 points in 915 games.

The career records are not close. The rate is a different matter. Over full careers, Gretzky averaged 1.921 points a game and Lemieux 1.883, a gap of four hundredths. But Gretzky’s five highest-scoring seasons came before Lemieux had played an NHL game. Across the fifteen seasons in which both men played, Gretzky scored 1,943 points in 1,094 games, a rate of 1.776. Lemieux scored 1,494 in 745, a rate of 2.005.

Lemieux outscored him by almost a quarter of a point per game for the entire time they shared a league.

And then there is the third layer, which runs the other way. The two men were on the same ice 25 times. Gretzky had 60 points in those games and Lemieux 38.

Gretzky vs Lemieux: the career records

NHL regular season, both careers complete.

	Gretzky	Lemieux
Seasons	20	17
Games	1,487	915
Goals	894	690
Assists	1,963	1,033
Points	2,857	1,723
Points per game	1.921	1.883
Goals per game	0.601	0.754
Assists per game	1.320	1.129
Shots	5,088	3,633
Shooting percentage	17.6	19.0
Power-play goals	204	236
Game-winning goals	91	74
Plus-minus	+520	+114
Hart Trophies	9	3
Art Ross Trophies	10	6
Ted Lindsay Awards	5	4
Conn Smythe Trophies	2	2
Stanley Cups	4	2
Clubs	4	1

Gretzky leads fourteen of these and Lemieux six. Lemieux leads in every goal-scoring rate measure, and the power-play total.

Who had the better points per game?

This is the most-searched question about the pair, and the answer depends entirely on which seasons you count.

Window	Gretzky	Lemieux	Leader
Full career	1.921	1.883	Gretzky by 0.038
The 15 seasons both played, 1984-85 to 1998-99	1.776	2.005	Lemieux by 0.229
Only the 12 seasons Lemieux actually suited up	1.949	2.005	Lemieux by 0.056
The 25 games they played against each other	2.400	1.520	Gretzky by 0.880
Goals per game, shared seasons	0.492	0.823	Lemieux, by 67%

Gretzky wins the career number on the strength of seasons Lemieux was not there for. From 1979-80 through 1983-84, before Lemieux arrived, Gretzky scored 914 points in 393 games, a rate of 2.326 that neither man ever managed again. Take those five seasons out and the comparison inverts.

The third row is the fairest single cut, because it removes both Gretzky’s pre-Lemieux peak and his three decline seasons in New York that Lemieux had already retired through. Lemieux still leads it.

How many times did they play against each other?

Twenty-five times in the regular season, between 6 November 1984 and 24 March 1997. They never met in the playoffs, not once in twelve seasons.

	Gretzky	Lemieux
Games	25	25
Goals	15	11
Assists	45	27
Points	60	38
Points per game	2.400	1.520
Plus-minus	+23	−18
Shots	91	76
Power-play goals	2	4
Game-winning goals	1	2
Penalty minutes	6	10
Games without a point	1	5

Both men played above or below their own normal level, in opposite directions.

	Rate against each other	Own rate in the shared seasons	Difference
Gretzky	2.400	1.776	+35%
Lemieux	1.520	2.005	−24%

Gretzky’s best night against Lemieux was 31 October 1989 in Pittsburgh: three goals, three assists, plus four. Lemieux’s was 26 March 1996 against Gretzky’s St. Louis: five goals and two assists in a single game, with Gretzky held to one assist and a minus two.

Season by season, Gretzky had more points in eight of the twelve seasons, Lemieux in three, and they tied in one.

Season	Gretzky’s team	Meetings	Gretzky	Lemieux
1984-85	Edmonton	3	8	4
1985-86	Edmonton	3	8	6
1986-87	Edmonton	3	8	1
1987-88	Edmonton	2	2	2
1988-89	Los Angeles	2	3	4
1989-90	Los Angeles	2	7	3
1990-91	Los Angeles	2	5	3
1991-92	Los Angeles	1	3	1
1992-93	Los Angeles	1	2	4
1993-94	Los Angeles	1	4	2
1995-96	St. Louis	1	1	7
1996-97	NY Rangers	4	9	1
Total		25	60	38

Their teams actually met at least 34 times in those seasons. Nine of those meetings are missing one of the two men, and seven of the nine are missing Lemieux. That is the availability problem showing up inside the head-to-head itself.

What did Gretzky have after as many games as Lemieux played?

Lemieux’s whole career is 915 games. Through his first eleven complete seasons, 847 games, Gretzky had 1,979 points. That is 256 more than Lemieux managed in 68 more games.

So both things are true, and this is the honest shape of the argument: at equal career length Gretzky scored considerably more, and in the years they actually overlapped Lemieux scored faster. The first is about who had the greater peak sustained over a decade. The second is about who was better in a given game once both were on the ice.

How many games did Lemieux miss?

That is the other half of the rate question, and the numbers are severe. Lemieux played seventeen NHL seasons and reached 95% of the schedule in three of them.

Season	Games	Share of schedule
1985-86	79 of 80	99%
1987-88	77 of 80	96%
1988-89	76 of 80	95%
1996-97	76 of 82	93%
1984-85	73 of 80	91%
1995-96	70 of 82	85%
2002-03	67 of 82	82%
1991-92	64 of 80	80%
1986-87	63 of 80	79%
1989-90	59 of 80	74%
1992-93	60 of 84	71%
2000-01	43 of 82	52%
1990-91	26 of 80	32%
2005-06	26 of 82	32%
2001-02	24 of 82	29%
1993-94	22 of 84	26%
2003-04	10 of 82	12%

He also did not play at all in 1994-95, 1997-98, 1998-99 or 1999-2000. The NHL canceled 2004-05 entirely.

Gretzky, by contrast, played 79 or 80 games in six of his first eight seasons. The two careers are not the same experiment. Lemieux’s rate reflects a player who was frequently unavailable and, when available, often not long back from something.

Was Lemieux better than Gretzky?

On the evidence above, the defensible answer is that Gretzky was the greater player and Lemieux was, across the years they shared, the more productive one per game. Those statements aren’t contradictory, and the gap between them is the whole debate.

For most people, volume and durability settle it. Nine Hart Trophies to three. Ten scoring titles to six. Four Stanley Cups to two. A thousand more points. And 572 more games, which is seven modern seasons of availability that Lemieux’s body did not give him.

What keeps the argument alive is the shape of the peak. Lemieux’s 1992-93 season produced 160 points in 60 games, a rate of 2.67 that only one Gretzky season has ever beaten, and he did it in a league scoring markedly less than Gretzky’s peak league.

And the head-to-head record cuts against the rate case in the one sample where it can be tested directly. Over the years they shared a league, Lemieux scored faster; on the nights they shared the ice, Gretzky scored far faster. Twenty-five games is a small sample, and a single seven-point night from Lemieux moves it noticeably. But it is the only sample in which the comparison is not an inference, and it goes to Gretzky by 60 points to 38.

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. Across a full 82-game season, that is 157.5 points.

The assist column is the one that ends arguments. Gretzky’s 1,963 assists alone would make him the NHL’s all-time leader, ahead of the 1,921 total points that put Jaromir Jagr second all time. He won ten scoring titles. His 163 assists in 1985-86 outnumber the total points of every season any player other than Gretzky has ever produced.

His 696 games in Edmonton produced 1,669 points. The other three clubs, over 791 games, produced 1,188.

How many points did Lemieux have?

One thousand seven hundred and twenty-three: 690 goals and 1,033 assists in 915 games across seventeen played seasons, at 1.883 a game, or 154.4 per 82. All of it for Pittsburgh.

He is one of a small group to have scored at better than a point and a half a game over a full career, and his 19.0% shooting is higher than Gretzky’s 17.6 on two-thirds the volume of shots. His 85 goals in 1988-89 is the fourth-highest single-season total in NHL history, behind Gretzky’s 92 and 87 and Brett Hull’s 86.

How many Stanley Cups did each of them win?

Gretzky four, all with Edmonton: 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988. Lemieux two, both with Pittsburgh: 1991 and 1992.

Lemieux won the Conn Smythe Trophy in both of his, which Gretzky did not. Gretzky’s two Conn Smythes came in 1985 and 1988; in the 1987 Cup win the award went elsewhere.

Which of them was better in the playoffs?

Gretzky, by a clear margin on both volume and rate.

	Gretzky	Lemieux
Playoff games	208	107
Goals	122	76
Assists	260	96
Points	382	172
Points per game	1.837	1.608
Shooting percentage	17.5	18.9

Gretzky’s 382 playoff points is the most by anyone and nearly double Lemieux’s total. His playoff rate of 1.837 is barely below his regular-season 1.921, which for a player of that volume is remarkable. Lemieux drops from 1.883 to 1.608, a steeper fall, though 0.713 goals a game in the postseason is still a higher goal rate than Gretzky managed.

What happened when they played on the same team?

They were teammates for Canada at the 1987 Canada Cup; Gretzky recorded 21 points in nine games and Lemieux 18, with eleven goals to Gretzky’s three. Gretzky assisted on eighteen of Canada’s goals in that tournament, and Lemieux scored the one that is still replayed, with 1:26 left in the deciding game against the Soviet Union, on a Gretzky pass. Lemieux led the tournament in goals; Gretzky led it in assists by a distance.

Did they play in the same league?

Not really, and this is the caveat that belongs in every comparison of the two.

Season	League goals per team per game	Whose season
1981-82	4.01	Gretzky’s 212 points
1983-84	3.94	Gretzky’s 205
1985-86	3.97	Gretzky’s 215
1988-89	3.74	Lemieux’s 199
1992-93	3.63	Lemieux’s 160 in 60 games
1995-96	3.14	Lemieux’s 161
2002-03	2.65	Lemieux’s 91 in 67 games
2003-04	2.57	Lemieux’s last full attempt

Gretzky’s 92-goal season was played in a league averaging 4.01 goals per team per game. Lemieux’s comeback seasons averaged 2.57 to 2.76 goals per game, roughly a third less scoring. Lemieux’s Art Ross season in 1995-96 came in a league scoring 21% less than the one Gretzky scored 215 points in.

That favors Lemieux on the rate comparison, which is why the overlap cut above matters more than the career totals.