Head Tale

After years without quite making it to the ultimate victory, in 1984, only one year after Wayne Gretzky was made his Captain, Mark Messier was drinking from the Stanley Cup.

Some other fun facts about Gretzky, Messier and their intertwined  destinies:

* Messier had 37 points in his first season in the NHL and Gretzky had 137 showing how quickly the multi-talented Gretzky dominated, even as a rookie.

* Gretzky is universally respected as the only player to have his jersey retired league wide.  Messier is also widely respected (except for those who see his path to their team’s Captaincy mired in controversy.)

* Wayne Gretzky changed the way the game was played by being bold, creative, and doing things differently than how they’d always been done. For example, he utilized his “office” behind the net to generate offense and the league also had to change power play rules because of how successful the Oilers were with Gretzky leading the charge.

* Gretzky went on to surpass the “unbeatable” records of one of the game’s greatest legends from the mid-20th century, a great Canadian by the name of Gordie Howe.

* Gretzky is an accomplished natural helper.  He achieved the almost unbelievable feat of having more *assists* in his career than any other player has total points!

* Messier won more Stanley Cups (6) over his 25-year career than Gretzky did in his 20 year career (4). But Gretzky won more Conn Smythe trophies than Messier (2-1) meaning that Gretzky was seen by voters as contributing the most to his team’s Stanley Cup wins in 50% of their victories versus only 25% of the time for Messier.

* Gretzky was never the most physical or the most skilled player – much of his success was ultimately attributed to his intelligence and how well he saw the entire game, much like those who are masters of games such as chess…or Scrabble.

Gretzky’s size and strength were far below average for the NHL but he is widely considered the smartest player in the history of the game. – Wikipedia 

* In his best season, Gretzky raised 215 points, nearly double the 129 that Messier raised in his best season.

* Gretzky wasn’t known for going into the corners or exchanging punishing hits with others…because he didn’t need to:

Gretzky discouraged unfair hits in another way. “If a guy ran him, Wayne would embarrass that guy”, said former Oiler Captain Lee Fogolin. “He’d score six or seven points on him. I saw him do it night after night.”

* Messier’s career penalty average was 76 PIM per season and he was known for taking liberties with the rules, enjoying the rough stuff, and even the occasional Fight. Gretzky’s average was 27 PIM per season and he was the winner of five Lady Byng trophies showing that he had great success while exhibiting sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct as well as a high standard of play. 

* Gretzky also won nine regular season Hart Trophies as league MVP while Messier won two as chosen by voters.

In summary, both players were great, had amazing careers and were award-winning leaders who accomplished a variety of goals in many different settings over different periods of time.

But the reality is this – Messier spent most of his career in Gretzky’s shadow in terms of who was captain first, who led their team to a Cup first, who was the most dominant on the scoresheet (in a wide variety of ways) and who ended up holding the most records through their many years spent working together and competing with one another.

Plus I can’t think of any other player that would be considered the natural heir to Gordie Howe, the best player of the mid-20th Century and one of the best players Canada has ever produced other than the Great One, Wayne Gretzky.