When Wayne Gretzky retired in 1999, he held 61 NHL records, and despite it being 24 years ago, he barely lost any of them.
In fact, Gretzky even gained some records after his retirement, as Mario Lemieux’s points-per-game decreased after his comeback.
Wayne Gretzky is the greatest player of all time, and he’s the leading goal scorer, assist producer, and point scorer in NHL history. He’s the only player to have recorded more than 200 points in one season, and he did it four times.
Gretzky had 13 consecutive seasons with more than 100 points, and most of his records will probably never be broken.
For some time, it looked like Alex Ovechkin was on his way to breaking Gretzky’s goal-scoring record of 894 goals, but after a slow start to the season, fans are starting to give up.
If Auston Matthews continues to score goals at the pace he’s done so far, he has a realistic chance of surpassing The Great One, but when it comes to points, no one will probably ever even get close.
Jaromir Jagr is one of the greatest players of all time, with 24 seasons in the NHL. Still, he’s about 900 points behind Gretzky in points. And Jagr believes Gretzky’s records will stand forever.
”I love Wayne. I think nobody is ever gonna break Wayne Gretzky’s records. It’s kind of impossible,” he said when guesting the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast.
Jagr said the only scenario where Gretzky’s record will be broken is if the NHL does a mind-blowing rule change.
”Unless they make the nets like they are in soccer. If they make them that big, otherwise it’s kind of impossible,” Jagr laughed.
Jagr said he really likes watching some of the superstars of the NHL today, but no one can compare to Gretzky.
”I like to watch Connor McDavid. He’s a fantastic player, but what Wayne did … 200 points, I think he beat time by 30 years. He played hockey as the year was 2000 back in 1970-1980. He beat the time, it’s like you would put a new Ferrari in 1990.”
But Jagr is perhaps even more impressed with his former teammate Mario Lemieux.
”What Mario did, even when he wasn’t healthy … it’s tough to describe. If you couldn’t witness that, you wouldn’t believe it. So when I’m talking about it, people think I’m lying. But he was just that good. I won the scoring five times, but I never won it when Mario played. I was scoring when Wayne was playing, but I knew I had no chance if Mario played more than 60 games.”
