Mark Messier: The Great(er) One

When a player has more assists than anyone else has POINTS in league history it’s hard to argue that is the greatest offensive player to ever play the game. Wayne Gretzky has 1,000 more points than any other player to ever lace them up. On teams in the 1980’s with future Hall of Famers throughout, Gretzky stood head and shoulders over all of them.

But when you look at the career of “The Great One” against the career of one of those teammates, total points don’t tell the whole story. And Mark Messier may have a better story to tell than Wayne Gretzky.

All of the offensive numbers fall in favor of #99. While both are 1-2 all time in total points Gretzky, of course, dominates Messier across the board. Messier certainly played a more physical game as evidenced by his edge in penalty minutes (1,910 vs 577). It’s also worth noting that Messier has more game winning goals in his career than Gretzky (92 vs 91), but production goes to Gretzky without much argument.

But did all of that change on August 9, 1988? The trade heard ’round the hockey world separated this dynamic duo and may have changed the career perceptions of both men. Gretzky, of course, continue to score and earned three of his ten (TEN!!) Art Ross trophies after the trade. Messier for all of his production doesn’t have any, a victim of playing in the Gretzky era. Gretzky also has nine Hart Memorial trophies as league MVP to only a pair for Messier.

You know what Messier has more of? Stanley Cups. Both earned four during the Edmonton Oilers dynasty of the mid-1980’s, but Messier was able to lead the Oilers to a fifth Cup in 1989-90. And then the season that made him legend. His sixth and final cup came in New York City, in one of the biggest hockey markets in the United States and against a 54 year drought and booming chants of “1940” raining down. Mark Messier captained the New York Rangers to a Game Seven home win in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals against the Vancouver Canucks, his second Cup without Gretzky.

Remember that Cup? The New Jersey Devils do. They still see Messier in their nightmares.

That’s Babe Ruth stuff against perhaps the greatest goaltender of all time in Martin Brodeur. Legend versus legend. And the best leader in the history of hockey polished up his brass onions, guaranteed victory and delivered a hat trick and four total points to put it away.

If you are in that locker room, how do you not believe?

Messier has been renowned for being one of the games all time great leaders, so much so that in 2006-07 the NHL commissioned the Bridgestone Messier Leadership Award. And leaders make the people around them better, through their words and their actions. And for all of his individual records, trophies and accomplishments Wayne Gretzky does not have a Stanley Cup without Mark Messier. Messier has two without Gretzky. In two different yet equally crazed hockey cities. And he has a TROPHY NAMED AFTER HIM!

I understand if you are counting Art Ross, Hart, or Conn Smythe trophies or any other individual statistic you can start and end at Gretzky. But when you are looking at the top two point producers in league history, the intangibles and success at the highest level need to be considered.

And I’m taking Messier.