Wayne Gretzky

[Big Daddy]

Hello All. I’m hoping someone on here can help me. Having a heated conversation about all time best scorer and coworker is telling me Ovechkin is the best. I have no problem with him but, here is all this talk about him catching Greatzky. Truth be told for all the goals he did get he was obviously a pass first player. In fact of his 894 he only had 56 empty netters which is still the league all time leader. So here is the question. How can I find out how many assists he had on empty net goals to prove he was always pass first. In my opinion goals and assists are scoring points if you know what I mean. So he undoubtedly is the best scorer of all time. But can’t seem to find anywhere total assists on the empty net. Please help

[Nik]

Short of going game by game through box scores I'm not sure there's a database that would help you out where you could just search by EN goals for games in the 80's.

In general though...I'm not sure what it would really do. I don't think Gretzky was always "pass-first". Gretzky's greatest attributes, to my mind, were his situational awareness and intelligence. If it was better for him to shoot, he shot and if it was better for him to pass, he passed.