Gretzky is definitely the greatest hockey player ever to play in the NHL but not because he scored a hat trick (which he did 50 times and holds the record for most hat tricks). He has over a thousand points more then the second most points ( Mark Messier) despite playing 5 less seasons then the moose. He has set seemingly countless records most of which likely will never be broken. His 92 goals in one season and 215 points in another are two records which set him apart from everyone else. You are considered a very good offensive player if you can score 50 goals in a season and he had almost double that and the same could be said for points.

Part of the reason why Gretzky was so successful was because he played with world class players when he was with the Oilers. Take a look at this link http://www.nhl.com/ice/careerstats.htm?gameType=3&team=&position=S&country=&active=&viewName=careerLeadersAllSeasons#?navid=nav-sts-career.
It's a list of career playoff points, with Gretzky obviously at the top. The first 5 people on that list were all on the Oilers at the same time.

Those records will never be broken because Gretzky played in a different era. There was no trap style defence and butterfly goalies did not exist. The games were usually very fast paced and high scoring unlike today. Gretzky is considered the player who changed the game because other teams had to focus on defence systems to shut down high scoring players like him.

Cool.  I am not into hockey but, this guys sounds cool

Wow look at all those Toronto Maple Leafs on that list.

Doug Gilmore partially, that is it.

We like trading away our high picks to

In the fairly recent past we missed out on

Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton (Phil Kessel trade)

In 1996, Toronto made a Wendel Clark trade, and a part of the trade was a 1st round pick going the other way, which was used to draft Roberto Luongo.

In 2001 we traded for someone name Aki Berg. The L.A. Kings got a second round pick as a part of the deal, which they used to draft Michael Cammalleri.

Also in 1996, we traded away Dave Andreychuk for draft pick that amounted to nothing.


What could have been for Toronto, not to forget mentioning trading Tukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft.

Yes, indeed. Gretzky is one of the greatest athletes in all of sports. He made hockey known. Without him, hockey would not be nearly as popular. Thanks for sharing this video!