From a hockey fan... I am getting "GOAT goal-scorer" feels. It's just not the same to compare players in the 80's and 90's to those in the current era.

Gretzky's hockey was in a time when goalies and defensive systems, when athletics weren't as consistent, and goals were much easier to come by - he also came into the league as an undrafted pro who's goals didn't count to his nhl record.

Ovechkin has played in an Era of unprecented skill and parity. Goalies have coaches honing them to be machines, defensive systems are more developed and suffocating. Young players come in with more athleticism and vigor than the 80's. But he still finds a way to keep a pace that might have passed Gretzky for goals (if it weren't for 1.5 years of lockouts and COVID time).

Totally fantastic players, totally different times. No sane person would tell you Ovi was the best player ever, but if he were pulled back into the 80's, the Russian Machine would have left a trail of vulcanized rubber and broken goalie bodies that's not realistic anymore.

I know hockey isn't chess... I mean, chess has game rules that are set in stone, where hockey's rules are scrawled on a wipe board in the commissioners office with "hockeyball go cross goal line," ostensibly the only permanent rule. But it's fascinating to see the breakdown of another game that's been so fundamentally changed between eras.

(Hockey fans don't @ me. I quit watching hockey a couple of years ago. Ya'll get crazy sometimes. I know, I was one of you)