LEMIEUX VS CROSBY
In this sim Mario is ahead of Sid in all of the individual accolades but Crosby was the only one to lead the Penguins to a title. Lemieux had the Penguins close - they would lose to Calgary in the 1989 finals- but he could not lift the team to a Cup. Crosby captained Pittsburgh to pair of them - the only two the team would win- in 2015 and 2019. To be fair to Lemieux, Crosby did have a slightly better supporting cast as his Cup winning teams also included Malkin and Anze Kopitar, who was acquired from Los Angeles a couple seasons before the first Pittsburgh Cup. Although Lemieux had the benefit of Jaromir Jagr, who would play his entire 1658 game career in Pittsburgh and finish with 838 goals - placing him 7th all-time just ahead of Sid.
In the sim, just as in real-life, Lemieux did rescue the Penguins as they were awful prior to him joining the club. Before Lemieux's debut in 1984-85 the Pens had made the playoffs just twice in their existance and their win total the 4 years prior to Mario was 12, 15,12 and 13. With Lemieux they won 32 games in his first season and made the playoffs.
Code:
LEMIEUX CROSBY
CUPS 0 2
CONN SMYTHE 0 1
ART ROSS 5 3
HART 2 2
CALDER 1 1
1st TEAM ALLSTAR 4 2
2nd TEAM ALLSTAR 3 6
TOTAL-RANK TOTAL-RANK
GAMES CAREER 1456 52nd 1657 10th
GOALS CAREER 1009 4th 812 8th
ASSISTS CAREER 1327 5th 1190 11th
POINTS CAREER 2336 4th 2002 6th
GAMES PLAYOFFS 143 204
GOALS PLAYOFFS 92 92
ASSSITS PLAYOFFS 121 133
POINTS PLAYOFFS 213 225
In case you are interested here are the all-time goal scoring leaders from the 120 year sim. Calgary fans will be happy to see the career Sean Monahan put together.