What Could Have Been: Sidney Crosby and the Best-Case Scenario Careers for All-Time NHL Greats

It’s hard to believe that Sid the Kid’s next contract will be a 35-plus deal. 

With 94 points last season, the 37-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins captain is not showing his age.

Last season, Sidney Crosby also moved into the No. 10 spot in all-time NHL points. With 46 points this season, he’ll pass Joe Sakic and climb to ninth.

That’s especially impressive given that his entire career was in jeopardy when he suffered the concussion early in 2011 that put him on a lengthy quest to diagnose a complex condition and then treat it.

Crosby had already achieved so much before that injury. But he was only 23 years old when it happened, with 572 points in just 412 career games.

Now, he's up to 1,596 points in 1,272 games. But what could his numbers have been if he hadn’t lost the equivalent of a full season to that head injury?

Crosby had 109 points in 2009-10 and 104 points when he got back up to speed in 2013-14, so we could conservatively pencil him in for another 100. If we round up slightly, he’d be going into this season at a tidy 1,700 points.

Other than that one serious incident, Crosby has stayed pretty healthy through his career and hasn’t missed a game over the last two seasons. 

However, he lost 34 games due to the lockout in 2012-13 and about 40 due to the adjusted pandemic scheduling in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

That’s nearly another full season lost. He’d probably have another 100 points if those games hadn’t been pulled off the schedule.

But it’s not fair to give Crosby 200 hypothetical points and move him up the all-time list at the expense of his peers. Every player in the NHL’s top 10 could have had higher numbers if he hadn’t dealt with health issues, work stoppages, time in other leagues — or some combination of the above.

Here’s a look at the journeys of the rest of the top 10:

The Great One still stands alone. He retired at a relatively young age of 38 but made the most his NHL years. Gretzky was infrequently injured and only lost 36 games to the 1994-95 lockout at a time when the league was playing 84 games a year.

Jagr ranks fourth in all-time games played. But he could have easily been first if he hadn’t decamped to the KHL for three seasons between 2008 and 2011.

He posted 71 points with the New York Rangers in the 2007-08 season and 54 points with the Philadelphia Flyers when he returned in 2011-12. 

So let’s conservatively estimate that Jagr could have averaged 60 points a year if he’d stayed in the NHL during those three seasons. That would add 180 points to his total and boost him to 2,100. Another 240 games would have had him close to 2,000 — far above Patrick Marleau's current record of 1,779.

For the most part, he was pretty durable. But Jagr’s long career was also hit quite hard by NHL work stoppages. He lost 36 games in 1994-95, another 82 in 2004-05 and 34 in 2012-13 for a total of nearly two more full seasons.

Messier’s minor-league career lasted a total of four games before he joined the Edmonton Oilers after being drafted in the third round in 1979. 

He had a pretty smooth 25-year run, only losing the 36 games to the 1994-95 work stoppage. He also enjoyed good health for most of his career.

Messier stopped playing after the 2003-04 season. If not for the subsequent lockout, could he have continued?

Howe played a whopping 26 NHL seasons and was 52 years old when he retired for good in 1980. But his impressive NHL legacy could have been much, much bigger.

He retired for the first time at age 43, following the 1970-71 season. After sitting out for two years, he was lured back to hockey by the opportunity to play with sons Mark and Marty with the Houston Aeros of the new World Hockey Association in 1973.

All told, Howe played six seasons in the WHA with the Aeros and then the New England Whalers. When that team was absorbed into the NHL as the Hartford Whalers in 1979, he stayed with his boys for one more year, putting up a respectable 41 points in 80 games.

Before his first retirement, Howe logged 52 points in 63 games in the 1970-71 season. Though he probably wouldn't have been motivated to continue if not for the chance to play with his sons, let’s imagine what could have been if he’d stayed in the NHL during his eight missed seasons.

Conservatively, we can pencil him in for 70 games and 45 points a year.

That would add 560 games and 360 points and bump him up to 2,210 points and 2,327 games — a games-played record that would surely never be broken.

Drafted fourth overall in 1981, Francis was limited to 59 games with the Hartford Whalers in his rookie season. That was the beginning of a 23-season run which included two Stanley Cups.

Francis was durable right to the end, playing 80 games in his final 2003-04 season with Carolina and Toronto.

Like Messier, his only schedule disruption was the 1994-95 lockout. He’s another player who might have gone even longer if not for the lost 2004-05 season.

One of the most prolific offensive talents in NHL history, Marcel Dionne cracked 100 points eight times in his 18-year NHL career. As part of the Triple Crown Line with the Los Angeles Kings, he also eclipsed the 50-goal mark in five consecutive seasons starting in 1978.

Drafted second overall in 1971, Dionne’s career was unencumbered by work stoppages. He stayed relatively healthy until his final season with the New York Rangers when he played just 37 games in 1988-89 before hanging up his skates at the relatively young age of 37.

The hot-shot scorer who had to build his two-way game to become a champion, Yzerman also amassed an impressive statistical legacy. 

He might be better remembered now for his three Stanley Cups and his 2000 Selke Trophy, but those six straight 100-point seasons and two 60-plus-goal campaigns between 1987 and 1993 identified him as one of the very best in the game.

Injuries did impede Yzerman, who needed 22 seasons to reach his 1,514th game. He returned for one more year after the season-long lockout, managing 34 points in 61 games in 2005-06 before calling it quits at age 40.

All told, Yzerman lost nearly 120 games to work stoppages, but they came at very different points in his career. The 36 missed games in 1994-95 might have cost him 40 points, but perhaps the full 2004-05 season would have cost him about 40 as well?

It’s tantalizing to think about where Yzerman could have landed on the list if he’d stayed in pure-scorer mode. But if that had been the case, he wouldn’t have the same elite legacy he enjoys today.

Even more than Yzerman, Lemieux’s career was rife with major health issues, which led to significant absences before he finally called it a day at age 40.

First, there were the back problems that limited him to just 26 games in the 1990-91 regular season but calmed during his subsequent Cup-winning playoff runs.

Then, Lemieux’s Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis knocked him out of action in January 1993. Combined with more back issues, he played just 22 games in 1993-94 and missed the full 48-game season in 1994-95.

When he returned in the fall of 1995, he won back-to-back scoring titles before being forced out of action again. In 1997, he retired for three full years.

In late 2000, Lemieux came back one more time, announcing his return with a vengeance by scoring seven points in his first two games.

Lemieux’s last big hurrah came in 2002-03 when he put up 91 points in 67 games in the heart of the Dead Puck Era. Like Yzerman, he also kept playing after the 2004-05 lockout, finishing with 22 points in 26 games.

What if Lemieux had stayed reasonably healthy and seen fewer labor-related shutdowns?

Without even looking at his many partial seasons or 2004-05, we could conservatively give him 150 points for a full 84-game season in 1994-95, then add 90 points a year for each of his three retirement campaigns.

That would add 420 points to Lemieux’s total, which would bump him up to 2,140 — good for second place behind Gretzky, even if Jagr's hypothetical numbers are also counted.

Despite 133 points with the Swift Current Broncos in his draft year, Joe Sakic wasn’t a sure-fire superstar. He was selected 15th overall in 1987 and returned to Swift Current for the 1987-88 season.

Sakic started in the NHL a year later than most of his top 10 peers, but by his sophomore season, he began to crack 100 points regularly. His two Stanley Cup campaigns were also his best offensive years and his only two 50-goal seasons.

With a 20-year career, Sakic lost 118 games of playing time to two lockouts. Until his last two years, he had never played fewer than 60 games in a non-lockout season.

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