What Wayne Gretzky’s Playoff Record Says About Greatness

Every once in a while, you bump into a little hockey fact that doesn’t seem possible. For me, it was this: Wayne Gretzky — the guy who is the NHL record book — doesn’t even crack the top tier. — doesn’t even crack the top tier when it comes to playoff games played. Gretzky finished his career with 208 postseason games. That's a tremendous number on its own, but it puts him behind players such as Chris Chelios, Nicklas Lidström and Corey Perry. In fact, Gretzky ranks 17th on the all-time list.

How is it possible that the Great One isn’t higher on the list?

We’re talking about the most decorated offensive player in hockey history, a man who seemed to spend half his career in May and June. Yet there are 16 players who played more playoff games than The Great One. The answer says something interesting about the difference between individual greatness and team success.

Gretzky Wasn't Always Playing on Great Teams.

Gretzky’s glory years in Edmonton with the Oilers were dazzling but surprisingly short. Five Stanley Cups in seven seasons makes the dynasty feel like it lasted forever. In reality, the Oilers' run at the top was concentrated into a relatively small part of Gretzky's career.

Then came Los Angeles. The Kings gave Gretzky some spectacular playoff moments, including that memorable run to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. But Los Angeles wasn't a perennial contender. There were seasons when Gretzky was still Wayne Gretzky and his team simply wasn't good enough to go very far — or even get there.

By the time he moved on to St. Louis and then the New York Rangers, he was playing for teams that weren't built like those great Edmonton clubs. And that's where the playoff-games record gets interesting.

The Playoff Record Is About More Than Greatness.

Consider Chelios and Lidström. They spent enormous portions of their careers on teams that were built to make long playoff runs. The Detroit Red Wings, in particular, seemed almost permanently installed in the postseason.

Patrick Roy, who doesn't appear on the skater list because he's a goalie, is another perfect example. He played for two different dynasties — first Montreal, then Colorado — and accumulated playoff games because his teams kept giving him the opportunity. Then there's Perry.

The postseason seems to follow him around. In his 21 NHL seasons, he has missed the playoffs only three times. He has moved from team to team and repeatedly found himself in the middle of another playoff run. That's remarkable, but it isn't necessarily a reflection of being a better playoff player than Gretzky. It's a reflection of opportunity.

Even The Great One Needed the Right Circumstances.

That's the part we sometimes forget when we look at career records. We tend to think of a great player's career as one continuous story. It isn't. It's a collection of teams, eras, injuries, contracts, teammates, management decisions and plain old timing.

Gretzky was brilliant wherever he played. But brilliance doesn't guarantee another playoff series. A player needs a good enough team to get there, and then a good enough team to keep winning once he does.

That's why the all-time playoff-games list is a little misleading if we treat it as a ranking of greatness. It is partly a record of durability and achievement, but also a record of organizational stability and opportunity.

Gretzky's 208 playoff games don't tell us he wasn't a great playoff player. They tell us something much more interesting. Even The Great One couldn't control everything around him.