Gordie's 975 goals might have an asterisk, but it's the record...for now

Alex Ovechkin is 81 goals away from breaking Mr. Hockey's all-time professional record. But does he need to do that for us to call him the greatest goal scorer of them all? Maybe not.

The World Hockey Association (WHA) is a complicated and inconvenient part of professional hockey history.

The disruptor league was only in existence for seven years (1972-79), but it managed to employ a vast cross-section of hockey stars and non-stars whose greatest days were either behind them or ahead of them.

Future Hall of Famers dotted WHA rosters—again due to past and future performances.

I say complicated and inconvenient because the WHA’s mere existence forces us to consider the exploits of its players and their place in the pantheon of pro hockey. Were the WHA’s stars truly stars? Did the league provide jobs for players who wouldn’t have been able to make it in the NHL? Was it an inferior brand of hockey?

The WHA folded 46 years ago. It’s more than overdue to talk about its legacy.

The WHA is not unlike the American Football League (AFL) in that regard, though the WHA was far more volatile, with franchises coming and going and switching locations almost annually.

The AFL lasted a nice, tidy 10 years (1960-69). Long enough to leave an imprint and, thanks to it going 2-2 against the NFL in Super Bowls, lend it major credibility.

The AFL was an exciting brand of football—focusing on the forward pass as if the league only had three downs, as in Canada. The league was a welcome counterpart to the established, staid NFL, which emphasized the “three yards and a cloud of dust” style of play.

The “draft wars” between the AFL and NFL were legendary. And the AFL won a lot of those battles. So respected was the AFL as a legitimate competitor to the NFL, the merger between the two leagues was agreed upon after just six years of AFL play.

The WHA wasn’t nearly as stable.

Franchises struggled. Several folded. Locally, the Michigan Stags, who came over from Los Angeles in 1974, didn’t even last a full season before packing up and moving to Baltimore.

The Stags played at Cobo Arena, and despite the Red Wings’ struggles, the Stags couldn’t gain a foothold in the city. Detroit simply couldn’t (or wouldn’t) support two professional hockey franchises. The Stags moved to Baltimore by February 1975.

I’m thinking of the WHA now in light of Alex Ovechkin surpassing Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer.

A distinction is made in every news story about Ovechkin scoring goal #895. The distinction is that while Gretzky surpassed Gordie Howe’s 801 NHL goals in 1994, Mr. Hockey still holds the all-time professional hockey record with 975 tallies—thanks to Gordie scoring 174 goals in the WHA from 1973-79.

That inconvenience again.

Veteran players like Howe, Bobby Hull, Davey Keon, Frank Mahovlich and many others essentially padded their professional statistics by playing in the WHA—achieving individual season numbers that one could argue they would NOT have, if they still played in the NHL.

Why? Because it says here that the WHA was an inferior league.

There is no other logical explanation.

Players who could barely crack an NHL lineup went to the WHA and became 30, 40-goal scorers. Some returned to the NHL as second-tier guys and their production dipped—proving my theory. Yes, some started their HOF careers in the WHA, but those players were outliers.

Then there’s Gretzky himself.

Wayne only played one year in the WHA (1978-79) and scored 46 goals for Indianapolis (3 in 8 games) and Edmonton (43 in 72 games). So his professional total is 940—still 35 behind Howe.

But what about Howe? Were his 174 goals in the WHA partly due to a watered down league?

Sadly, yes.

Gordie was 45 years old when he joined the WHA via the Houston Aeros, to play with his sons. Yet immediately he potted 31 goals and 100 points, winning the league’s MVP award.

The WHA was a good thing for hockey—don’t get me wrong. It put pro hockey in non-NHL cities, but the franchises that shared cities with NHL teams struggled: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago—to name a few. Detroit.

But if we want to be honest with ourselves, the WHA simply wasn’t of the caliber of the NHL. It was more of a “Four-A” league, to use a term that describes ballplayers who are between Triple-A and low-end MLBers.

Washed up NHL players. Career minor leaguers. Players who’d be benchwarmers, at best, in the NHL. That was what the WHA really was.

But it could be exciting hockey nonetheless. And the WHA did compete internationally, particularly with the then-USSR, and it did OK. Still, the WHA was a step (at least) below the NHL.

Compared with the AFL, which was a formidable league that went toe-to-toe with the NFL in preseason games and 4 Super Bowls, and did pretty damn good.

Yet Gordie scored 975 professional goals, fair and square.

That mark could be in Ovechkin’s sights.

Ovie will turn 40 in September. As of now, he needs 81 goals to surpass Howe’s professional record. That’s likely three seasons’ worth. It’s doable, should he decide to keep playing beyond this year.

But is it necessary for Ovie to hit 976 for us to call him the greatest goal scorer of all-time? How much stock should we put into Gordie Howe’s 174 WHA goals against lesser competition—including goaltenders?

It’s all moot if Ovechkin scores 81 more goals, but if he doesn’t, it’s a fun barroom debate.

Howe needed 32 pro seasons to reach 975 goals. Ovechkin has 895 (so far) in 20 seasons. You do the math.

But for all my trash talk of the WHA, there’s still this remarkable tidbit.

When Howe returned to the NHL in 1979 after the NHL-WHA merger, playing for the Hartford Whalers, he had 786 NHL goals.

At age 51+, Howe played in all 80 games for the Whalers in 1979-80 and scored 15 goals, plus one last playoff goal against Montreal.

It was as if Gordie wanted to make a statement about whether he was still an NHL-caliber player.

He was.