Mario Lemieux retired for the second time in his career yesterday. Super Mario finishes his career as the seventh leading scorer in NHL history, but the true stat that you should look at is his career average of 1.97 points per game. That number is the best in NHL history, better than Wayne Gretzky’s.

Despite missing several large chunks of his career due to injury and health issues, Lemieux was one of the most dominant players ever. His 199-point season in 1988-89 was the closest anyone has gotten to the Gretzky-owned 200 point club. In 1992-93 he had 160 points in only 60 games for an insane 2.67 points per game and the NHL scoring title.

Gretzky was an amazing talent who could skate circles around people, had a deadly accurate wrist shot and dealt laser passes from behind the net. Lemieux could all of that as well, but at 6-4, 230, he could also play a power forward role, using his long reach and big frame to do things that Gretzky could not.

Gretzky was fortunate enough to avoid injury for the bulk of his career, only playing less than 60 games three times in his 21 season career. Of course, Gretzky’s skate-first, avoid-contact style of play was conducive to his remaining healthy. Lemieux suffered through a chronic back problem and a bout with Hodgkin’s Disease. He also retired for the first time in 1997 and was almost immediately inducted into the Hall of Fame, lead a group of investors to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1999, and finally in 2000, decided the best way to grow his investment would be to return to the ice. He lead the 2002 Canadian Olympic Hockey team to its first gold metal in half a century as team captain.

Gretzky may have had better numbers and might have been a better scorer. But my vote for the best player ever is for Mario Lemieux.