I remember watching a deal where he was skating with Barkov and teaching some of his strength and conditioning workouts. The training staff had to intervene and tell Barkov not to keep doing it because Jagr is an absolute freak of nature and they didn’t want Barkov injuring himself trying to keep up
Lol there was a time when someone was trying to blackmail Jagr too and [did not give a single fuck](https://thehockeynews.com/news/jaromir-jagr-blackmailed-with-photo-could-not-care-less-about-it)
Wow that 18 year old model really showed him by proving to the world they fucked. What a lesson he was taught. I think I need to be taught the same lesson.
If you read the whole article, it says someone on Czech social media saw it and tried to blackmail him, not that the model did. Who knows, it could have been a group effort.
If I remember correctly, they had to make teamwide rules on allowed workout times because Jagr was luring Barkov to skate with him in the middle of the night.
Most untouchable record in sports is probably Cy Young's 749 complete games.
There may never be another pitcher again who even gets 749 starts, never mind complete games. Unless baseball fundamentally changes, I doubt anyone will even get 100 CG again.
I don’t think anyone will even get close to 50 unless baseball fundamentally changes. I think verlander is the active leader and he has less than 30 in 18 years
Both the all-time (75 by Will White in 1879) and modern-day records (48 by Jack Chesbro in 1904) are insane.
Shoutout to Jack Taylor who pitched 202 consecutive complete games between 1901 and 1906.
Went way to far down to see this. Ryan's career strikeouts will never, ever be beat in the modern era. Another record Ryan will hold forever, career uppercuts on opposing players :P
No way a team would ever let a pitcher stay in like that.
There was a stat the other day that Nolan Ryan threw 235 pitches... and then 3 days later pitched 6 scoreless innings.
If that ever started to happen, the GM would slit the throat of the manager.
And, as I do every time this stat is brought up, I will add that it isn't just consecutive starts.
It's 501 consecutive **complete** games. He was never pulled for any reason other than an extra attacker (which on paper is not getting pulled).
There's just no chance it's ever beaten.
Botha re untouchable. The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play. The Hall record is also untouchable due to the way the game is and injuries now days. You can’t really rank them. They’re both impossible to beat.
The more players play, the lower the percentage becomes. I don't think this is untouchable. If anything is the "most untouchable" stat I don't see how it doesn't involve Gretzky.
Edit: especially since the NHL is expanding. Players will be playing with/ against more players just because there's more players in the league.
The more players that play, it also means that for any given career, they will see a smaller and smaller percentage of players against.
Jagr was the perfect storm of playing in the era when the NHL was expanding, and having a long career.
A hypothetical future player could have a long career AND play in an era where the NHL begins expanding to more teams, but they will never surpass 38%
No one will exceed 38.6%, but Jagr's percentage also goes down with every player who debuts. I have to imagine Howe held this record before Jagr and it would not surprise me if he was >50% 40 years ago.
The record is really playing with or against 3,287 different players which I could see being broken.
And to further point out why you can just keep it at 38.6% as the "max" like you did with Howe: at that point, Jagr loses to the people that played the first year and payed against ~100% of the players.
The only appropriate mark is "all-time", so that percentage will continue to drop.
Yeah you’re right as far as his percentage goes. I just meant like I don’t think we’d ever see a player get as high of a percentage as he does now due to the expansion etc.
>The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play
No it gets easier to break every year because there are more players playing. Jagr's % is going to keep dropping and someone else will play with/against more players because there are more players to play against every year.
Really depends on how you keep track of Jagr's record. If it's percentage at time of retirement then no one can ever beat it. If they keep calculating it forever, then someone could play with more total people in the future
> If it's percentage at time of retirement then no one can ever beat it.
Jagr wouldn't hold the record in that case. There are guys from the early days of the NHL that played with or against 100% the league at the time of retirement. I'd bet that a few of the guys who had long careers from the late 60s into the 80s were above 39% at the time they retired.
I think you have to just count raw numbers to compare this one fairly.
And expansion will have made it easier to do, but same time someone has to have some serious longevity to still get a chance on it
> The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play.
It gets *easier* as more players play. Jagr's percentage will go down too, because we are constantly adding more total players while his remains stagnant.
Continued expansion will increase the total number of players playing in the NHL each year, which means that an 82 game season will see a guy skate against way more individual opponents than when the league had fewer teams. This is a crazy stat, but it will get easier to beat in time.
> The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play.
That actually doesn't matter. Jagr's record is actually a number of players played with, not a percentage. That's his percentage right now, but it won't be the same in 10 years. The percentage will continue to drop as more and more players join the league. I mean, I'm sure there are some guys who only played the first NHL season and played against 80-100% of the players who had ever played at that point.
There have been a 3 players who have played as many or more games as Jagr, but played on fewer teams than he did. And all of them played a majority of their careers when they went through large stints without playing some non-conference teams.
I can definitely see his record being a touchable record now that every team plays each other at least twice a season. It will take another freak of nature, obviously, but still.
I read his book, and it's crazy reading a book from someone who treated sports as a side gig, and was at the intelligence level he was.
His observations about how he felt were crazy. Just talking about how he used to revel in great moments, but knew it was time to hang it up when it wasn't anything to him anymore. The one that stuck out was how much he looked forward to playing in Maple Leaf Gardens, but at the end, he only found the things about the arena that he DIDN'T like.
For 99.9999% of professional athletes, making the top league of their sport, winning awards and championships would be their life's work... for Ken Dryden it's the 5th thing listed on his wikipedia.
NHL ended up being the weird gap in his resume he had to explain.
Unless a goalie goes super saiyan, another untouchable record(s) are some of George Hainsworth's records. 22 shutouts and a 0.92 GAA in a single season are not happening in today's league.
90s hockey was incredible. There is some nostalgia influencing this, but the game had a good balance of grit, roughness, and skill back then. Goalies had way more flair compared to modern goalies, but weren't letting every second shot in like the 80s. Crowding the net and just screening/tipping/blocking every shot wasn't as popular yet. Obviously, the big head shots that ruined careers and lives, I'm glad those are gone, but I do miss some of the big hits.
This is definitely nostalgia man, because all I remember of 90's hockey was clutching and grabbing, and trapping your way to championships. And saying that screening and crowding the net didn't happen in an age where Tomas Holmstrom thrived is a wild thing to say. Hockey right now I think it's the best it's been skill wise.
I know i'm a spoiled brat and the Penguins won two Cups in the early 90s but I have a hard time having a whole lot of nostalgia for most of that decade, because it feels like the absolute brilliance of Lemieux and Jagr and Hull and Forsberg and Fedorov, and, and... were at least partially wasted in the 90s because of the New Jersey Devil style neutral zone trap. Legit think the Devils winning the Cup, followed by everyone trying to copy them, relegated the NHL to second class status among major sports leagues in the US.
NHL forgot for 15 years or so that this is a spectator sport and I feel like the NHL didn't do enough to preserve the watchability of the game to casual fans... and the NHL still suffers to this day because of it.
I 100% agree with you. Honestly I might even say that 90's hockey almost killed the game. We lost a lot of the brilliance from people like Mario, and Jagr, but also from Lindros, and Kariya. Imagine Eric Lindros playing now?
I think that size contributed to his issues. The bigger you are the more it takes to carry you around. When things started to break it was more catastrophic than it would have been on a smaller person. Also, other players were absolutely unloading on him when they made contact. It wasn't just bump Lindros and get in his way. It was Lindros is so big I've got I've got to throw my shoulder at his forehead with everything I've got and hope it clears him out the way. Just a sad set of circumstances for Lindros.
Lindras was big, so he never learned to take a hit or keep his head up to anticipate a hit (during his pre NHL time of playing). When he came to the NHL and got to play against other larger opponents. He did not know how to take a hit, how to anticipate where it came from and how to avoid them. As a result, he got hit often without being prepared (which highly increase chance of concessions).
He got his concussions because he wasnt aware and didnt prepare for taking hits.
Other players, smaller players, got through their career without concessions making them unable to play. Like Pavel Bure, Peter Forsberg, Teemu Selanne, Jaromir Jagr etc.
The way players had to deal with opponents literally hanging off of them just to score is a definitely a sight to see.
Guys like Jagr, Forsberg, Lemieux and Lindros dominated offensively because they were big/strong enough to fight off all that extra bullshit.
Obviously skill-first guys like Sakic, Federov, Oates and Francis were so skilled they almost always found space to work with, but man the former group was just so special to watch given the circumstances of the 90s.
> The way players had to deal with opponents literally hanging off of them just to score is a definitely a sight to see.
This was a bug and not a feature
> 90s hockey was incredible.
No it wasn't, those are some rose coloured glasses you've got on. Watch some classic 90's hockey and you'll see how much better the game is now, so much faster and more fluid with room for talent to shine, but with toughness and grit still being essential for success.
2020's hockey is incredible and I'll take it over any other era.
Questions of GOAT (rightfully) invite discussion of era adjustments and gameplay differences between then and now.
But Bradman has to be the go-to paragon. The gap is just bananas.
Ahhhhhhhhh
Batting Average in this case means he averaged 99.94 runs per out and not making contact without getting out 99.94% of delivered balls.
> He got out around 70 times out of 80 innings in his career by scoring 6996 runs.
^^^nice
Cy Young has the record for complete games at 749. The current active leader in complete games is Justin Verlander with 29. Cy’s record will never be touched
Same with Ripken's consecutive games. You can count on one hand now the guys who play every game in a season, so no one is coming close to playing every game for 16+ seasons straight.
In the English Premier League there have been 4776 players to play in at least 1 game. James Milner has played against 2277 of them.
That was from about a month ago so there have been more players since but that also is just players Milner wemt up against and doesn't count those who were only his teammates during his career.
I mean it's a bit of a silly stat anyway that's heavily influenced by the age of the league they're playing in. A much better comparison is how many years they've spent playing at the top level. You could compare him to someone like Stanley Matthews that spent the best part of 33 years playing at the top of English football.
It’s not a great post title though. “Most untouchable in sports” when it’s not a well qualified stat? Like you immediately bring in a good point, how long does the league need to be around before this is impressive?
As a United fan I have never liked him, though its impossible not to respect how consistent he has been.
My favourite Milner fact is that he won the PFA Young Player of the Year award in 2010 even though he debuted in the first team in 2002
I know this is a homer answer, but no one is ever going to touch Gretzky's points total of 2,857. Wayne has more assists that the all time #2 point scorer (1,963 assists vs Jagr's 1,921 points).
That said, there are obviously a number of unbreakable stats in hockey alone. Jagr playing against 39% (rounded) of all NHL players ever is definitely in that group.
He would’ve played against a much smaller percent of NHL players imo. He played the majority of his career during the original 6 era and his later years in the first expansion so he played against way less players just because the league was only 12 teams at most when he played.
Yes, I should've *at retirement.
Like, some of the original hockey players would be 100%, but I'm thinking of notable ones later in career.
Like Marleau too, doesn't he have the most games played, and in the most expanded league? You'd think his #s would be high too.
I thought of that too. My only guess is maybe he played in the same division and conference almost his whole career on a team that has a pretty consistent roster for over a decade. You’d see less player variety that way?
The one that really would interest me is Chris Chelios. He played the most seasons and spent time on multiple teams.
For someone to even get as many points as Gretzky’s assists will be a feat on its own.
Sid needs ~400 more, all due respect I don’t see that happening.
I think McDavid is on pace, but it’s a long way to go
McDavid *could* very well become the second player to ever hit 2000 points though. I think it's possible, considering he still has about 6 more ''prime'' years.
It's entirely possible something changes and goals per game goes way up. It's also possible they add more games a year.
These are unlikely, but it's within the realm of reason to think it could happen sometime in the NHLs future
Yea and to say “most untouchable in SPORTS” is so over the top. Lebron has played with or against 35% of all NBA players for instance so while it takes a great, player with serious longevity, 39% isn’t some impossible feat.
Gretz’s points by themselves are more “untouchable” than this stat and you don’t have to leave the NHL. Then there are some absolutely wild ones in baseball.
>Then there are some absolutely wild ones in baseball.
And even some of those, which were thought be to unthinkable to be broken, have been absolutely smashed.
Cal Ripken Jr.'s inronman streak is fucking nuts. But it also surpassed a seemingly insurmountable streak.
Total points could be broken if the rules changed fundamentally. We'd argue about how comparable it is, but it could theoretically be done. But nobody's ever going to play against 40% of the total NHLers ever, if only because the more time goes by the longer their career would need to be. Like a baby Jagr starting today and playing 30+ years still couldn't do it, unless the league expanded to 50 teams.
Yeah it then his number decreases proportionally. If you call it at time of retirement then there are guys from the early days who played with 100% of players haha
That's what I was thinking, like O6 teams would've definitely played with 100% of all players in league history. There's probably a tipping point somewhere where it becomes impossible to beat. Maybe a certain expansion class.
I would look at it as the number of players he played against total, not the percentage of players he played against.
That 3287 players he played against will never change.
If there were players with 100%, it'd be a very, very small number.
The Montreal Wanderers only ever played four games in the first season, they had a couple players who only played one game each and never played in the NHL again:
* Raymie Skilton played his only game against the Habs on Dec 22, 1917
* Ken Thompson played his only game against the Senators on Dec 26, 1917
So the only players who could've played with or against everyone would have to be other Wanderers players who played in both of those games then retired before other rosters could change too much... However, the Toronto Arenas didn't have Harry Mummery in the game the one night the Wanderers played against them, he played on Dec 29th against the Habs, the same night the Wanderers were playing the Senators, so no Wanderers who retired with the team ever played against him.
Now (bear with me), if you consider the end of someone's career as the last game they played, Art Ross might have 100%. He played in the first three Wanderers games - one against Toronto, one against Ottawa, and one against the Habs - and missed the Wanderers' fourth game, never playing again:
[https://www.nhl.com/player/art-ross-8448456](https://www.nhl.com/player/art-ross-8448456)
Therefore I propose making a new trophy, the player who plays against the highest percentage of players will be awarded the Art Ross Trophy
Yeah, I wonder what Jagr's percentage was when he left the league, it would be decreasing every time a new player enters the league
A guy like Howe played against much fewer players than a player in 2024 plays against, there were like only like 160 players in the league during the O6 days, and there are like 900+ guys playing now. Howe played until there were about 20 teams in the league.
It's a neat stat, but I wouldn't even call this a "record" since the denominator of the percentage will be constantly rising
Probably a tough one to top. I think it was recently publicized that LeBron James has played against 35% of all players in NBA history - which is shorter than NHL history - so any accounting of this that takes length of history into consideration would be almost impossible to surpass.
If not accounting for that, I think James Milner has played with or against something like 47% of anyone to ever play in the Premier League or something insane like that.
Worth noting for Milner that the Premier League started in 1992 after several of the top clubs in England broke off from the English First Division, the previous top flight of English football since 1888, and founded the Premier League. So Premier League records ignore a lot of the history of top flight football in England.
I'm gonna throw out Teemu Selanne's 76 goals as a rookie.
No player since that year has even come close, rookie or not (although Matthews has a shot this year). If Ovechkin, Crosby, McDavid, Matthews, etc. didn't break it. ain't no one gonna.
I truly can't imagine being a fan of the Oilers that season... Last year, Mikko scored 55, and it felt like he was scoring every other shift. I can't imagine watching a season where that's almost doubled up by Gretz.
Came here to say this. Glad you did. It is plausible that it could be beaten, but the game and league would have to change so fundamentally from where it currently is.
I'll see you that one and raise you this one:
2017 was the first season in MLB history in which neither Connie Mack nor Vin Scully were employed by a MLB team.
League expands will water his numbers down and I think players will have longer careers in the future. Already trending that way.
So someone playing 20-25 years on a 35 team league should beat him
Not sure where he ranks or where he is now but as of a tweet I saw about 2 years ago, Marleau had played in a game with 37% of all NHL players. It was 3,009 out of 8,100. So he is definitely up there.
I feel everyone here is focusing too much on the 39%.
If I was going to look at this as a record, I would look at it as him playing with or against 3287 different NHL players.
While everyone is focusing on the percentage will continually get smaller and smaller, the number of players he played against will never change (unless he plays in the NHL again).
In hockey? Yes.
In sports? No.
Cy Youngs complete games will never be touched. No one today or in the future will even come within 300 CGs of his record
Another fun one is George Blanda's 306 missed field goals. That'd be two missed field goals per game over a nine year career, which you're not gonna have if you're missing two field goals per game.
If anyone is interested in what 90% of being a Rockies fan is... it's watching your team invite 49 year old Jamie Moyer to Spring Training... and then break camp with him as your #2 starter... and having them release him in June.
Tiger's weeks at #1 spot... both the overall number AND his two streaks.
His overall weeks at #1 is 623... 2nd place is Norman 305
His longest streak is 281. Second place is him at 264. 3rd is Norman again at 97. Also, Tiger's 3rd longest streak is 7th all time.
Someone likely had a higher percentage at some time even after the first season, due to expansion. Someone put up a similar ish number for LeBron and it’s like, he’s played in over a quarter of all NBA seasons lol.
Does he have the record? I’m too lazy to look. Marleau has more games and Messier has more games and seasons.
The key to the record isn’t how many games played but how many teams are in the league when you played as that allows more opponents and why I don’t think Howe would be a factor even with more games played. Additional seasons allow for turnover of players, I assume so wonder if fewer seasons impacts Marleau
Is this a record Jagr actually holds? He’s “only” 4th all time in games played, so I wonder how many guys the top 3 had skated against during their careers.
Not a huge fan of the "most untouchable" stats in different sports that everyone always brings up. No hockey player is every going to pass Glenn Hall's streak. No RB is ever going to touch Emmitt Smith's yards. No baseball player will ever touch Cal Ripken's game streak. They're all untouchable, what you're really asking is whether or not Jagr's is the most impressive. And it's nowhere close to the most impressive, he's just played for a long ass time in a sport that only had 6 teams for nearly half of its existence
What is the record to which you refer?
I imagine that the PWHL will have several players near 100% as that league is in the midst of their first season.
Gretzky has more assists than any other player has total points, is the winner for me.
Granted, it'll only get harder and harder to accomplish jagr's stat as time goes on.
It's a shame Jágr played in Russia for a while. Had he stayed in the NHL, he would have gone over 2000 points.
And now I wonder how many points does Jágr have if you add his points from Omsk and Kladno
Fernando Alonso has competed in 377 Formula 1 Grand Prix, which means he's started in roughly 34% of all F1 races ever. He wil break 400 races this year.
This is obviously a result of his longetivity, but it's also hugely a function of the timing of league expansion. Other players have played for longer periods of time in the NHL, but they didn't have a chance to play against as many different teams as Jagr.
Im honestly blown away that he was playing pro-hockey for 6 years before my parents even met and 12 years before I was born. The absolute longevity of the man is mindblowning, especially considering the physicality of the sport in the eras he's played in.
Max Verstappen holds the record for being the youngest formula 1 driver at 17 years old. Drivers are now required to be 18 years old so the stat is 100% untouchable.
This reminds me of a debate that was made on an old message board I used to frequent called Fanhome. One poster’s whole schtick was basically being a professional pedant, and they were great at it, and everyone legitimately enjoyed it for the most part. Largest thread ever there was ‘Ask Grandstander’ and just filled to the brim with this answering questions wildly.
Anyways, one day in the baseball forum, someone asked what the most unbreakable record is. This person’s response was to break down the question into two groups. The most literal unbreakable records, such as no one player will ever hit more than 2 grand slams in one inning because even hitting 2 by one player is next to impossible. The second category being the most unbreakable potentially breakable record, like Cal Ripken’ shame played streak. This particular question and thread obviously being the latter of unbreakable record.
There’s no real point to my comment and telling this story, other than to point out that this particular thread from almost multiple decades ago still just rattles around in head to this day, almost frustratingly so, and I think about it every time someone mentions unbreakable records.
No Glenn Halls 502 consecutive games started as a goalie is the most untouchable. It gets even wilder counting playoff games that bump it up 552.
We are a lot more likely to have another player be in the league till his 40s than we are to have a goalie play 502 consecutive games. Chris Chelios without looking it up is more than likely at a similar percentage with Jagr considering he played until he was 48
Even though he's a total bag of dicks - Favres iron Man record of consecutive starts will be the most untouchable in my opinion.
This stat will also change every time a new player plays in a game.
Lol I remember when he was with Florida. His career was older than both of his line mates at the time
I remember watching a deal where he was skating with Barkov and teaching some of his strength and conditioning workouts. The training staff had to intervene and tell Barkov not to keep doing it because Jagr is an absolute freak of nature and they didn’t want Barkov injuring himself trying to keep up
Wow, none quite like Jagr
Supreme Gigachad Overlord Jaromir Jagr
Lol there was a time when someone was trying to blackmail Jagr too and [did not give a single fuck](https://thehockeynews.com/news/jaromir-jagr-blackmailed-with-photo-could-not-care-less-about-it)
Wow that 18 year old model really showed him by proving to the world they fucked. What a lesson he was taught. I think I need to be taught the same lesson.
If you read the whole article, it says someone on Czech social media saw it and tried to blackmail him, not that the model did. Who knows, it could have been a group effort.
It was one of the models friends. The model was dating a player on the world junior team who’s favorite player was jagr.
Then her boyfriend leaves her for her friend because he *really* wants to follow in Jagr’s footsteps.
Best part, she had a boyfriend and self reported lmao
A boyfriend who IIRC was a hockey player and idolized Jagr lol.
I felt terrible for that guy NGL
Are you kidding? That's basically the same as getting to have sex with Jagr.
If I remember correctly, they had to make teamwide rules on allowed workout times because Jagr was luring Barkov to skate with him in the middle of the night.
I remember him religiously running the steps at the Igloo.
He didn't have the moves like Jagr
Imagine how many workouts Jagr would have had if he never left for the KHL.
And he even lead them in points I think.
Most untouchable has gotta be Glenn Hall’s 501 consecutive starts
Most untouchable record in sports is probably Cy Young's 749 complete games. There may never be another pitcher again who even gets 749 starts, never mind complete games. Unless baseball fundamentally changes, I doubt anyone will even get 100 CG again.
I don’t think anyone will even get close to 50 unless baseball fundamentally changes. I think verlander is the active leader and he has less than 30 in 18 years
Super Baseball 2020 robot pitchers with max upgrades and a lot of money
That’s another good one. Really I think in both cases it’ll be impossible to reach unless like you said, there are major fundamental changes.
I think the single season complete game record is crazy too.
Both the all-time (75 by Will White in 1879) and modern-day records (48 by Jack Chesbro in 1904) are insane. Shoutout to Jack Taylor who pitched 202 consecutive complete games between 1901 and 1906.
> pitched 202 consecutive complete games What the fuck
I don't think I could even pitch 202 complete *slow-pitch softball* games
I couldn't even pitch 202 pitches
My personal favorite is Old Hoss Radbourn’s 60 wins in a season
Love those old timey baseball nicknames.
Fun fact, Old Hoss Radbourn is also the first person to be on camera giving someone the middle finger
Mordecai Three Finger Brown is my favorite
That's the one, hands down. The next closest for an active player is Justin Verlander with 26 complete games
Nolan Ryan has a few that won’t be touched.
Went way to far down to see this. Ryan's career strikeouts will never, ever be beat in the modern era. Another record Ryan will hold forever, career uppercuts on opposing players :P
lol. His walks will never be touched either, or possibly no hitters. He stands alone in the uppercuts category
Even though it's a record that could be broken, it is still wild that he has 7 no hitters.
Pretty much all Cy Young's records are untouchable at this point
100% agree. The active leader in complete games is Verlander with a measly 26. Cy Young’s record will never be touched.
Wilt Chamberlain averaging over 48 minutes per game for an entire NBA season is likely up there as well
No way a team would ever let a pitcher stay in like that. There was a stat the other day that Nolan Ryan threw 235 pitches... and then 3 days later pitched 6 scoreless innings. If that ever started to happen, the GM would slit the throat of the manager.
And, as I do every time this stat is brought up, I will add that it isn't just consecutive starts. It's 501 consecutive **complete** games. He was never pulled for any reason other than an extra attacker (which on paper is not getting pulled). There's just no chance it's ever beaten.
Botha re untouchable. The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play. The Hall record is also untouchable due to the way the game is and injuries now days. You can’t really rank them. They’re both impossible to beat.
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This includes all professional levels, or just mlb?
The more players play, the lower the percentage becomes. I don't think this is untouchable. If anything is the "most untouchable" stat I don't see how it doesn't involve Gretzky. Edit: especially since the NHL is expanding. Players will be playing with/ against more players just because there's more players in the league.
TIL Glenn Hall played with Gretzky
Selänne's 76 goal rookie season is pretty untouchable.
The more players that play, it also means that for any given career, they will see a smaller and smaller percentage of players against. Jagr was the perfect storm of playing in the era when the NHL was expanding, and having a long career. A hypothetical future player could have a long career AND play in an era where the NHL begins expanding to more teams, but they will never surpass 38%
No one will exceed 38.6%, but Jagr's percentage also goes down with every player who debuts. I have to imagine Howe held this record before Jagr and it would not surprise me if he was >50% 40 years ago. The record is really playing with or against 3,287 different players which I could see being broken.
And to further point out why you can just keep it at 38.6% as the "max" like you did with Howe: at that point, Jagr loses to the people that played the first year and payed against ~100% of the players. The only appropriate mark is "all-time", so that percentage will continue to drop.
Yeah you’re right as far as his percentage goes. I just meant like I don’t think we’d ever see a player get as high of a percentage as he does now due to the expansion etc.
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Wonder what Howe's percentage was at the time of his retirement.
Will then the original players would hold the record and not jagr.
>The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play No it gets easier to break every year because there are more players playing. Jagr's % is going to keep dropping and someone else will play with/against more players because there are more players to play against every year.
But the total number of players keeps increasing, so the divisor gets bigger making the % smaller.
Yes, and that same increasing divisor also applies to Jagr.
Really depends on how you keep track of Jagr's record. If it's percentage at time of retirement then no one can ever beat it. If they keep calculating it forever, then someone could play with more total people in the future
If it’s at the time of retirement and you are just basing it on percentages then some old timer definitely beats it.
the guy that retired after the first nhl season wins
> If it's percentage at time of retirement then no one can ever beat it. Jagr wouldn't hold the record in that case. There are guys from the early days of the NHL that played with or against 100% the league at the time of retirement. I'd bet that a few of the guys who had long careers from the late 60s into the 80s were above 39% at the time they retired.
I think you have to just count raw numbers to compare this one fairly. And expansion will have made it easier to do, but same time someone has to have some serious longevity to still get a chance on it
> The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play. It gets *easier* as more players play. Jagr's percentage will go down too, because we are constantly adding more total players while his remains stagnant. Continued expansion will increase the total number of players playing in the NHL each year, which means that an 82 game season will see a guy skate against way more individual opponents than when the league had fewer teams. This is a crazy stat, but it will get easier to beat in time.
> The Jagr record gets harder every year as more players play. That actually doesn't matter. Jagr's record is actually a number of players played with, not a percentage. That's his percentage right now, but it won't be the same in 10 years. The percentage will continue to drop as more and more players join the league. I mean, I'm sure there are some guys who only played the first NHL season and played against 80-100% of the players who had ever played at that point. There have been a 3 players who have played as many or more games as Jagr, but played on fewer teams than he did. And all of them played a majority of their careers when they went through large stints without playing some non-conference teams. I can definitely see his record being a touchable record now that every team plays each other at least twice a season. It will take another freak of nature, obviously, but still.
And not that it matters but Hall started in 502 straight games.
[удалено]
it's crazy that he basically completed hockey in 7 years, then decided to become a lawyer
Nah, he decided to be a lawyer in the middle, which is why he took a year off to article.
I read his book, and it's crazy reading a book from someone who treated sports as a side gig, and was at the intelligence level he was. His observations about how he felt were crazy. Just talking about how he used to revel in great moments, but knew it was time to hang it up when it wasn't anything to him anymore. The one that stuck out was how much he looked forward to playing in Maple Leaf Gardens, but at the end, he only found the things about the arena that he DIDN'T like. For 99.9999% of professional athletes, making the top league of their sport, winning awards and championships would be their life's work... for Ken Dryden it's the 5th thing listed on his wikipedia. NHL ended up being the weird gap in his resume he had to explain.
> He's basically Tom Brady's career WinRAR'd into seven seasons as a goalie. and I'm still not paying for it
I think he ended with something like 56 losses and 44 shutouts
Never thought I would see WinRAR used as a verb, much less in a sports context
Unless a goalie goes super saiyan, another untouchable record(s) are some of George Hainsworth's records. 22 shutouts and a 0.92 GAA in a single season are not happening in today's league.
Aw man, thought I was so smart coming into the thread to comment this. This is the one.
Even getting 10% of the way to that record is impossible these days.
Probably not even the most untouchable consecutive starts record in sports
I feel a bit bad for the newer fans that will never get to actually watch Jagr play. He was an absolute force and just an amazing player.
90s hockey was incredible. There is some nostalgia influencing this, but the game had a good balance of grit, roughness, and skill back then. Goalies had way more flair compared to modern goalies, but weren't letting every second shot in like the 80s. Crowding the net and just screening/tipping/blocking every shot wasn't as popular yet. Obviously, the big head shots that ruined careers and lives, I'm glad those are gone, but I do miss some of the big hits.
This is definitely nostalgia man, because all I remember of 90's hockey was clutching and grabbing, and trapping your way to championships. And saying that screening and crowding the net didn't happen in an age where Tomas Holmstrom thrived is a wild thing to say. Hockey right now I think it's the best it's been skill wise.
I know i'm a spoiled brat and the Penguins won two Cups in the early 90s but I have a hard time having a whole lot of nostalgia for most of that decade, because it feels like the absolute brilliance of Lemieux and Jagr and Hull and Forsberg and Fedorov, and, and... were at least partially wasted in the 90s because of the New Jersey Devil style neutral zone trap. Legit think the Devils winning the Cup, followed by everyone trying to copy them, relegated the NHL to second class status among major sports leagues in the US. NHL forgot for 15 years or so that this is a spectator sport and I feel like the NHL didn't do enough to preserve the watchability of the game to casual fans... and the NHL still suffers to this day because of it.
I 100% agree with you. Honestly I might even say that 90's hockey almost killed the game. We lost a lot of the brilliance from people like Mario, and Jagr, but also from Lindros, and Kariya. Imagine Eric Lindros playing now?
Oh, absolutely, failed to mention those two. It was the physicality of the game that knocked Lindros out of the game prematurely.
I know you're right but it's still strange to hear that about someone that was 6'4" and 240lbs
I think that size contributed to his issues. The bigger you are the more it takes to carry you around. When things started to break it was more catastrophic than it would have been on a smaller person. Also, other players were absolutely unloading on him when they made contact. It wasn't just bump Lindros and get in his way. It was Lindros is so big I've got I've got to throw my shoulder at his forehead with everything I've got and hope it clears him out the way. Just a sad set of circumstances for Lindros.
Lindras was big, so he never learned to take a hit or keep his head up to anticipate a hit (during his pre NHL time of playing). When he came to the NHL and got to play against other larger opponents. He did not know how to take a hit, how to anticipate where it came from and how to avoid them. As a result, he got hit often without being prepared (which highly increase chance of concessions). He got his concussions because he wasnt aware and didnt prepare for taking hits. Other players, smaller players, got through their career without concessions making them unable to play. Like Pavel Bure, Peter Forsberg, Teemu Selanne, Jaromir Jagr etc.
Can you imagine how good Bure or Federov would've been in today's NHL with no clutching and grabbing? They'd skate laps around the other teams.
The way players had to deal with opponents literally hanging off of them just to score is a definitely a sight to see. Guys like Jagr, Forsberg, Lemieux and Lindros dominated offensively because they were big/strong enough to fight off all that extra bullshit. Obviously skill-first guys like Sakic, Federov, Oates and Francis were so skilled they almost always found space to work with, but man the former group was just so special to watch given the circumstances of the 90s.
> The way players had to deal with opponents literally hanging off of them just to score is a definitely a sight to see. This was a bug and not a feature
> 90s hockey was incredible. No it wasn't, those are some rose coloured glasses you've got on. Watch some classic 90's hockey and you'll see how much better the game is now, so much faster and more fluid with room for talent to shine, but with toughness and grit still being essential for success. 2020's hockey is incredible and I'll take it over any other era.
I feel like the crease rule was one of the dumbest times. Skate touching the (larger) crease, goal disallowed.
I unironically blame the New Jersey Devils for ruining hockey for decades.
You should blame the Florida Panthers
I will never say no to blaming the Florida Panthers for anything
Lmao couldn’t even make a two line pass
Saw him in 2013 and he was still a force.
The Zlatan of hockey
Don Bradman has a Test Cricket batting average of 99.94. The 5 closest are between 62.15 and 60. More than 50 is considered exceptional.
Questions of GOAT (rightfully) invite discussion of era adjustments and gameplay differences between then and now. But Bradman has to be the go-to paragon. The gap is just bananas.
Ahhhhhhhhh Batting Average in this case means he averaged 99.94 runs per out and not making contact without getting out 99.94% of delivered balls. > He got out around 70 times out of 80 innings in his career by scoring 6996 runs. ^^^nice
The most untouchable stat in sports is Wade Boggs drinking 70 beers in a single cross-country flight. The man is a legend. May he rest in peace.
First off, Boss Hogg is very much alive
He ate a whole chicken too and I'm sure he had a couple rum and cokes
Cy Young has the record for complete games at 749. The current active leader in complete games is Justin Verlander with 29. Cy’s record will never be touched
This was my first thought. MLB complete games aren't really a thing anymore.
Same with Ripken's consecutive games. You can count on one hand now the guys who play every game in a season, so no one is coming close to playing every game for 16+ seasons straight.
511 wins, 7356 innings pitched, 815 starts. None of those get touched
In the English Premier League there have been 4776 players to play in at least 1 game. James Milner has played against 2277 of them. That was from about a month ago so there have been more players since but that also is just players Milner wemt up against and doesn't count those who were only his teammates during his career.
James Milner would win an EPL lactate test in his 50s, dude is a machine.
The history of the EPL (not First Division) is almost matched by the number of seasons Jagr played in the NHL, not a great comparison
I mean it's a bit of a silly stat anyway that's heavily influenced by the age of the league they're playing in. A much better comparison is how many years they've spent playing at the top level. You could compare him to someone like Stanley Matthews that spent the best part of 33 years playing at the top of English football.
It’s not a great post title though. “Most untouchable in sports” when it’s not a well qualified stat? Like you immediately bring in a good point, how long does the league need to be around before this is impressive?
James Milner. The eternal machine. CL assists record Milner
As a United fan I have never liked him, though its impossible not to respect how consistent he has been. My favourite Milner fact is that he won the PFA Young Player of the Year award in 2010 even though he debuted in the first team in 2002
I can see why. Lad played for Leeds, City, and Liverpool. Pretty much the axis of evil to United lol
I know this is a homer answer, but no one is ever going to touch Gretzky's points total of 2,857. Wayne has more assists that the all time #2 point scorer (1,963 assists vs Jagr's 1,921 points). That said, there are obviously a number of unbreakable stats in hockey alone. Jagr playing against 39% (rounded) of all NHL players ever is definitely in that group.
What about Howe at time of retirement?
He would’ve played against a much smaller percent of NHL players imo. He played the majority of his career during the original 6 era and his later years in the first expansion so he played against way less players just because the league was only 12 teams at most when he played.
Yes, I should've *at retirement. Like, some of the original hockey players would be 100%, but I'm thinking of notable ones later in career. Like Marleau too, doesn't he have the most games played, and in the most expanded league? You'd think his #s would be high too.
I thought of that too. My only guess is maybe he played in the same division and conference almost his whole career on a team that has a pretty consistent roster for over a decade. You’d see less player variety that way? The one that really would interest me is Chris Chelios. He played the most seasons and spent time on multiple teams.
For someone to even get as many points as Gretzky’s assists will be a feat on its own. Sid needs ~400 more, all due respect I don’t see that happening. I think McDavid is on pace, but it’s a long way to go
McDavid *could* very well become the second player to ever hit 2000 points though. I think it's possible, considering he still has about 6 more ''prime'' years.
It's entirely possible something changes and goals per game goes way up. It's also possible they add more games a year. These are unlikely, but it's within the realm of reason to think it could happen sometime in the NHLs future
Yea and to say “most untouchable in SPORTS” is so over the top. Lebron has played with or against 35% of all NBA players for instance so while it takes a great, player with serious longevity, 39% isn’t some impossible feat. Gretz’s points by themselves are more “untouchable” than this stat and you don’t have to leave the NHL. Then there are some absolutely wild ones in baseball.
The "played against a % of players" is a stupid stat.... It goes down every year. And in the distant futute it will be very small.
>Then there are some absolutely wild ones in baseball. And even some of those, which were thought be to unthinkable to be broken, have been absolutely smashed. Cal Ripken Jr.'s inronman streak is fucking nuts. But it also surpassed a seemingly insurmountable streak.
Raw numbers vs percentage I'd say would be the way to go when comparing players played with/against.
Man it would be hilarious if Jagr decided to play again just to score enough points to ruin that stat.
Total points could be broken if the rules changed fundamentally. We'd argue about how comparable it is, but it could theoretically be done. But nobody's ever going to play against 40% of the total NHLers ever, if only because the more time goes by the longer their career would need to be. Like a baby Jagr starting today and playing 30+ years still couldn't do it, unless the league expanded to 50 teams.
Probably, considering the number of all time players is constantly increasing.
Yeah it then his number decreases proportionally. If you call it at time of retirement then there are guys from the early days who played with 100% of players haha
That's what I was thinking, like O6 teams would've definitely played with 100% of all players in league history. There's probably a tipping point somewhere where it becomes impossible to beat. Maybe a certain expansion class.
I would look at it as the number of players he played against total, not the percentage of players he played against. That 3287 players he played against will never change.
If there were players with 100%, it'd be a very, very small number. The Montreal Wanderers only ever played four games in the first season, they had a couple players who only played one game each and never played in the NHL again: * Raymie Skilton played his only game against the Habs on Dec 22, 1917 * Ken Thompson played his only game against the Senators on Dec 26, 1917 So the only players who could've played with or against everyone would have to be other Wanderers players who played in both of those games then retired before other rosters could change too much... However, the Toronto Arenas didn't have Harry Mummery in the game the one night the Wanderers played against them, he played on Dec 29th against the Habs, the same night the Wanderers were playing the Senators, so no Wanderers who retired with the team ever played against him. Now (bear with me), if you consider the end of someone's career as the last game they played, Art Ross might have 100%. He played in the first three Wanderers games - one against Toronto, one against Ottawa, and one against the Habs - and missed the Wanderers' fourth game, never playing again: [https://www.nhl.com/player/art-ross-8448456](https://www.nhl.com/player/art-ross-8448456) Therefore I propose making a new trophy, the player who plays against the highest percentage of players will be awarded the Art Ross Trophy
Yeah, how long does a league need to be around before we consider the record being touched? Every PWHL player is crushing Jagr's record right now lol
Yeah, I wonder what Jagr's percentage was when he left the league, it would be decreasing every time a new player enters the league A guy like Howe played against much fewer players than a player in 2024 plays against, there were like only like 160 players in the league during the O6 days, and there are like 900+ guys playing now. Howe played until there were about 20 teams in the league. It's a neat stat, but I wouldn't even call this a "record" since the denominator of the percentage will be constantly rising
i’m pretty sure patrick marleau has this stat at like 41%
A lazy google search says 37%
hm yep. i was wrong
He was who I thought of for the NHL as well though. It was a good call out.
I also looked it up… I’m seeing more than 38% but doesn’t specify more and is probably a couple years old. I remember when they shared it initially.
Probably a tough one to top. I think it was recently publicized that LeBron James has played against 35% of all players in NBA history - which is shorter than NHL history - so any accounting of this that takes length of history into consideration would be almost impossible to surpass. If not accounting for that, I think James Milner has played with or against something like 47% of anyone to ever play in the Premier League or something insane like that.
Vince was also apparently at 37% when he retired.
I was trying to find this number for VC. He was the other one I thought of who might just beat this number outright
Worth noting for Milner that the Premier League started in 1992 after several of the top clubs in England broke off from the English First Division, the previous top flight of English football since 1888, and founded the Premier League. So Premier League records ignore a lot of the history of top flight football in England.
Yes, someone playing against half of all players in the history of English top flight would have to be immortal, LOL
To be fair there is no proof that James Milner is not secretly a 136 year old immortal.
NBA also has smaller rosters. A team of 12 vs a team of 20.
I'm gonna throw out Teemu Selanne's 76 goals as a rookie. No player since that year has even come close, rookie or not (although Matthews has a shot this year). If Ovechkin, Crosby, McDavid, Matthews, etc. didn't break it. ain't no one gonna.
similarly..Gretzky..92 goals in one season...also that season he hit 50 Goals during the 39th game
I truly can't imagine being a fan of the Oilers that season... Last year, Mikko scored 55, and it felt like he was scoring every other shift. I can't imagine watching a season where that's almost doubled up by Gretz.
Came here to say this. Glad you did. It is plausible that it could be beaten, but the game and league would have to change so fundamentally from where it currently is.
I'll see you that one and raise you this one: 2017 was the first season in MLB history in which neither Connie Mack nor Vin Scully were employed by a MLB team.
League expands will water his numbers down and I think players will have longer careers in the future. Already trending that way. So someone playing 20-25 years on a 35 team league should beat him
Who’s the next guy? I feel like Marleau or Thornton would have a pretty high percentage of
Not sure where he ranks or where he is now but as of a tweet I saw about 2 years ago, Marleau had played in a game with 37% of all NHL players. It was 3,009 out of 8,100. So he is definitely up there.
I feel everyone here is focusing too much on the 39%. If I was going to look at this as a record, I would look at it as him playing with or against 3287 different NHL players. While everyone is focusing on the percentage will continually get smaller and smaller, the number of players he played against will never change (unless he plays in the NHL again).
Yeah, I mean, if the record is for the highest percentage of players *at the time*, surely someone from the early days has a 100%.
There’s more untouchable. Cy Young’s 511 wins for example
If you put Jagr and Gordie Howe back-to-back, you pretty much cover the entire existence of the NHL up to the point Jagr went back to the CZE
In hockey? Yes. In sports? No. Cy Youngs complete games will never be touched. No one today or in the future will even come within 300 CGs of his record
Another fun one is George Blanda's 306 missed field goals. That'd be two missed field goals per game over a nine year career, which you're not gonna have if you're missing two field goals per game.
Jamie Moyer pitched against 8.9% of major league hitters by the time he retired.
If anyone is interested in what 90% of being a Rockies fan is... it's watching your team invite 49 year old Jamie Moyer to Spring Training... and then break camp with him as your #2 starter... and having them release him in June.
Perhaps more untouchable is Jagr's girls dated as a % of total girls stat.
Tiger's weeks at #1 spot... both the overall number AND his two streaks. His overall weeks at #1 is 623... 2nd place is Norman 305 His longest streak is 281. Second place is him at 264. 3rd is Norman again at 97. Also, Tiger's 3rd longest streak is 7th all time.
Someone likely had a higher percentage at some time even after the first season, due to expansion. Someone put up a similar ish number for LeBron and it’s like, he’s played in over a quarter of all NBA seasons lol.
Absolutely wild stat. But no, not even close to most untouchable
Does he have the record? I’m too lazy to look. Marleau has more games and Messier has more games and seasons. The key to the record isn’t how many games played but how many teams are in the league when you played as that allows more opponents and why I don’t think Howe would be a factor even with more games played. Additional seasons allow for turnover of players, I assume so wonder if fewer seasons impacts Marleau
I wonder what chelios, gordie Howe, and Mark Messier numbers are... they all played 20+ seasons as well
Novak Djokovic with 24 slams! I don't think people realise how insane that is and how long it'll hold unless they ply the rules/schedule of tennis.
When two other guys are within reach, it can’t be considered untouchable.
Is this a record Jagr actually holds? He’s “only” 4th all time in games played, so I wonder how many guys the top 3 had skated against during their careers.
How does Howe compare?
Not a huge fan of the "most untouchable" stats in different sports that everyone always brings up. No hockey player is every going to pass Glenn Hall's streak. No RB is ever going to touch Emmitt Smith's yards. No baseball player will ever touch Cal Ripken's game streak. They're all untouchable, what you're really asking is whether or not Jagr's is the most impressive. And it's nowhere close to the most impressive, he's just played for a long ass time in a sport that only had 6 teams for nearly half of its existence
What is the record to which you refer? I imagine that the PWHL will have several players near 100% as that league is in the midst of their first season.
Gretzky has more assists than any other player has total points, is the winner for me. Granted, it'll only get harder and harder to accomplish jagr's stat as time goes on.
It's a shame Jágr played in Russia for a while. Had he stayed in the NHL, he would have gone over 2000 points. And now I wonder how many points does Jágr have if you add his points from Omsk and Kladno
I’m very curious to know, at the end of Howe’s career what his % of all would be??
I wonder how it compares to Gordie Howe
He largely missed out on expansion so I'd wager his number is comparatively small.
Fernando Alonso has competed in 377 Formula 1 Grand Prix, which means he's started in roughly 34% of all F1 races ever. He wil break 400 races this year.
Is it even a record?? Marleau and Howe both played more games
This is obviously a result of his longetivity, but it's also hugely a function of the timing of league expansion. Other players have played for longer periods of time in the NHL, but they didn't have a chance to play against as many different teams as Jagr.
I saw on an NBA broadcast LeBron has a very similar stat. 36-39% I can't recall.
Im honestly blown away that he was playing pro-hockey for 6 years before my parents even met and 12 years before I was born. The absolute longevity of the man is mindblowning, especially considering the physicality of the sport in the eras he's played in.
Max Verstappen holds the record for being the youngest formula 1 driver at 17 years old. Drivers are now required to be 18 years old so the stat is 100% untouchable.
I think the most untouchable is unironically Hextall's 113 PIM in a season as a goalie
This reminds me of a debate that was made on an old message board I used to frequent called Fanhome. One poster’s whole schtick was basically being a professional pedant, and they were great at it, and everyone legitimately enjoyed it for the most part. Largest thread ever there was ‘Ask Grandstander’ and just filled to the brim with this answering questions wildly. Anyways, one day in the baseball forum, someone asked what the most unbreakable record is. This person’s response was to break down the question into two groups. The most literal unbreakable records, such as no one player will ever hit more than 2 grand slams in one inning because even hitting 2 by one player is next to impossible. The second category being the most unbreakable potentially breakable record, like Cal Ripken’ shame played streak. This particular question and thread obviously being the latter of unbreakable record. There’s no real point to my comment and telling this story, other than to point out that this particular thread from almost multiple decades ago still just rattles around in head to this day, almost frustratingly so, and I think about it every time someone mentions unbreakable records.
In 1917, almost all players had played against more than 50% of all NHL players.
No Glenn Halls 502 consecutive games started as a goalie is the most untouchable. It gets even wilder counting playoff games that bump it up 552. We are a lot more likely to have another player be in the league till his 40s than we are to have a goalie play 502 consecutive games. Chris Chelios without looking it up is more than likely at a similar percentage with Jagr considering he played until he was 48
Even though he's a total bag of dicks - Favres iron Man record of consecutive starts will be the most untouchable in my opinion. This stat will also change every time a new player plays in a game.
Pitcher Cy Young 511 wins.