It indicates that he was better offensively but worse defensively, no?
Yes, that's correct. On a per-minute basis, Gretzky would be significantly more productive than somebody like Borque, but he would be significantly worse defensively. No surprises here.
Thanks for the expanded info, much appreciated.
Another question for you; you mentioned gretzky and Lemieux averaged being in on 80-85 % of the goals their teams scored. do you have such a figure for Orr?
The all-time leaders (min. 500 gp):
Wayne Gretzky - 81.2%
Mario Lemieux - 79.7%
Denis Savard - 77.8%
Gerry Meehan - 77.3%
Peter Forsberg - 76.7%
Mike Bossy - 76.7%
Alexei Yashin - 76.6%
Pierre Turgeon - 76.1%
Bernie Federko - 76.0%
Stan Mikita - 75.9%
This is a really strange list. It's no surprise to see Gretzky, Lemieux, Forsberg, Bossy and Mikita. Yashin and Federko were both very good players that often had weak linemates, so that probably explains their presence. I know very little about Meehan, but he spent a lot of time on bad teams (expansion Sabres, Flames and Capitals) and still scored a respectable 423 points.
(These stats are current as of 2003. Jagr was really close to making the list then and given his strong performance over the past seasons, he probably kicked out Mikita for 10th place).
This is actually one of the the few offensive categories that Orr doesn't dominate. Yes, he's in first, but it's not by the huge margin you'd probably expect. That's probably because Orr played with great teammates--Orr of course would be great anywhere, but his participation rate would be lower on a team with many strong players.
Orr - 52.9%
Housley - 51.3%
Coffey - 49.5%
Bourque - 48.5%
MacInnis - 47.0%
Potvin - 46.7%
Leetch - 46.6%
Wilson - 44.8%
Murphy - 43.9%
Howe - 43.8%
Blake - 42.8%
Lidstrom - 42.2%
Chelios - 42.0%
Niedermayer - 40.1%
Pronger - 38.4%
Stevens - 38.3%
Lowe - 29.9%
Langway - 28.5%
Foote - 27.3%
Ludwig - 20.9%
Daneyko - 18.1%