I got to meet him once, very nice guy. I asked him if there was any player that always gave him trouble as a shooter, he said that Gordie Howe did, and then pointed out that Gretzky never gave him much trouble and was fairly easy for him to read. I never thought to see what the numbers said on that until today, and it checks out...
Tony Esposito vs. Wayne Gretzky (goals only)
18 GP - 6 GA
Of the above 2 GP and 1 GA were in the playoffs
Of course I'm not looking at assists, and I did see Wayne's name quite a bit in that column...maybe he knew Esposito played him well and focused more on distributing.