Bobby Orr- what was his greatest attribute?

[Canadiens1958]

actually, by your logic we should have seen multiple .400 hitters since Ted Williams considering all of the rule changes that have been added to aid hittiers

the mound was lowered
the strike zone has shrunk, multiple times
less and less foul territory in new parks
the DH was introduced
ball doctoring was outlawed

notice how every offensive record has been passed EXCEPT batting average?

single season HR, RBI, Slugging%, stolen bases have all fallen multiple times and there have been multiple triple crown winners...yet.406 remains untouched

and its because, like Orr, Ted Williams is that much better than everyone else

Baseball comparables inevitably have to address performance enhancement.

 

[Tarantula]

If Orr played today he likely would have had much better medical care on those knees, and maybe would not have had them injured to the extent he did with better physio training these days. I never like comparisons across era, how could anyone really know? Just my opinion.

 

[DannyGallivan]

If Orr played today he likely would have had much better medical care on those knees, and maybe would not have had them injured to the extent he did with better physio training these days. I never like comparisons across era, how could anyone really know? Just my opinion.

I would say that is a guarantee. Plus, if he played today, Marcel Pronovost would be long since retired (and deceased) and never would have been able to give Orr the injury that would derail his career in the first place.

 

[BobbyAwe]

1941, Ted Williams, last of the complete hitters in spite of his insistance about beating the shift.

Name a complete hitter today and you will have the answer to your question.

You're not just contending there are no hitters TODAY (2018) that are as good as the .400 hitters of 77 to over 100 years ago, you're saying there has been NO hitters as good SINCE then. Because, to many, apparently, batting averages in MLB and goals/points scored in the NHL are OBJECTIVE ABSOLUTES. They are NOT. They are relative to the effectiveness of pitching and goaltending (and to a lesser extent, some other factors) in the respective sports in different eras. They are not objective like the times or distances measured in Track and Field events. I am objecting to the blind assertions some make like "Orr averaged almost a point and a half a game over his career - name another defenseman who has done that!" My answer is simply and logically that ORR would not have done that either, in the more modern era.

 

[BobbyAwe]

I would say that is a guarantee. Plus, if he played today, Marcel Pronovost would be long since retired (and deceased) and never would have been able to give Orr the injury that would derail his career in the first place.

But the average defenseman today is much bigger than Pronovost. How can we assume Orr wouldn't have taken even more of a beating now? Bobby himself said "If you carry the puck a lot you're going to get hit a lot."

 

[BobbyAwe]

You're not just contending there are no hitters TODAY (2018) that are as good as the .400 hitters of 77 to over 100 years ago, you're saying there has been NO hitters as good SINCE then. Because, to many, apparently, batting averages in MLB and goals/points scored in the NHL are OBJECTIVE ABSOLUTES. They are NOT. They are relative to the effectiveness of pitching and goaltending (and to a lesser extent, some other factors) in the respective sports in different eras. They are not objective like the times or distances measured in Track and Field events. I am objecting to the blind assertions some make like "Orr averaged almost a point and a half a game over his career - name another defenseman who has done that!" My answer is simply and logically that Orr HIMSELFwould not have done that either, in the more modern era.

 

[Canadiens1958]

You're not just contending there are no hitters TODAY (2018) that are as good as the .400 hitters of 77 to over 100 years ago, you're saying there has been NO hitters as good SINCE then. Because, to many, apparently, batting averages in MLB and goals/points scored in the NHL are OBJECTIVE ABSOLUTES. They are NOT. They are relative to the effectiveness of pitching and goaltending (and to a lesser extent, some other factors) in the respective sports in different eras. They are not objective like the times or distances measured in Track and Field events. I am objecting to the blind assertions some make like "Orr averaged almost a point and a half a game over his career - name another defenseman who has done that!" My answer is simply and logically that ORR would not have done that either, in the more modern era.

I am saying that no hitter can hit .400 by giving away half the field like Williams did. Doing so only makes a pitcher look better than he is.

Likewise Bobby Orr. Very few players today use the complete ice for offence like Orr did. Goalies now cheat to the attacking lane while defencemen concede the backhand pass and shot. So goalies look better than they are.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I am objecting to the blind assertions some make like "Orr averaged almost a point and a half a game over his career - name another defenseman who has done that!" My answer is simply and logically that ORR would not have done that either, in the more modern era.

erik karlsson averages a point a game and he’s what? the 5th best player in the world?

bobby orr was the greatest player to ever live.

 

[grentthealien]

Well after spending my night watching 3 hours worth of Bobby Orr highlights I’m going to have to say his skating. It is like if you took Mcdavid and teleported him straight into the 70s. He was so far ahead of everyone else in that category durning that time that it was just unfair. It is like his skating was a cheat code for a video game. I am so jealous that I never got to see him play.

 

[grentthealien]

Well I posted these in another thread, but I feel like I must post them here to share with the Op. These videos might be the best highlights of Bobby Orr on YouTube. Each video is an hour long so you got 3 hours worth of footage of Orr skating alll around the ice scoring goals, seting up plays and even racing back to his own end to break up plays. There is even footage of him killing off the final 40 secs or so a of a game by just skating around in his own end just like other guys on here have mentioned.

Until now I had only seen probably about 10 minutes or so of Orr highlights so it really didn’t sink in how ahead he was of his peers until seeing 3 hours of him making his dominance just look routine. Anyway, the videos are linked below. Enjoy

 

[BobbyAwe]

I am saying that no hitter can hit .400 by giving away half the field like Williams did. Doing so only makes a pitcher look better than he is.

Likewise Bobby Orr. Very few players today use the complete ice for offence like Orr did. Goalies now cheat to the attacking lane while defencemen concede the backhand pass and shot. So goalies look better than they are.

The reasons WHY it's harder to score today do not really matter per our subject - the point is it's HARDER to score today no matter what we attribute that to. If you don't grant that, I don't know what else to say? You'd have to believe that Gretzky would still score over 200 points in a given year in today's game when McDavid has won the scoring title the last 2 years with only a little over 100 points? And McDavid is apparently (?) a generational talent. Again, I'm not saying McDavid is/will be as great a talent as Gretzky, but put him back in Gretzky's era and I guarantee he'd be scoring a LOT more points than he will today. The reverse is also true. Gretzky would not score 200 points today. So even though he might still be the best in today's game, his stats would not elevate him to the MYTHICAL level which a simple transfer of his actual stats back then, to today, would. Same for .400 hitters. There is a reason no one has hit .400 in 77 years, and it is NOT that hitters were better way back then. When you have some records that remain unbroken for 70, 80, or even 100 years in a given sport, it MUST be that the conditions were different then, conditions that favored those records being set - and the most obvious "condition" would be that the gap in ability between the star players and the average players was greater. In many Olympic events, where records are not set by performance directly relative to an opposing athlete's performance against him, (as in a team sport) how many records have stood for 50 or more years? The reason why such records are more frequently bested is that there are more and more great athletes competing from increasingly greater population bases in their respective countries. The SAME thing has and is happening in the NHL, so any formula which compares players of different eras, which does not reflect that there are MORE great players in the league as the talent pool expands, must be unrealistically elevating the old timer's prowess, or unfairly underestimating the modern player's ability.

 

[DannyGallivan]

The reasons WHY it's harder to score today do not really matter per our subject - the point is it's HARDER to score today no matter what we attribute that to. If you don't grant that, I don't know what else to say? You'd have to believe that Gretzky would still score over 200 points in a given year in today's game when McDavid has won the scoring title the last 2 years with only a little over 100 points? And McDavid is apparently (?) a generational talent. Again, I'm not saying McDavid is/will be as great a talent as Gretzky, but put him back in Gretzky's era and I guarantee he'd be scoring a LOT more points than he will today. The reverse is also true. Gretzky would not score 200 points today. So even though he might still be the best in today's game, his stats would not elevate him to the MYTHICAL level which a simple transfer of his actual stats back then, to today, would. Same for .400 hitters. There is a reason no one has hit .400 in 77 years, and it is NOT that hitters were better way back then. When you have some records that remain unbroken for 70, 80, or even 100 years in a given sport, it MUST be that the conditions were different then, conditions that favored those records being set - and the most obvious "condition" would be that the gap in ability between the star players and the average players was greater. In many Olympic events, where records are not set by performance directly relative to an opposing athlete's performance against him, (as in a team sport) how many records have stood for 50 or more years? The reason why such records are more frequently bested is that there are more and more great athletes competing from increasingly greater population bases in their respective countries. The SAME thing has and is happening in the NHL, so any formula which compares players of different eras, which does not reflect that there are MORE great players in the league as the talent pool expands, must be unrealistically elevating the old timer's prowess, or unfairly underestimating the modern player's ability.

I suppose we could debate over and over how many points Orr would have gotten today and how much better he would be to today's stars. My main take away from these debates about Orr is that if he was a modern player and therefore allowed to play by the same rules (huge crackdown on interference), same life-long coaching, condition, nutrition, and perhaps most importantly - equipment upgrades - he would still be the greatest player who ever lived. Sure, his overall stats may not have been as high, but the gap between him and the others would still be huge.

And as others pointed out, with improved sports medicine he may have actually been better.

 

[BobbyAwe]

I suppose we could debate over and over how many points Orr would have gotten today and how much better he would be to today's stars. My main take away from these debates about Orr is that if he was a modern player and therefore allowed to play by the same rules (huge crackdown on interference), same life-long coaching, condition, nutrition, and perhaps most importantly - equipment upgrades - he would still be the greatest player who ever lived. Sure, his overall stats may not have been as high, but the gap between him and the others would still be huge.

And as others pointed out, with improved sports medicine he may have actually been better.

Do you also believe that Cyclone Taylor (as a young player today) would skate circles around his opponents in today's game also? Or do you concede that the level of his competition was far below that of today's players? If we can just assume that any player who dominated the league in their respective era would similarly dominate the league today, that the "gap would be just as huge", then why not believe the same about Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore? The greatness or dominance of any player is directly relative only to the LEVEL OF COMPETITION he actually faced. During Orr's prime years, the league TRIPLED with expansion teams in only about 10 years. That is a MONUMENTAL watering down of the talent level of the average player that Orr faced, which has never happened to that extent in the game before or since. (I'm not talking about the infancy of the NHL in which it may have but is not really relative to the modern game) Granted, he was SO dominant however, that we can safely say he would be great even today and even MAYBE the best player today, but he wouldn't be skating around and thru opposing teams like they were still in the "Juniors" as you see him do in his highlights. The truth is, a lot of those highlights WERE against players that wouldn't have even been in the NHL at the time if not for the amount of expansion going on.

 

[meefer]

He was a great human being.

Starting in the late 60's he hosted the Bobby Orr – Mike Walton Sports Camp. Hundreds of kids age 7-15 participated over the years including the Maloney brothers and Clint Malarchuk. Imagine being a kid in those days and receiving instruction from Bobby Orr in the peak of his game? I don't see too many superstars today willing to give up some of their off-season host summer camps like these.

I had a chance to work at Orr/Walton back in the mid 70s. Orr demanded that we all treated the kids with respect and kindness and he got damned mad if you didn't. Always a gentleman. Even with those bum knee, when he got on the ice in the evening, when a few of the pros and some of the camp staff (me etc) had a few non-contact games, he was by far the best skater I had and have ever seen.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Do you also believe that Cyclone Taylor (as a young player today) would skate circles around his opponents in today's game also? Or do you concede that the level of his competition was far below that of today's players? If we can just assume that any player who dominated the league in their respective era would similarly dominate the league today, that the "gap would be just as huge", then why not believe the same about Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore? The greatness or dominance of any player is directly relative only to the LEVEL OF COMPETITION he actually faced. During Orr's prime years, the league TRIPLED with expansion teams in only about 10 years. That is a MONUMENTAL watering down of the talent level of the average player that Orr faced, which has never happened to that extent in the game before or since. (I'm not talking about the infancy of the NHL in which it may have but is not really relative to the modern game) Granted, he was SO dominant however, that we can safely say he would be great even today and even MAYBE the best player today, but he wouldn't be skating around and thru opposing teams like they were still in the "Juniors" as you see him do in his highlights. The truth is, a lot of those highlights WERE against players that wouldn't have even been in the NHL at the time if not for the amount of expansion going on.

and here you are, continuing to ignore that the league growing during Orr's tenure does NOT mean he got to play against scrubs.

There was an abundance of top talent not in the NHL because of its size. the AHL of the time was on par with mid level NHL teams of today. Expansion simply added more jobs for NHL quality players.

The 2nd expansion added already established professional franchises from a rival league. Teams that boasted elite talent that would dominate the NHL...like a certain someone named Gretzky, as well as Mark Howe, Cheevers, Parent, Tremblay.

Stop acting like the league brought in teams of beer leaguers

 

[DannyGallivan]

Do you also believe that Cyclone Taylor (as a young player today) would skate circles around his opponents in today's game also? Or do you concede that the level of his competition was far below that of today's players? If we can just assume that any player who dominated the league in their respective era would similarly dominate the league today, that the "gap would be just as huge", then why not believe the same about Howie Morenz and Eddie Shore? The greatness or dominance of any player is directly relative only to the LEVEL OF COMPETITION he actually faced. During Orr's prime years, the league TRIPLED with expansion teams in only about 10 years. That is a MONUMENTAL watering down of the talent level of the average player that Orr faced, which has never happened to that extent in the game before or since. (I'm not talking about the infancy of the NHL in which it may have but is not really relative to the modern game) Granted, he was SO dominant however, that we can safely say he would be great even today and even MAYBE the best player today, but he wouldn't be skating around and thru opposing teams like they were still in the "Juniors" as you see him do in his highlights. The truth is, a lot of those highlights WERE against players that wouldn't have even been in the NHL at the time if not for the amount of expansion going on.

By all logic, expansion should have taken place slowly beginning in the 1950s. That doesn't mean that a lot of lousy players were suddenly in the NHL, but that a lot of players who would have been in the NHL had the league introduced expansion like the other sports finally made it.

Put all the best Canadian-born players into 12 or 16 teams and that would be the competition Orr faced. Right now, you a league where everybody has good players, but few teams have more than a few stars. Back then, half the league were all-star teams.

And one great anecdotal point is the 1976 Canada Cup, where Orr - well past his prime because of mangled knees - tied for the tournament lead in points and was named MVP. As Bobby Hull (who also had a great tournament) said... "He could barely walk, his knee was so bad. Yet, he went on the ice and was better on one leg than the rest of us on two. That's how good he was."

And I think the level of players in the Canada Cup was pretty, pretty good.

 

[Canadiens1958]

The reasons WHY it's harder to score today do not really matter per our subject - the point is it's HARDER to score today no matter what we attribute that to. If you don't grant that, I don't know what else to say? You'd have to believe that Gretzky would still score over 200 points in a given year in today's game when McDavid has won the scoring title the last 2 years with only a little over 100 points? And McDavid is apparently (?) a generational talent. Again, I'm not saying McDavid is/will be as great a talent as Gretzky, but put him back in Gretzky's era and I guarantee he'd be scoring a LOT more points than he will today. The reverse is also true. Gretzky would not score 200 points today. So even though he might still be the best in today's game, his stats would not elevate him to the MYTHICAL level which a simple transfer of his actual stats back then, to today, would. Same for .400 hitters. There is a reason no one has hit .400 in 77 years, and it is NOT that hitters were better way back then. When you have some records that remain unbroken for 70, 80, or even 100 years in a given sport, it MUST be that the conditions were different then, conditions that favored those records being set - and the most obvious "condition" would be that the gap in ability between the star players and the average players was greater. In many Olympic events, where records are not set by performance directly relative to an opposing athlete's performance against him, (as in a team sport) how many records have stood for 50 or more years? The reason why such records are more frequently bested is that there are more and more great athletes competing from increasingly greater population bases in their respective countries. The SAME thing has and is happening in the NHL, so any formula which compares players of different eras, which does not reflect that there are MORE great players in the league as the talent pool expands, must be unrealistically elevating the old timer's prowess, or unfairly underestimating the modern player's ability.

Let's review the numbers.

1969-70 season when Orr scored 120 points, total goals per game were at 5.81. Last season when McDavid scored 108 points, the TG/G was at 5.94. Last season featured 6 more RS games than 1969-70.

So it is easier to score goals today.

The questions that remain touch roster size and deployment? The resulting distribution of points?

Today teams dress and use two more players per RS game than they did in Orr's time, rolling four lines and three defensive pairings. Orr's time it was 3 and two respectively. So compared to a modern defenceman Orr had 7 to 15 more minutes of ice time. To a forward 13 to 25 more minutes of ice time. So the distribution of generated points in respective scoring environments, favoured the players of Orr's era and they had higher totals.

 

[Canadiens1958]

By all logic, expansion should have taken place slowly beginning in the 1950s. That doesn't mean that a lot of lousy players were suddenly in the NHL, but that a lot of players who would have been in the NHL had the league introduced expansion like the other sports finally made it.

Put all the best Canadian-born players into 12 or 16 teams and that would be the competition Orr faced. Right now, you a league where everybody has good players, but few teams have more than a few stars. Back then, half the league were all-star teams.

And one great anecdotal point is the 1976 Canada Cup, where Orr - well past his prime because of mangled knees - tied for the tournament lead in points and was named MVP. As Bobby Hull (who also had a great tournament) said... "He could barely walk, his knee was so bad. Yet, he went on the ice and was better on one leg than the rest of us on two. That's how good he was."

And I think the level of players in the Canada Cup was pretty, pretty good.

Except the lack of suitable arenas that were not built until the early sixties or built for the expansion. Even then there were compromises.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Except the lack of suitable arenas that were not built until the early sixties or built for the expansion. Even then there were compromises.

Yes, I understand that Cleveland almost landed a team in the mid-50's. But we digress...

 

[DannyGallivan]

Let's review the numbers.

1969-70 season when Orr scored 120 points, total goals per game were at 5.81. Last season when McDavid scored 108 points, the TG/G was at 5.94. Last season featured 6 more RS games than 1969-70.

So it is easier to score goals today.

The questions that remain touch roster size and deployment? The resulting distribution of points?

Today teams dress and use two more players per RS game than they did in Orr's time, rolling four lines and three defensive pairings. Orr's time it was 3 and two respectively. So compared to a modern defenceman Orr had 7 to 15 more minutes of ice time. To a forward 13 to 25 more minutes of ice time. So the distribution of generated points in respective scoring environments, favoured the players of Orr's era and they had higher totals.

Good insight. That also explains the crazy-long shifts (Bobby Hull had at least one documented 8-minute shift, while most stars had three minute shifts). That as well explains why the game "seems" slow in old footage. It wasn't that the players couldn't skate, but they were managing their effort through a three minute shift instead of a 40 second sprint.

 

[meefer]

I suppose we could debate over and over how many points Orr would have gotten today and how much better he would be to today's stars. My main take away from these debates about Orr is that if he was a modern player and therefore allowed to play by the same rules (huge crackdown on interference), same life-long coaching, condition, nutrition, and perhaps most importantly - equipment upgrades - he would still be the greatest player who ever lived. Sure, his overall stats may not have been as high, but the gap between him and the others would still be huge.

And as others pointed out, with improved sports medicine he may have actually been better.

Undoubtably! After his first knee injury Orr was supplied with the Lennox-Hill athletic knee brace, the same one I was given when my knee got messed up a few years later. A disaster of a support device. Elastic bands used to supply the support of the metal tubing...uh, folks, elastic stretches! Reduced the effectiveness of the device substantially. Had he a modern brace and had current arthroscopic procedures been available, Orr would have had a much better chance of longer career and stretching the difference between the best and the rest.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I had a chance to work at Orr/Walton back in the mid 70s. Orr demanded that we all treated the kids with respect and kindness and he got damned mad if you didn't. Always a gentleman. Even with those bum knee, when he got on the ice in the evening, when a few of the pros and some of the camp staff (me etc) had a few non-contact games, he was by far the best skater I had and have ever seen.

Met him at a benefit game in Winnipeg in 1980. His former junior teammate Billy Heindle had a failed suicide attempt that left him in a wheel chair. Bobby organized a benefit game for Heindle, and managed to get Gretzky, Dryden, and several Winnipeg Jets and other NHLers to take part. Orr played himself. The money raised money for both Heindle and local community clubs.

As if that wasn't good enough, after the game all the fans scrambled to get their stars autographs. Bobby's handlers hustled him out of a back way, but when me and a bunch of kids discovered this we intercepted Orr and enterouge of about five guys in suits. The other men yelled at us to go away ("Mr. Orr has a plane to catch), but Bobby stopped and very graciously signed autographs for all of us.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Undoubtably! After his first knee injury Orr was supplied with the Lennox-Hill athletic knee brace, the same one I was given when my knee got messed up a few years later. A disaster of a support device. Elastic bands used to supply the support of the metal tubing...uh, folks, elastic stretches! Reduced the effectiveness of the device substantially. Had he a modern brace and had current arthroscopic procedures been available, Orr would have had a much better chance of longer career and stretching the difference between the best and the rest.

I had the exact same knee brace (acquired in '83) after ruining my knee in high school football. When I saw Orr's brace at the hockey hall of fame I almost fell over. I could barely bend my knee with that thing.

 

[authentic]

Could I cheat and say he could do everything as good or better than anybody else in the league?

If I had to say one thing, it would be skating. It is the most important skill in hockey and it's the skill he was better than anybody else at.

However, towards the end of his career he was virtually one-legged (and the leg that remained wasn't that great), but his points per game and defensive play was still incredible. Look at what he accomplished in the '76 Canada Cup when his blazing speed was all but gone.

This is a huge reason why I believe McDavid will remain one of the best if not the best when he loses his speed. Their puck handling, passing and hockey sense are just too good.

Come to think of it, if his hockey sense was cut in half (which is essentially what happened to his overall skating ability) but his peak skating remained, would he have still maintained that elite level of play? Questionable I would assume.

 

[authentic]

Partially to be contrarian, but I'll say (like Gretzky, like Lemieux, like Gordie) - his brain (or "sense of the game", as was stated in the OP).

Yes, he was likely one of the greatest skaters ever. But lots of guys can skate like the wind, stop on a dime, stickhandle through 20 defenders...and they end up producing next to nothing at the highest level. What separates those four from the rest of the mortal world is their ability to see, to predict, to anticipate the game and where players would move.

Even in his own era there were a few guys who were certainly comparable to him in skating ability, Gilbert Perrault and Yvan Cournoyer come to mind. I'm sure there were probably a few others.