Bobby Orr- what was his greatest attribute?

[BobbyAwe]

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

In the first 3 years of expansion, the St. Louis Blues went to the SC finals representing the Western Division expansion teams and were SWEPT each time. They were 0-12 against "Original 6" teams in the finals. In 1967-68, there was NOBODY from an expansion team to make the top 10 in scoring in the league, and NOBODY from an expansion team on the First OR Second All-Star team picks.

Does that sound like the expansion teams were stocked with an "abundance of top talent"? You can't be serious?

 

[BobbyAwe]

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.

You are still not taking into consideration the effect of tripling the number of teams in such a short period of time. The TG/G may have been approximately the same as today, but the gap in ability between the star players and the average players was greater. The better players were suddenly scoring more than they had before, because the expansion teams basically sucked. Do you think Esposito would have scored 76 goals in the 6 team league? Do you think he would be 47 points better in his best season than Howe was in his best season, if those "bests" occurred in the SAME season, against the SAME teams? How about Mike Walton leading the league in points in 1973-74 in the WHA - would he have done that in the NHL? The marks any player sets has to do only with the level of competition he is facing in his era and/or league. His greatness is RELATIVE to how good his team mates and competition are. So it is an all team sports. If you dilute a professional league by suddenly adding 100% (or more) WEAKER teams, the players who were already "good" are going to become STARS, and the players who were already stars are going to become SUPER STARS, and the single player who was the BEST might ultimately be regarded as almost MYTHICAL in ability.

 

[DannyGallivan]

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.

As an aside, the Hockey News had one of their specialty magazines several years back, where they ranked players in various categories via hockey experts going back a few generations. One of the most intriguing categories was "Best skater of all time". They had Orr second all time. Number one was Paul Coffey, who skated on the dullest blades in the league.

 

[Canadiens1958]

You are still not taking into consideration the effect of tripling the number of teams in such a short period of time. The TG/G may have been approximately the same as today, but the gap in ability between the star players and the average players was greater. The better players were suddenly scoring more than they had before, because the expansion teams basically sucked. Do you think Esposito would have scored 76 goals in the 6 team league? Do you think he would be 47 points better in his best season than Howe was in his best season, if those "bests" occurred in the SAME season, against the SAME teams? How about Mike Walton leading the league in points in 1973-74 in the WHA - would he have done that in the NHL? The marks any player sets has to do only with the level of competition he is facing in his era and/or league. His greatness is RELATIVE to how good his team mates and competition are. So it is an all team sports. If you dilute a professional league by suddenly adding 100% (or more) WEAKER teams, the players who were already "good" are going to become STARS, and the players who were already stars are going to become SUPER STARS, and the single player who was the BEST might ultimately be regarded as almost MYTHICAL in ability.

Guyle Fielder was a record-setting scoring leader in the WHL who could not play in the NHL, O6 with Gordie Howe. Mike Walton is like André Lacroix,a tweener.

Look at the 1970-71 Bruins. Orr and Esposito and the other Bruins enjoyed the benefit of the team rolling three lines, instead of four plus significant extra ice time for the two greats. Playoffs, first round, the abilities, of the rest of the team except for Orr and Esposito were exposed by the Canadiens, a skating team.

1970-71 Boston Bruins Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Factor out Orr and Esposito with or without expansion and you have the pre Orr and Esposito Bruins. A team with limited speed, some smarts Bucyk, Oliver.

With or without expansion Cheevers remains a goalie who could not handle a workload of more than 50 NHL games, Johnston was good for about 40-45.

 

[BobbyAwe]

Guyle Fielder was a record-setting scoring leader in the WHL who could not play in the NHL, O6 with Gordie Howe. Mike Walton is like André Lacroix,a tweener.

Look at the 1970-71 Bruins. Orr and Esposito and the other Bruins enjoyed the benefit of the team rolling three lines, instead of four plus significant extra ice time for the two greats. Playoffs, first round, the abilities, of the rest of the team except for Orr and Esposito were exposed by the Canadiens, a skating team.

1970-71 Boston Bruins Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Factor out Orr and Esposito with or without expansion and you have the pre Orr and Esposito Bruins. A team with limited speed, some smarts Bucyk, Oliver.

With or without expansion Cheevers remains a goalie who could not handle a workload of more than 50 NHL games, Johnston was good for about 40-45.

Per your first point you seem to be making a case for the stars of that era scoring MORE than they would today because their TOI was greater? So we agree? That was one of several reasons, the biggest being the better goaltending of the more modern era. All I'm saying is that Orr and Esposito would not post those kind of numbers if they were in their prime in today's game.

Your second point seems (?) to be implying that Orr and Esposito were almost totally responsible for the numbers the rest of their team mates were putting up? I have no doubt that Orr (mainly) made that team better more than any other one player on any other team made their team better, but only WITHIN REASON. The single greatest factor why their numbers were inflated was the weak expansion teams they were suddenly feasting on. That season, Bucyk and McKenzie FAR outstripped their best pre-expansion seasons, and the other 3 best forwards for the Bruins were the 3 who the Hawks got rid of before the expansion. Esposito was the only one of the 3 who the Hawks considered "good" but not great, and Hodge and Stanfield were considered very ordinary.

 

[authentic]

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 can't believe people are still fighting the good fight.

 

[authentic]

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.

So Orr was on the ice more, against weaker competition, and scored more. Sounds about right.

 

[Canadiens1958]

So Orr was on the ice more, against weaker competition, and scored more. Sounds about right.

Historically defencemen are always on the ice more than forwards but they rarely score more than forwards.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Per your first point you seem to be making a case for the stars of that era scoring MORE than they would today because their TOI was greater? So we agree? That was one of several reasons, the biggest being the better goaltending of the more modern era. All I'm saying is that Orr and Esposito would not post those kind of numbers if they were in their prime in today's game.

Your second point seems (?) to be implying that Orr and Esposito were almost totally responsible for the numbers the rest of their team mates were putting up? I have no doubt that Orr (mainly) made that team better more than any other one player on any other team made their team better, but only WITHIN REASON. The single greatest factor why their numbers were inflated was the weak expansion teams they were suddenly feasting on. That season, Bucyk and McKenzie FAR outstripped their best pre-expansion seasons, and the other 3 best forwards for the Bruins were the 3 who the Hawks got rid of before the expansion. Esposito was the only one of the 3 who the Hawks considered "good" but not great, and Hodge and Stanfield were considered very ordinary.

Orr distributed the puck liberally for tip-ins, uncontested goals and Esposito gave statistical value to touches while generating rebound assists.

Goaltending. This is trickier. The two goalie system introduced in 1964-65 produced a goalie developmental problem. Specifically all the feeder levels from intro to the minors to the NHL/WHA required twice as many goalies per team. So the goalie talent suffered.

Net result was very few teams had defined number one goalies, some taking longer than usual to mature.So the period from roughly 1970 to 1990 had very uneven goaltending.

Other than Dryden, Esposito, briefly Parent and Vachon, later Liut lite, teams did not have workhorse goalies long term, compounded by having to play back-ups from time to time to keep them game ready. Most teams had two or three goalie composites. Cheevers / Johnston, Giacomin / Villemure, Smith / Resch, Bouchard / Myre, and others. This facilitated scoring as well.

 

[authentic]

Historically defencemen are always on the ice more than forwards but they rarely score more than forwards.

Well I wonder why that might be.

 

[OkimLom]

IMO, his skating and his mental ability to use it effectively, that was his best attribute.

As for the debate about where Orr would be ranked in today's game. If you pluck him from the 60's and give him the modern coaching, modern equipment, modern training, modern goaltending, and modern systems, I think he's still an impactful player, but not as impactful and not with the same gap he had back then. Compared to the days he used to play, he would have to out think not just the players, but also the coaching staff. I think if Orr played the game today on an equal footing of the players today, he would probably be in the top 5. There is just a lot of evolution in the game of hockey in terms of improvement and the seriousness of it that I think the gap of talent level between Orr and the rest of the players would most likely be closed.

No matter what, we don't see the product of today without Orr and Gretzky, and most likely Mario. We're not seeing the players we see today without the foundation laid by teams and other players trying to stop the likes of Bobby and Wayne. I'd rather focus on the historical impact on the game of hockey Orr had on the game than arguing whether or not Orr would somehow be the player he was back then, if it was up to me.

 

[Tarantula]

IMO, his skating and his mental ability to use it effectively, that was his best attribute.

As for the debate about where Orr would be ranked in today's game. If you pluck him from the 60's and give him the modern coaching, modern equipment, modern training, modern goaltending, and modern systems, I think he's still an impactful player, but not as impactful and not with the same gap he had back then. Compared to the days he used to play, he would have to out think not just the players, but also the coaching staff. I think if Orr played the game today on an equal footing of the players today, he would probably be in the top 5. There is just a lot of evolution in the game of hockey in terms of improvement and the seriousness of it that I think the gap of talent level between Orr and the rest of the players would most likely be closed.

No matter what, we don't see the product of today without Orr and Gretzky, and most likely Mario. We're not seeing the players we see today without the foundation laid by teams and other players trying to stop the likes of Bobby and Wayne. I'd rather focus on the historical impact on the game of hockey Orr had on the game than arguing whether or not Orr would somehow be the player he was back then, if it was up to me.

I would agree as trying to compare eras is impossible for any player. It is the historical significance and context that marks and defines the great players.