Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
In the 1980's, Grant Mulvey, John Tonelli, Willy Lindstrom, Mark Pavelich, Bengt Gustafsson, Pat Hughes.
Certainly not superstars.
Explain why Bobby Orr is consensus best D?
- Thread starter YippieKaey
- Start date
Certainly not superstars.
Fatass
Registered User
- Apr 17, 2017
- 22,196
- 14,101
True, but they were better players than guys of their tier than guys now. The top tier had more and the bottom tier was higher.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Which Bo Jackson?
The baseball player that hit .250?
Or the footbal player that played 38 NFL games?
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Was there a video game in the 70's where a player was almost unstoppable...? Maybe that's what he means...
VanIslander
A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
The unfortunate gimp who had a short career but was hyped as the best ever.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Hasek = God at 735 games
Orr = Unfortunate gimp at 657 games
Goalie vs forward, I know. But also, the vast majority of Orr's career had sub-80 game seasons. Hasek played in the lone workhorse era of the ~80 game season times. I declare GROUPTHINK!
Orr = Unfortunate gimp at 657 games
Goalie vs forward, I know. But also, the vast majority of Orr's career had sub-80 game seasons. Hasek played in the lone workhorse era of the ~80 game season times. I declare GROUPTHINK!
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Maybe those were the peak offensive years because the superstar players were better?
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes its as simple as the increase in offensive ability of D men from say 1978 on. You go back an look at goal scoring by d men and their shot totals say 1963-64 thru 1965-66 and compare it to 1982-83 and it looks like an alien form appeared in 1982-83...lol. Just no comparison to the goal scoring prowress and shot prowress
of those 80's dmen. Be interesting to see what the increased goal scoring from D men alone from say 1977-78 compared to O6 altered the increase in offense. Lot more D men could rifle the puck in '82-83 than in O6 days.
Ironically Orr was responsible for it.
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes its as simple as the increase in offensive ability of D men from say 1978 on. You go back an look at goal scoring by d men and their shot totals say 1963-64 thru 1965-66 and compare it to 1982-83 and it looks like an alien form appeared in 1982-83...lol. Just no comparison to the goal scoring prowress and shot prowress
of those 80's dmen. Be interesting to see what the increased goal scoring from D men alone from say 1977-78 compared to O6 altered the increase in offense. Lot more D men could rifle the puck in '82-83 than in O6 days.
Ironically Orr was responsible for it.
MadLuke
Registered User
- Jan 18, 2011
- 9,581
- 5,208
It was probably half serious but that would be quite nhl centric, Hasek had one of the longest career in the history of the sport, with 558 tracked games played outside the NHL from 16 to 46 years old in intl tourney-league.
Outside maybe Jagr-Chelios-Howe not many played that long.
Orr probably did indeed had more great season in the nhl than Hasek too, which put things in perspective and I should have included him in my list of the Lindros, Lafleur, Jagr, Forsberg, Ovechkin, etc...
Last edited:
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Barnum
Registered User
Looking at P%, the best seasons from Kelly, Harvey, Pilote, Gadsby all stayed around the same 20-25% mark, Gadsby's 53-54 peaked at 30.8%, but that was mostly because Chicago couldn't score. One amusing tidbit I learned is that Red Kelly's first Toronto season as a center was a higher P% (30%), than any of his Detroit seasons as a defenseman. Even Orr's first couple of seasons were in that low 20s range. Eddie Shore had a couple in the 22 range, and his peak 32-33 season was 28%.
Like, I'm not claiming Orr isn't an outlier. All my math is saying that scoring 150 is unlikely, not that it is out of the realm of possibility. If you iterated a simulation of the early 80s 10000 times, maybe Orr scores 150 points 50 or 100 times. It's the same fallacy as the "Lemieux would score 200 points in today's NHL" - sure he'd probably put up a bunch of 50% P% seasons, like he did in his prime, but 200 points requires his team to score 400 goals, when there have been 11 teams that have cleared 300 since the lockout, and nobody more than the Panthers in 21-22 with 337 or Edmonton last year with 325. The gap in offensive talent between McDavid and Lemieux is not an extra goal per game (325/82=3.96 GPG, 400/82=4.87 GPG).
You inspired me to create a slimmed down version of my VsX list for just defenseman scoring though, but it is a bit of a slog (unlike the top 20 where I could transcribe line by line, I have to hunt through the list for the next D). I did finally catch on to why Joe Malone and Cy Denneny had such a discrepancy in VsX - I mindlessly copied h-r's 86 for league average in 17-18 without thinking about the Wanderers folding. LA should be ~105.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
I'll accept that as relatively common ground.
I'd be kind of curious to see - in light of pnep's newly provided data of duos/trios - to see the impact and distance from the pack (be it median or be it the bottom quartile, I can't figure, probably varies by era) on those that had a partner(s) in crime in lower quality times vs. higher quality times.
Maybe it's a little bit like the NBA of the last decade or so...most teams fall into one of three categories it seems like: all star team (4 or 5ish teams), average teams that make the playoffs, and then teams that are disorganized and/or actively tanking.
Thus, you see the distinct prominence of lines or duos taking "exponential" advantage of weaker opponents...Triple Crown Line, Orr/Espo, Gretzky and nobodies followed by Gretzky/Kurri/Coffey, Lemieux and nobodies, Trottier/Bossy/Potvin, Lafleur/Robinson.
You look at the top 10 scorers from 1976 thru 1986 (so, 110 entries) - Just four teams represent half of all entries (Gretzky+friends, NYI, Triple Crown, Mtl). Supernova, organized team (with stars), supernova, organized team (with stars).
Fittingly, in that time, only three teams legitimately won more than half of their playoff games...
Mtl 68%
Edm 68%
NYI 65%
--
The only other team over 50% is 50.5% Philadelphia - who fall under "organized team" (with one star).
The outlier is Los Angeles. Who look tragic by this measure. They went just 15-28 in the playoffs (34.9%, only Detroit, Winnipeg, and NJ/CLR are worse). Vachon helped them go 8-10 in this window. Then he left in '78. They went 7-18 after that. Quite an indictment on the non-Dionne linemates and the goaltending there perhaps. Perhaps on Dionne. Worth cracking that case open.
Anyhow, I'm done rambling to no point...
I'd be kind of curious to see - in light of pnep's newly provided data of duos/trios - to see the impact and distance from the pack (be it median or be it the bottom quartile, I can't figure, probably varies by era) on those that had a partner(s) in crime in lower quality times vs. higher quality times.
Maybe it's a little bit like the NBA of the last decade or so...most teams fall into one of three categories it seems like: all star team (4 or 5ish teams), average teams that make the playoffs, and then teams that are disorganized and/or actively tanking.
Thus, you see the distinct prominence of lines or duos taking "exponential" advantage of weaker opponents...Triple Crown Line, Orr/Espo, Gretzky and nobodies followed by Gretzky/Kurri/Coffey, Lemieux and nobodies, Trottier/Bossy/Potvin, Lafleur/Robinson.
You look at the top 10 scorers from 1976 thru 1986 (so, 110 entries) - Just four teams represent half of all entries (Gretzky+friends, NYI, Triple Crown, Mtl). Supernova, organized team (with stars), supernova, organized team (with stars).
Fittingly, in that time, only three teams legitimately won more than half of their playoff games...
Mtl 68%
Edm 68%
NYI 65%
--
The only other team over 50% is 50.5% Philadelphia - who fall under "organized team" (with one star).
The outlier is Los Angeles. Who look tragic by this measure. They went just 15-28 in the playoffs (34.9%, only Detroit, Winnipeg, and NJ/CLR are worse). Vachon helped them go 8-10 in this window. Then he left in '78. They went 7-18 after that. Quite an indictment on the non-Dionne linemates and the goaltending there perhaps. Perhaps on Dionne. Worth cracking that case open.
Anyhow, I'm done rambling to no point...
I have some answers for defensemen scoring - done the top 10 for all post-lockout years, and the P% of most years top 10 is in that 22-28 range. There are a few outliers obviously, and using my Average VsX numbers here are the best seasons and the ones who broke 30% in P%.
Re: the pairs/lines taking advantage, I actually feel like that's a more prominent aspect of the O6 era. More teams means a more diffuse schedule, with the best players only getting 4-6 games per team against the worst teams. In the O6 era, there might be only 1 or 2 really bad teams, but the best players would have 14 games against them. It's hard to time the dynasty teams, but if you just go by DET MTL in the 11 years between 49-50 and 59-60, after including ties there are 58 slots in the top 5 scorers, and DET MTL take 40 (split 20/20), CHI BOS NYR TOR take 18 (CHI - Litzenberger 56-57 58-59 Hull 59-60, BOS - Ronty 49-50 Schmidt 50-51 Horvath 57-58 59-60, NYR - Raleigh 51-52 Hergesheimer 52-53 Bathgate 55-56 56-57 57-58 58-59 59-60, TOR Bentley 50-51 Kennedy 50-51 Smith 51-52 Sloan 55-56), a 70/30 split. [In fairness, that split for 6 through 10 plus ties has a much better balance, DET MTL has 23, CHI BOS NYR TOR has 34 of the 57 slots. OTOH, before the non-dynasty teams swept the top 3 in 59-60 (Beliveau tied for 3rd), Bentley 3rd in 50-51 and Bathgate 3rd in 57-58 and 58-59 were the only seasons preventing a clean sweep - 27 of 30 or 28 of 34 (split 13 DET 14/15 MTL).]
On the other end, how do you even begin to define dynasty in the modern NHL? The first tack I took was the top 5 teams in points from 05-06 through 15-16, which was Detroit, San Jose, Anaheim, Pittsburgh, and New York, then counting their top 10 appearances. That ended up being 34 of 113 or so, or about 30% when 5 teams represent 16.66%. You could go by Cup success, where you'd have Detroit, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh and cover every year from 07-08 to 16-17, but only get 23 of the 107 slots in that period. You also have Tampa, where if you declare 18-19 to 21-22 their dynasty, you get a bunch of Stamkos/St. Louis top 5 finishes from 2010-13. [Also, I initially cut off at 15-16 to match your 11 seasons, but if I extend to 16-17, Washington replaces New York, and suddenly you have 15 top 10 finishes replacing of 3 (or 7 top 5 instead of 1 top 5).]
So which is the most unbalanced - 70% of the top 5 with 33% of the teams (or 55% of top 10), your 50% of the top 10 with 20% of the teams (I did a quick count from 75-76 to 85-86 and got 36 of 57 top 5 slots, 63%), or 30% of the top 10 with 16% of the teams that is the modern game. I don't know that you can have one consistent standard that you can apply to each era.
| Name | Year | Points | P% | Avg VsX D |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | 05-06 | 80 | 0.266 | 114.18 |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | 07-08 | 70 | 0.278 | 111.11 |
| Mike Green | 08-09 | 73 | 0.272 | 110.43 |
| Mike Green | 09-10 | 76 | 0.243 | 118.51 |
| Duncan Keith | 09-10 | 69 | 0.263 | 107.59 |
| Lubomir Visnovsky | 10-11 | 68 | 0.289 | 107.46 |
| Erik Karlsson | 11-12 | 78 | 0.321 | 126.65 |
| Erik Karlsson | 13-14 | 74 | 0.323 | 119.61 |
| Erik Karlsson | 14-15 | 66 | 0.284 | 107.17 |
| Brent Burns | 15-16 | 75 | 0.335 | 121.22 |
| Kris Letang | 15-16 | 67 | 0.309 | 108.29 |
| Oliver Ekman-Larsson | 15-16 | 55 | 0.333 | 88.90 |
| Brent Burns | 16-17 | 76 | 0.347 | 120.64 |
| Victor Hedman | 16-17 | 72 | 0.313 | 114.29 |
| Erik Karlsson | 16-17 | 71 | 0.345 | 112.70 |
| Brent Burns | 18-19 | 83 | 0.287 | 120.41 |
| Mark Giordano | 18-19 | 74 | 0.256 | 107.35 |
| John Carlson | 19-20 | 75 | 0.318 | 127.63 |
| Roman Josi | 19-20 | 65 | 0.307 | 110.62 |
| Roman Josi | 21-22 | 96 | 0.366 | 133.26 |
| Cale Makar | 21-22 | 86 | 0.279 | 119.38 |
| Victor Hedman | 21-22 | 85 | 0.298 | 117.99 |
| Erik Karlsson | 22-23 | 101 | 0.433 | 138.57 |
| Josh Morrissey | 22-23 | 76 | 0.309 | 104.27 |
Re: the pairs/lines taking advantage, I actually feel like that's a more prominent aspect of the O6 era. More teams means a more diffuse schedule, with the best players only getting 4-6 games per team against the worst teams. In the O6 era, there might be only 1 or 2 really bad teams, but the best players would have 14 games against them. It's hard to time the dynasty teams, but if you just go by DET MTL in the 11 years between 49-50 and 59-60, after including ties there are 58 slots in the top 5 scorers, and DET MTL take 40 (split 20/20), CHI BOS NYR TOR take 18 (CHI - Litzenberger 56-57 58-59 Hull 59-60, BOS - Ronty 49-50 Schmidt 50-51 Horvath 57-58 59-60, NYR - Raleigh 51-52 Hergesheimer 52-53 Bathgate 55-56 56-57 57-58 58-59 59-60, TOR Bentley 50-51 Kennedy 50-51 Smith 51-52 Sloan 55-56), a 70/30 split. [In fairness, that split for 6 through 10 plus ties has a much better balance, DET MTL has 23, CHI BOS NYR TOR has 34 of the 57 slots. OTOH, before the non-dynasty teams swept the top 3 in 59-60 (Beliveau tied for 3rd), Bentley 3rd in 50-51 and Bathgate 3rd in 57-58 and 58-59 were the only seasons preventing a clean sweep - 27 of 30 or 28 of 34 (split 13 DET 14/15 MTL).]
On the other end, how do you even begin to define dynasty in the modern NHL? The first tack I took was the top 5 teams in points from 05-06 through 15-16, which was Detroit, San Jose, Anaheim, Pittsburgh, and New York, then counting their top 10 appearances. That ended up being 34 of 113 or so, or about 30% when 5 teams represent 16.66%. You could go by Cup success, where you'd have Detroit, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh and cover every year from 07-08 to 16-17, but only get 23 of the 107 slots in that period. You also have Tampa, where if you declare 18-19 to 21-22 their dynasty, you get a bunch of Stamkos/St. Louis top 5 finishes from 2010-13. [Also, I initially cut off at 15-16 to match your 11 seasons, but if I extend to 16-17, Washington replaces New York, and suddenly you have 15 top 10 finishes replacing of 3 (or 7 top 5 instead of 1 top 5).]
So which is the most unbalanced - 70% of the top 5 with 33% of the teams (or 55% of top 10), your 50% of the top 10 with 20% of the teams (I did a quick count from 75-76 to 85-86 and got 36 of 57 top 5 slots, 63%), or 30% of the top 10 with 16% of the teams that is the modern game. I don't know that you can have one consistent standard that you can apply to each era.
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
Another wrinkle is I'd argue the balance we see post lockout is artificial and forced by the league via the salary cap. The league can claim the cost certainty was the driver, but you know they hated the idea that poor teams were DOA because they couldn't spend enough.
Problem is it drives everyone down to a common average and prevents the dynasties and pairing of stars that brings excitement and catches people's attention.
For example, most people loathe 'The Decision' but the LeBron Heat drew attention and big ratings.
Leagues like the NFL avoid this pitfall of the cap because of the sport itself. QB is such a factor in the team's success that they can elevate average rosters into champions
The lack of d had more to do with bad coaching and the proliferation of players
on d who could shoot the puck was a significant reason for increased scoring.
Add in lots of forwards who could shoot and goaltenders equipment not changing much and you have the answer for increased scoring, not the drop in player quality.
Lets get real ok? For 3 decades goalies never had to wear a mask, then along comes the slapshot and within 10 years all goalies have masks. Then Orr comes along and
revolutionizes the game not only by his rushing ability but also with his shooting ability.
It was no accident that beginning about 1976-79 you had a wave a offensive minded dmen who could shoot the park hard.
All this talk about a hypothetically healthy Orr and not one sentence about how hypothetically "healthy" every player he played against was!!!
Better athletes started playing defense because they were made integral parts of the offense due solely to Orr. Another aspect of Orr's game which is being overlooked
was his shot. It was harder than any other defensemen of his early part of career.
Just look what happened with dmen that came out of just New England from the Orr boom.
Players born between 1955-69 (arguably Orr boom) you had the following players who played in NHL All-Star games or were considered elite at the NCAA D1 level. Mike O'Connell, Rod Langway, Mark Fusco, Jeff Norton, Brian Leetch and Mathieu Schneider.
That's the impact he had. Elite D-Men from NE before Orr? Paul Hurley and that was at the NCAA D1 level.
That is what I always thought. Some of the best players in Canada played defense in the late 70s early 80s. Orr made playing defense cool when the best player in the league by a wide margin was a defenseman. A case can be made that the best player in the NHL after Orr and before Gretzky was Potvin. The 70s goonishness didn't hurt either.
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
"Healthy" with Orr simply means playing past age 26...
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
There's also an element of positional evolution. Even up to the 40's and 50's, some guys were just standing at or around the blueline. When you look back in the 20's and 30's, that's generally how you defended. You stood on the blueline and tackled the on-rusher basically. That took some time to evolve out...Orr turned it up to 11, of course.
Then, the imposters come along and do their own half-baked stuff...like Housley.
Then, the imposters come along and do their own half-baked stuff...like Housley.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Not seeing the connection between defensemen that could shoot the puck and the huge descrepency of 5 goal games by individuals in the 1980s.
I don't think I made the argument that there was a drop in player quality. Pretty sure I said teams were poor defensively. And they certainly were that.
If you are going to bring longevity-total career into it, rather than peak performance, then he is not clearly the best. However, the reason that you would consider his teams “Stacked” was because of him, not Sanderson, Bucky, Hodge, Espo, etc, good as they were. It’s like saying it’s his fault that he was playing on a team with him on it.
I never watched Shore play, or a young Doug Harvey. All I can say is that Orr revolutionized the game. Before him, there were offensive Dmen like King Clancy, Red Kelly, and Doug Harvey, but no one dominated, and rushed the puck the way Orr did. He spawned a whole new way of playing for Dmen, and for offenses in general. Generational doesn’t even begin to cover what he did… more like he discovered a new dimension to hockey.
Orr was a phenomenon. He burst onto the scene and did things we had never seen before on a regular basis, and made other great players in the league look like minor leaguers. The only thing that could stop him was the odd hit(I.e. Pat Quinn), and his own body(knees). If he played in the modern era with arthroscopic surgery and far more protective rules against blindside and predatory hits he would’ve been far and away the best player to ever play.
Mike C
Registered User
It isnt hype.
Best ever is either Orr then Gretzky then everybody else or Gretzky then Orr then everybody else.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Just wanted to quote this for emphasis. Orr's Bruins were not "stacked". They were an average team. He was an excellent player. Simple as that.
2.10 GF:GA at even strength with Orr on the ice, 1.05 without him. That says it all.
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