Hockey's Biggest "What if"?

[Thenameless]

It is not unreasonable to think that the Orr/Gretzky debate is considered truly neck and neck if Orr has a full career. Youre looking at:

Some have Orr more than neck and neck with Gretzky - they have him ahead. He obviously doesn't have the accomplishments, but if you ask who the better hockey player was, I believe the answer among knowledgeable hockey people is very split.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Some have Orr more than neck and neck with Gretzky - they have him ahead. He obviously doesn't have the accomplishments, but if you ask who the better hockey player was, I believe the answer among knowledgeable hockey people is very split.

absolutely...i was talking more about casual fans and non fans

 

[Normand Lacombe]

What if John Bassett had forced Stafford Smythe and Howard Ballard to sell their shares after their tax evasion conviction? How would the Leafs history have been altered?

 

[BadgerBruce]

I don't think adding Bobby Hull moves the needle much, if at all.

Bobby is the kind of guy that would have taken the Russians lightly and treated the series like a vacation to Russia.

You should watch Game #4 of the second Summit Series in 1974, where Team Canada from the WHA plays what is essentially the same Soviet team that took 72 guys to the brink of defeat.

35 year old Hull nets a hat trick in a 5-5 draw and is absolutely dominant throughout. Did he train for the ‘74 series? In his interview prior to Game #1, he claims that farm chores and a serious farmhouse fire kept him off skates until just a week before the start of the series. But his play didn’t suffer one bit. He led the tournament in scoring (46 year old Howe was 3rd, by the way).

No doubt in my mind that Hull would have been a difference maker in ‘72. His wheels .....if you haven’t seen the Golden Jet in full flight, you’ve missed one of nature’s wonders.

 

[FerrisRox]

You should watch Game #4 of the second Summit Series in 1974, where Team Canada from the WHA plays what is essentially the same Soviet team that took 72 guys to the brink of defeat.

I'm fully aware of his efforts in '74, but that's an entirely different scenario. The perception of the Russian team in 1972 was quite different than 1974. In '72, the Canadians thought it would be a cake walk, and Hull, with his personality and ego I'm guessing would underestimate them and be under prepared.

In '74, they had proven themselves to be worthy foes and therefore Hull would of course take it very seriously and be prepared.

I'm just speculating based on what I know of Bobby. Just an opinion.

 

[BadgerBruce]

I'm fully aware of his efforts in '74, but that's an entirely different scenario. The perception of the Russian team in 1972 was quite different than 1974. In '72, the Canadians thought it would be a cake walk, and Hull, with his personality and ego I'm guessing would underestimate them and be under prepared.

In '74, they had proven themselves to be worthy foes and there fore Hull would of course take it very seriously and be prepared.

I'm just speculating based on what I know of Bobby. Just an opinion.

Keep in mind that Hull had officially left the NHL and signed with the Jets of the WHA prior to the ‘72 series. We are playing a “What If?” game here, so everything is open to debate, but my sense is that Hull would have been highly motivated to play well for Team Canada ‘72. He was the face of a new league and his performance with the Jets suggests that he took this responsibility very seriously. A high end performance in the 72 series would have been Hull’s way of sticking it to the NHL.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

actually, Orr basically did...

Orr's final full season of hockey was age 26...for comparison, Karlsson is 27. After that he only plays in 36 games over the next 3 seasons combined.

By age 26 he already had:

8x Norris
3x Hart
2x Cup
2x Smythe
2x Ross
8x AS-1
Calder
915 pts in 657 games (1.39 ppg)

If they had simple arthroscopic knee surgery back then, Orr misses 6 months and is healthy after. If Orr gets to play until 35, that means he retires in 1985. So he gets to play in the high flying 80s AND play with Ray Bourque

Also, dont forget that Orr played his entire career with damaged knees. The injuries started his sophomore year (1968)...Orr played more than 75 games in a season only 4x

It is not unreasonable to think that the Orr/Gretzky debate is considered truly neck and neck if Orr has a full career. Youre looking at:

- at least 1,500 points
- 3-6 Harts
- 12-15 Norris
- 2-5 Ross
- 2-4 Cups (Boston for sure beats Montreal in 78 and 79 with him)
- 2-4 Smythe
- 12-15 AS-1

But as it stands, we still saw enough of Orr to consider him arguably the greatest player ever. I don't feel there's any huge alteration to the course of history if he plays until 35. Although if they beat Montreal in 79, maybe Grapes never gets fired and never becomes a national icon...

 

[Boxscore]

The three biggest "what if's" in my opinion are:

1. What if the Oilers stayed together until 1995? Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Kurri, Anderson, Lowe, Fuhr were all still very good at that point. That would have given that core another 7 years together, and maybe another 3-4 Cups. Without Coffey on the Pens, I wonder if they would have been able to beat the Oil Machine in 90 and 91.

2. What if Bobby Orr was healthy and played a full career? He already won 8 straight Norris' and some Art Rosses. If Bobby was healthy, he could have easily won 10-12 Norris Trophies, more hardware, and easily established himself as the clear, undisputed GOAT. Some already consider him the GOAT and he was robbed of 7-8 prime years.

3. What if Henderson never scored and the Soviet Union won the 1972 Summit Series? Does this change the program in Canada for better or worse? Does this somehow expedite the Soviet players release and ability to play in the NHL?

4. What if Lindros was winning to go to Quebec? With a core of Lindros, Sakic, Sundin, Nolan, Kamensky, etc. do the Nords win a Cup? Do they somehow stay in Quebec?

As for the others... "Lemieux's health", "Crosby's health" etc. ... we all kind of know how it would turn out. Both players played long enough and accomplished enough to paint a full picture. Orr was the one who was robbed of the majority of a decade.

 

[blundluntman]

What if Tretiak played for Montreal when he was drafted and pushed Roy back a spot?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

what if some crazy rich guy gave pocklington a ludicrous amount of money to sell the oilers and coffey, gretzky, and messier never had to be traded away/sold?

 

[Howie Hodge]

Not the biggest per se; but food for thought.


-What if Phil Esposito wasn't traded to The Bruins in 67? What, based on the Chicago Management's dislike for him, had he been picked by say California, in the expansion draft?

-What if the expansion teams, in their rush to improve, hadn't sent premium picks to established clubs for journeyman players? Guy Lafluer ends up in perhaps California, for one.

-What if Cleveland had been admitted to The NHL in the 1950's?

-What if Punch Imlach's group would have gotten an expansion team in Vancouver in either 67 or 70? Would have affected Toronto in 67, and Buffalo in 70....

-What if the NHL had more realistic evaluations of Wayne Gretzky, and had made him go through the 1979 entry draft?

-What if the Eastern European Countries and their Clubs would have allowed their players to go to The NHL 10 years earlier?

 

[Khomutov]

What if the Soviet Union still existed, so players like Fedorov, Bure, Ovechkin and Malkin never came to North America?

 

[c9777666]

What if the NHL went to a 1-8 playoff format before 1994 and you could have Smythe/Norris or Patrick/Adams playoff matchups in the first two rounds of the playoffs rather than just the conference finals?

 

[alko]

Imagine NHL without lockouts and Jagr never played in KHL. How many points, goals assists could he have?

What if Jozef Golonka could play in NHL? And Vladimir Dzurilla.

 

[Howie Hodge]

Imagine NHL without lockouts and Jagr never played in KHL. How many points, goals assists could he have?

What if Jozef Golonka could play in NHL? And Vladimir Dzurilla.

It would be a miracle. Golonka is 80 years old, and Dzurilla passed away in the 1990's.......

 

[Pominville Knows]

What if Gretzky and Co. remained with the Oilers for the entirety of their careers? The damage Peter Pocklington did to hockey history....

He did damage to the Edmonton Oilers if anything. If Gretzky and co. did not go to LA/USA and we instead got a prolonged dynasty or at least more cups to a former one would not have benefited anyone else than the Oilers, not the least hockey as a whole. Never a good thing with teams going Cupless becouse one team wins them all, not the least when that team happens to play in one of the league's smallest markets.

 

[bobholly39]

Here are the ones that I am most passionate about.

Lemieux - what if he had had 4-5 year stretch of full health (89-94). What records might he have broken? I love seeing records broken - and whereas we got to see Gretzky in top form for many years straight (and it was glorious) - we never got to truly see Lemieux as such, and I would have absolutely loved for the chance. I'd love to find out if he can beat certain records, or how high he might have reached. For me it's less about Lemieux's overall career (i don't think he tops Gretzky there, and even if there was a chance i care less about it) - it's really about peak/prime. I would have wanted to see how high he reached.

Orr - career. Career excites me much less than peak/prime. And we got to see Orr's peak/prime pretty much unhindered. Unless some people expected him to hit yet another gear post age 27 (which isn't impossible for a defenseman) and get even better - with Orr it'd be more about consistency and career longevity. no question in my mind he could have challenged Gretzky for #1 in a perfect healthy world - but i don't think it changes much to his peak/prime (except for more years). Honestly simply seeing Orr vs Gretzky head to head could have been fun.

Crosby - peak. Sorry but i'm young, and i didn't get to watch hockey in the 60s or 50s or even 70s. Sidney Crosby is the best hockey player i've ever seen (after 99 and 66, and I was younger/less into it then) and we were robbed of his very best years. He might have put up 140-150 point one season which would have been unthinkable (of course flipside is he very possibly only tops out at 110-115 too). The point is in my days of watching hockey actively as a big fan - he's the one player i most would have wanted to see at his peak and we didn't see it, which is frustrating. Would have been fun to see how high he could have gone.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Here are the ones that I am most passionate about.

Lemieux - what if he had had 4-5 year stretch of full health (89-94). What records might he have broken? I love seeing records broken - and whereas we got to see Gretzky in top form for many years straight (and it was glorious) - we never got to truly see Lemieux as such, and I would have absolutely loved for the chance. I'd love to find out if he can beat certain records, or how high he might have reached. For me it's less about Lemieux's overall career (i don't think he tops Gretzky there, and even if there was a chance i care less about it) - it's really about peak/prime. I would have wanted to see how high he reached.

Orr - career. Career excites me much less than peak/prime. And we got to see Orr's peak/prime pretty much unhindered. Unless some people expected him to hit yet another gear post age 27 (which isn't impossible for a defenseman) and get even better - with Orr it'd be more about consistency and career longevity. no question in my mind he could have challenged Gretzky for #1 in a perfect healthy world - but i don't think it changes much to his peak/prime (except for more years). Honestly simply seeing Orr vs Gretzky head to head could have been fun.

Crosby - peak. Sorry but i'm young, and i didn't get to watch hockey in the 60s or 50s or even 70s. Sidney Crosby is the best hockey player i've ever seen (after 99 and 66, and I was younger/less into it then) and we were robbed of his very best years. He might have put up 140-150 point one season which would have been unthinkable (of course flipside is he very possibly only tops out at 110-115 too). The point is in my days of watching hockey actively as a big fan - he's the one player i most would have wanted to see at his peak and we didn't see it, which is frustrating. Would have been fun to see how high he could have gone.

with Orr, I think you can easily make a case we didnt see his best.

for starters, we never saw him healthy. He played his career with nagging knee injuries.

also, he was on what you could call a rise to his true peak when he stopped playing.

His final 3 full years saw improvements of:

29-72-101
32-90-122
46-89-135

His final full year is pretty easily his 2nd best of his career.

46 goals was his career high by 9
135 points was only 4 off his career high, and is 13 more than his 3rd highest scoring year.

Its not out of the question to think between 1977 and 1983 he could've hit 150 points.

He would've only been 27-33 years old, and would've been playing with Brad Park, then with Ray Bourque

 

[DannyGallivan]

I don't think adding Bobby Hull moves the needle much, if at all.

Bobby is the kind of guy that would have taken the Russians lightly and treated the series like a vacation to Russia.

The evidence proves you wrong. He was the tournament's best player in 1974 (at even two years older), with a much weaker WHA supporting staff. In that 8 game series against the same team, Hull lead the series with 9 points, including a whopping 7 goals in 8 eight games (should have had another, but it was unjustly disallowed... it tied one of the games in Moscow just before time ran out). He also had a first period hat trick in one of the games.

Meanwhile, in the 1976 Canada Cup, a 36 year-old Bobby Hull was only a single point behind the three players tied for first in points, with 5 goals and 3 assists in 8 games.

Finally, in 1978 a 38 year-old Bobby Hull scored a Hat trick as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Red Army 5-3 in Winnipeg.

So as you see, Hull loved and absolutely thrived against Soviet (in fact, any European country) competition. It fit his game perfectly. He and he alone would likely have made a massive difference in 1972. If you add Bobby Orr, then the tournament become a bit of a laugher in Canada's favour.

 

[DannyGallivan]

Nope. Team Canada had enough skill. Matching the Soviet's fitness and conditioning was the problem.

It's logically odd to say that adding Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr wouldnt' have given Canada more of an advantage. They were out of shape, yet they won game two handidly and managed a tie in game three.

 

[FerrisRox]

The evidence proves you wrong. He was the tournament's best player in 1974 (at even two years older), with a much weaker WHA supporting staff. In that 8 game series against the same team, Hull lead the series with 9 points, including a whopping 7 goals in 8 eight games (should have had another, but it was unjustly disallowed... it tied one of the games in Moscow just before time ran out). He also had a first period hat trick in one of the games.

Meanwhile, in the 1976 Canada Cup, a 36 year-old Bobby Hull was only a single point behind the three players tied for first in points, with 5 goals and 3 assists in 8 games.

Finally, in 1978 a 38 year-old Bobby Hull scored a Hat trick as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Red Army 5-3 in Winnipeg.

So as you see, Hull loved and absolutely thrived against Soviet (in fact, any European country) competition. It fit his game perfectly. He and he alone would likely have made a massive difference in 1972. If you add Bobby Orr, then the tournament become a bit of a laugher in Canada's favour.

I've already addressed this. I didn't doubt his talent, I doubted his motivation. All of the examples you gave were games where Hull had a reason to get up and deliver his best against the Russians. In 1972, the Russians were not respected, feared or considered much of a challenge and some several players on Canada were guilty of taking them too lightly and not taking the the Summit Series very seriously until they discovered the Russians were a more than worthy foe.

It's plainly obvious watching the series that Canada wasn't nearly as well conditioned or prepared for the Series. I suspect Hull would have been one of the guilty parties when it came to people that weren't training or preparing for this match up and one of the guys that treated the tourney like a chance to go to Russia and drink some vodka.

 

[VanIslander]

What if the Silver Seven hadn't found the Stanley Cup the morning after they had drunkenly abandoned it in the Rideau canal?

What if Eddie Livingstone hadn't been such a difficult guy that other team owners were prompted to form the NHL to exclude him?

What if the AHL's attempts to challenge for the Stanley Cup hadn't been rebuffed at every turn back when the AHL were in several U.S. markets and had a lot of talent?

What if Conn Smythe hadn't been able to convince union construction workers hired to build Maple Leaf Gardens to take a lot of their pay as stock rather than salary during the Depression era?

 

[rfournier103]

What if the WHA never existed?

Who would have drafted Wayne Gretzky? Would the Montreal dynasty have continued? What would player-management relations have been like had there not been a rival league for players to bounce to? The whole course of NHL history would have been different...

 

[DannyGallivan]

I've already addressed this. I didn't doubt his talent, I doubted his motivation. All of the examples you gave were games where Hull had a reason to get up and deliver his best against the Russians. In 1972, the Russians were not respected, feared or considered much of a challenge and some several players on Canada were guilty of taking them too lightly and not taking the the Summit Series very seriously until they discovered the Russians were a more than worthy foe.

It's plainly obvious watching the series that Canada wasn't nearly as well conditioned or prepared for the Series. I suspect Hull would have been one of the guilty parties when it came to people that weren't training or preparing for this match up and one of the guys that treated the tourney like a chance to go to Russia and drink some vodka.

This is Hull in the off-season. I don't think his conditioning would have been an issue.

However, I may give the Soviets game one, as that was almost an ambush considering how lightly the Canadians took them (until about the half-way point of the first period, when we were gassed and they still had their legs).

 

[Boxscore]

What if the Soviet Union still existed, so players like Fedorov, Bure, Ovechkin and Malkin never came to North America?

That would be terrible for hockey, the NHL and civilization.