This response needs to be emphasized.
I am ashamed of myself and other posters who engage a member who chooses to take positions that would make Stan Fischler blush.
Gretzky not a top 10 playoff performer all time? Didn't play the right way? A player with 4 Stanley Cups, the most 40+ point playoffs, four 200+ points seasons and unmatched international success should have played a more rounded game? God knows where he'd rank Lemieux, then. I actually thought my criticism of Gretzky was extreme (that he should have done what was necessary to stay in Edmonton and that he robbed us of even more greatness by CHOOSING to go to Los Angeles), but apparently not.
Yet says nothing of Orr's watered down era.
It's one thing to think differently from the crowd. It's another to enter a discussion with such a view and have no intention to self-reflect on that opinion.
I used to think Hasek was better than Roy. Thanks to the HOH board, I flipped that opinion.
I have long lurked here and enjoy many of the extreme positions posed (bobbyholly, DennisBonvie, Killion), but it is sad when many good assets to HF acknowledge those who give nothing to the community.
....
alright alright alright enough enough enough.... Look, I totally get how people would get upset with any number of Canadien58's suggestions, "thesis" if you will however its unfair to suggest that the opinions he's expressed are not being done so objectively. That he's being intellectually dishonest somehow, grossly underrating, under-appreciating, disrespecting Wayne Gretzky the man, the player, his accomplishments which are beyond incredible, amazing. There arent enough superlatives in the english language to even begin.......
So. Rather than rejecting the posters hypothesis & getting upset (and I dont like seeing any of you guys getting upset)... remember, this is all based on conjecture & speculation & one simply must not discount the opinions of in this case someone with over 60yrs worth of in-game, Coaching & Scouting at the entry levels to the elite levels of the game, eyewitness to the 06 era & not a child during its last decade but someone old enough to understand & critically analyse the players & Coaches he was studying.... Who then retroactively over the years studied the game & its players, history; as in "gee, I wonder what happened there" & so on.
Bottom line; Wayne Gretzky would absolutely have excelled & dominated in ANY era however what we would have seen given the era & style of play, pre-requisites, qualifiers, "roundedness" & so on would have been a slightly different version of the Wayne Gretzky we were lucky enough to see throughout the 80's & 90's, or if you were around, from his humble beginnings in Brantford, with the Nats in Toronto, Jr.A in the Sault; his WHA seasons. He was a creature of his era, times. If one casts a critical & objective eye over his play, how he played, what he was capable of & you freeze that, then transport him back in time whole cloth then yes, there would be problems, flaws in his game. However, had he been brought up, inculcated, taught the game, learned it during the earlier era ('s) being discussed here, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he would have obediently followed those dictates & in doing so given his vision & determination would have blown people away & shattered every record in the book just as he did in the 80's & 90's.
Distilled down, thats really all C58, Dennis Bonvie & that I myself & others are opining. The past, that era of the 6 teams post War through 67 was a different country, they do things differently back there. Wayne wouldve absolutely loved it, absolutely wouldve thrived, excelled beyond imagining. Im certain of that. Like Howie Morenz meets Max Bentley meets Stan Mikita. On Steroids. He wouldnt have to be much of a fighter, tough guy. He was clean, clean player. Keon, Henri Richard, these guys werent noted pugilists. Morenz, Bentley.... These are all the greatest of the greats coming & going, some one dimensional in fact. Wasnt unheard of but not the "ideal". Gretzky had he been brought up during the late 40's & 50's, came of age in 52, 55, 58.... different version of what we knew & saw, but still a player who wouldve turned the game on its head. I'm certain of it.... and oh how I would have loved to have seen his battles with the likes of Dave Keon, Henri Richard, Stan Mikita & others. Talkin serious Chess matches here.
