Mario Lemieux’s retirement last week re-ignited the passionate debate among hockey fans about who was the greatest player in modern NHL history: Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr.
To me, Orr was the greatest – and I can give you 124 reasons why.
During the 1970-71 season, Orr’s plus/minus rating with the Boston Bruins was plus-124. That’s not a typo … plus-124! It’s an NHL record that will never be broken.
Orr, a defenceman, played in all 78 games that season, scoring 37 goals and adding 102 assists for 139 points to finish second behind teammate Phil Esposito (76-76-152) in the league scoring race. The Bruins scored a league-leading 399 goals that season (5.1 per game) and Orr was on the ice for 258 of them (65 per cent), including 79 on the power play. (Power-play goals for and shorthanded goals against don’t count in plus/minus stats).
Defensively, the Bruins allowed 207 goals that season (2.7 per game) and Orr was on the ice for 85 of them (41 per cent), including 30 while the Bruins were shorthanded. That means Orr was only on the ice for 55 even-strength goals against in 78 games. Incredible.
What makes Orr’s plus-124 even more impressive is that teammate Esposito, who won the Art Ross Trophy, was only plus-71.
“(Plus-124) really is an amazing number … and we didn’t keep track of ice time back then,†said Benny Ercolani, the NHL’s chief statistician. “If you were to tie those numbers into the amount of time Orr would have spent on the ice back then (probably around 30 minutes a game), it really is incredible.â€
