Just to be clear, this was intended as a joke, right?
No it was not, the NHL was unstable for much of Shore's career.
also the forward pass had just be introduced thus changing the game slightly (joke intended) and he was a giant among smaller guys.
All of that contributed to his greatness. He no doubt was a dominant player in his time but the quality of the NHL and competition wasn't really that good.
One final point, at certain points in his career Shore played on Bruin teams with upwards of 6 or 7 HHOF guys and yet his teams only won 2 Cups.
Maybe it's just me but has anyone else noticed that the Bruins are often stated as having 3 of the top 5 Dmen of all time but all 3 are shorter in Cups than one would expect them to be, just bad luck or something else?
You have Shore, Orr and Bourque (who had to leave Boston to win his cup) and they have a grand total of 4 Stanley Cups. I understand that teams win cups not just individual players but 2 of these guys played in much smaller leagues and had tons of talent ie. HHOF around them as well, it just seems like there should be more Cups here.
I understand that he won the league MVP 4 times but the voters back then had different criteria and voting patterns than let's say in Bobby Orr's time who didn't win a Hart in 74-75 despite leading the league in scoring.