I've said it before in other threads, Espo gets hurt more than anyone by Gretzky
Esposito rewrote the history books on scoring.
- 1st to score 60
- 1st to score 70
- 1st to score 1,000 points in a decade
- 1st to score 150 points in a season
- 36 hat tricks
- retired with the Top 4 single season goal marks in history
- won 5x Ross, 6x Rocket, 3x Assists over an 8 year span
- 3x led the playoffs in scoring
- 3x led the playoffs in goals
The problem is Esposito's records and greatness didn't get any time to breathe, be fawned over, revered and build an aura around them.
This is because within 5 years of Esposito rewriting the history books, Gretzky came along and rewrote them again. This robbed Esposito of the chance to sit there for an extended period of time holding all these records. His legacy was "cheapened" by Gretzky topping him almost immediately, in essence making his exploits look 2nd rate even if they weren't. And that opened the door for the "he was just a product of Orr" narrative to grow.
very true. i think also it was unfortunate for espo that the first bunch of years of his career were in a low-scoring environment and immediately after him you had these guys with an era advantage.
espo was the 2nd all-time leading scorer from 1978 to 1985, before dionne passed him. dionne had a marvelous career but he didn't peak the way espo did, though he did have great consistency and obviously an extremely high offensive peak of his own.
in dionne's first bunch of years, he isn't even as good as young espo (13th, 11th, 14th), but he's scoring 77, 90, and 78 points instead of espo's 55, 53, and 61. in espo's first four years he finished 9th, 17th, 7th, and 2nd in scoring. that 2nd was 84 points, while dionne's own breakout year four, which had him 3rd in the league, was 121 points.
i think even more than gretzky, because man gretzky was gretzky, just like howe was howe and it didn't even matter much to espo's legacy that he didn't manage to catch him, the ten years that separated espo and dionne made it so that a clearly lesser and more mortal player could pass him in less time than the gap between their ages, lessening the stunning offensive achievement of espo's career and making him feel, well, more mortal.
espo: 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 (consecutive)
dionne: 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, 7, 5, 4 (non-consecutive)
espo's last peak season and dionne's first were the same year; 32 year old espo outscored 23 year old dionne by six points.