Bobby Orr's defensive prowess

[Michael Farkas]

Ted Green -- for three seasons -- is particularly notable because he was Orr's teammate and was a defense-only, shut-down kind of guy

Really good post. I'll just take a little exception here. Ted Green is way more than that. He could really play. He was the second best puck rusher on those Bruins teams. He had some skill. If anything, he had more holes defensively than Orr did. Don't let that "terrible" moniker fool you haha

This is engrained in my head about Green because when I go back and watch old Bruins games, I sometimes see a player going for a rush or making a play or something like that and go, "Hmmm, that's an uncharacteristic mistake from Orr..." and then as the picture becomes clearer, it's a 6 and not a 4...that relieves the confusion instantly...

 

[The Panther]

Impressive. Absolutely none of that relates to anything that I actually said.

To be specific, absolutely ALL of it relates to exactly what you said.

 

[The Panther]

Really good post. I'll just take a little exception here. Ted Green is way more than that. He could really play. He was the second best puck rusher on those Bruins teams. He had some skill. If anything, he had more holes defensively than Orr did. Don't let that "terrible" moniker fool you haha

I'm sure you're right, as I never saw him play.

 

[notDatsyuk]

I'm sure you're right, as I never saw him play.

If you never saw Green play, did you ever see Orr play?

 

[The Panther]

If you never saw Green play, did you ever see Orr play?

Certainly not. I started watching NHL in the mid- to late-1980s.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Certainly not. I started watching NHL in the mid- to late-1980s.

And yet you know so much more than someone who watched his full career, as well as part of Harvey's, and the entire life of the WHA.

 

[The Panther]

And yet you know so much more than someone who watched his full career, as well as part of Harvey's, and the entire life of the WHA.

I do not claim to know more than anyone, including you. My post details a basic statistical analysis and (to the best of my memory) summarizes a contemporary-assessment of Orr's prime-era defensive results/skill (respectively), which suggests very strongly that Orr's purely defensive play (if defence exists in a vacuum) was above average and maybe elite.

If you have a different opinion, that's fine, but you might then ask yourself why Orr's defensive results are statistically better than his peers who were directly behind him in Norris voting.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Further evidence that statistics don't tell the whole story.