I never really like this line of logic because that can just mean you played in a much shittier era honestly.
Like Wilt Chamberlain scored 50 ppg in 1960s basketball too (this would be like a hockey player scoring like 250 points in a season), but then again he was like only one of two 7 footers in the entire NBA at that time. Today many teams have two sometimes on just one roster.
Wilt’s an interesting choice of example. Objectively, he was stronger and faster than any 7 footer before or since. He was on that LeBron, Wemby, Zion level of athletic freak.
Orr was the same kind of animal. His blueline-to-blueline speed has been clocked on game film as being just as fast as your Bure or McDavid level speedsters. He was doing that carrying equipment weighing multiples of what it does now, and in heavier skates which didn’t give passive assistance. He was actually as good of a skater as whoever else we can name, but some elements of edgework are possible in today’s skates which were not in Orr’s skates.
It should go without saying that Wilt would have been just fine doing modern post moves, Eurosteps, etc. He would still be the superior athlete in every matchup. Likewise, Orr would have gotten every bit of potential of today’s equipment the same way McDavid and Crosby do. We’re talking about the upper 1/10000000th of athletic talent, transcendent figures in the sport, they weren’t going to be confounded by stuff that kids are getting taught in summer camp now.
They would not look out of place but they wouldn't score nearly as much.
NHL goaltending pre-1992 honestly is a bit of a joke so is the defensive coverage, McDavid would have to go play in the ECHL to get a comparable and that probably still wouldn't simulate it fully.
The sport has evolved a lot, especially the goaltending positions and defensive strategy.
It’s true that the sport has evolved defensively, but there are contextual reasons for why it looked the way it did.
Players during that era were skating 2+ minute shifts, which impacts flow on both sides of the puck. There was still a 2-line pass preventing vertical passes. Offside was still under the pre-tagup rules, which reduced the margin of error on zone entries. Sticks were 80-120 flex and heavy, which reduced the speed, elevation, location, and touch not just of shots but also of passes. Shot-blocking was physically dangerous and “business decisions” were a routine part of the game. Old-school helmets (or none at all) made incidents like last night’s Benn/Carlo collision much more dangerous, and therefore more actively avoided. All of that changes the purpose and structure of defensive coverages.
Putting that all together, the idea that a player would jump off the bench and sprint full-blast to receive a saucer pass from blue line to blue line, then snap an 80mph shot bar-down with no windup, and that the defense and goalie would be structured to expect this, is all a modern construct. In earlier eras that play would not be plausible for a variety of reasons. Defenses and goaltending of those eras were tuned to prevent goals which were plausible at that time.
Which brings it all back to… if it were actually
easier to be a high-scoring hockey superstar then, more guys would have done it. NHL teams in 1972 scored 3.07 goals per game. NHL teams in 2024 score 3.12 goals per game. Save percentage was .903 then, .900 now. The “ease” of goal scoring has not changed. The existence of a 100+ point defenseman in the league has not changed. The existence of a player who can flat-out dust the rest of the league has not changed. Fundamental athleticism has not changed. The difference is simply the progression of an arms race in technologies, which has led to an evolution in techniques and tactics. Those changes in context are interesting to follow, and they have led to objective changes in speed/force/spatial positioning, but they do not make a performance from one era inherently “better” the other.
