Would like to add some points to this after reading this thread. Being a relatively newer hockey fan who saw neither in their prime (since 97 - following the NHL was sort of hard here before the internet age), I find this board fascinating to read about the game's history. While I can't add a lot of judgement on the qualities of the older players, there's a few points I feel I could make to add to the discussion:
On the point of Orr winning the Art Ross and Norris in the same season, this is obviously an incredible feat that cannot be understated. It can be used as an argument to Orr being a wonderfully complete player. Yet I don't think it's a good argument to state that it means Orr was greater than Gretzky. First of all, you can't fault a forward for not winning an award he is unable to win. Secondly, there's just no comparison or forwards. The Selke trophy has been mentioned, and how Art Ross + Selke would equal Orr's feat, but has not been done before. (Reading about Bobby Clarke suggests he could have come very close, had the Selke been created sooner, though he never managed to win the scoring race and topped out at #2) However, I don't really think this is a fair comparison. The Selke is supposed to go to the best defensive forward, whereas the Art Ross goes to what statistically is the best offensive forward. Hence winning both would require to be both the best defensive and offensive forward at the same time. On the other hand, the Norris is awarded to the best overall defenseman. Since the offensive compenent of the game does figure in this decision, this is not quite the same. Art Ross + Norris requires a defenseman to be the best scorer, and best overall defenseman, rather than also be the best defensive defenseman.
Not to take away anything from Bobby Orr, who managed to achieve amazing things, but I just don't think it's an overly valid argument or comparison. In general, stating that Orr or Gretzky was better because of some unique feat the other didn't do seems a bit pointless. Both were immense players who did things nobody ever did before, and in many cases did not since. Orr did things Gretzky didn't do (and nobody else did), Gretzky also did some 61 things nobody else ever did.
Yes, but this comparison is highly unfair to Orr (as it would be to anybody who played in Orr's time, and it would be even more unfair to players like Howe, Hull, Beliveau etc. who played during the 50s-60s). Gretzky played in the most wide open, highest scoring era ever. When 50 goal scorers were a dime a dozen.
Look at the average goals-per-game throughout the league during Orr's nine years:
66-67: 5.96
67-68: 5.58
68-69: 5.96
69-70: 5.81
70-71: 6.24
71-72: 6.13
72-73: 6.55
73-74: 6.39
74-75: 6.85
Now look at the GPG during Gretzky's first nine years:
79-80: 7.03
80-81: 7.69
81-82: 8.03
82-83: 7.73
83-84: 7.89
84-85: 7.77
85-86: 7.94
86-87: 7.34
87-88: 7.43
Scoring throughout the league during Gretzky's first nine years was 24% higher than in Orr's day. To be fair to Orr, we'd have to increase his total by 24% to account for the difference. This would put him at 1.74, third behind Gretzky and Lemieux. Which is about where I'd expect him, as a defenceman, to be. These three, in any order, were the three most dangerous players I've ever seen
There was a steady erosion in the quality of play due to rapid expansion during the late 60s-70s. Over 14 years, the league ballooned from 6 to 21 teams, and that was before the influx of American talent, and when the Iron Curtain kept the East Europeans off limits. Just before Gretzky's arrival, the draft age was lowered from 20 to 18, and suddenly kids were getting prime time duty on the blueline. Hell, I can remember Gretzky lighting it up one night at the Gardens, when the leafs had three 18 year -olds on defense (Boimstruck, Benning and McGill).
The effect of this showed on scoreboards all around the league, and long established records were obliterated. Certainly, that has to be taken into consideration when we look at Gretzky's scoring exploits. This is not to say that they weren't unbelievable, but they were inflated, just as Orr's (to a lesser extent) were compared to the pre-expansion days. If we don't acknowledge that, we'd have to accept that guys like Denis Maruk, Wayne Babych, Jacques Richard and Jimmy Carson were more dangerous than Howe, Hull and Mahovlich.
Statistics always have to be seen in context, I agree with that. I'll also admit that I am fairly skeptical of adjusted stats, since while they might give ballpark figures here and there, they will invariably fail to take into account many factors, are highly susceptible to agendas, and may treat statistical outliers as a product of the era, rather than greatness. With that out of the way, some things to keep in mind when making the point above:
- One of the posters here recently did some research and found that the portion of the scoring done by the top players in the 80s was relatively low compared to other eras. In other words, a lot of the beneficiaries of the extra scoring were the more average players, not the superstars. This does not mean the stars did not score more than they would have done during other decades and eras, but rather that the stars scoring did not go up by for example the 24% scoring difference you are suggesting, and just adjusting Orr's stats like this is not a valid concept.
- Orr's Bruins were an extremely high-scoring team, which at times defeated the competition in scoring categories by a greater margin than Gretzky's Oilers. Both teams were extremely high scoring, far above the average of their time. Using averages to then analyze the performances of statistical outliers seems a bad idea.
- To highlight my first point, consider the scoring leaders between 1970 (Orr's first big offensive season) and 1990. Since they are generally considered 'freaks of nature', I left out Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux, to see how the 'normal' superstars did:
69-70: Phil Esposito, 99 (126 the year before)
70-71: Phil Esposito, 152
71-72: Phil Esposito, 133
72-73: Phil Esposito, 130
73-74: Phil Esposito, 145
74-75: Phil Esposito, 127
75-76: Guy Lafleur, 125
76-77: Guy Lafleur, 136
77-78: Guy Lafleur, 132
78-79: Bryan Trottier, 134
79-80: Marcel Dionne, 137
80-81: Marcel Dionne, 135
81-82: Mike Bossy, 147
82-83: Peter Stastny, 124
83-84: Paul Coffey, 126
84-85: Jari Kurri, 135
85-86: Paul Coffey, 138
86-87: Jari Kurri, 108
87-88: Denis Savard, 131
88-89: Steve Yzerman, 155
89-90: Mark Messier, 129
I'm not really in the mood to run ANOVA checks on those numbers to look for significance, but looking at that list suggests to me that the superstars not called Mario, Wayne or Bobby did not score significantly more during the 80s than during the 70s. (Another funny side product of this list is the suggestion that if not for Lemieux and Gretzky, Paul Coffey could have had 2 Art Ross trophies. Though I'll have to add the disclaimer that Coffey likely has less points without Gretzky, and was no Orr defensively from what I understand)
- One thing one might argue from the above is that a lot of Esposito's stats were partially thanks to Orr. There is some merit to this, though on the other hand I doubt Bobby Orr's stats suffered from playing with Esposito either. (even if superstars typically will get their points despite the players they play with, as has been shown numerous times on this forum) Somewhat of a similar argument could be made for some of the Oilers appearing on this list. However I think the best conclusion which can be drawn from these statistics and the dominance of either team in total scoring and scoring leaders, is that these teams were exceptionally powerful offensive teams, which you cannot really compare or analyze using average statistics from an era. (Which is not to say scoring might be affected by an era, but to me analyzing an anomaly with the use of averages seems a faulty concept.)
In closing, I've seen a lot of arguments of Orr as a complete player being the main reason to be greater than Gretzky. Being a complete player is definitely a great asset to a team, but it's not the only way to win. Orr might have been great in more areas of the game than Gretzky, but on the other hand it seems Gretzky's dominance on offense exceeds any of Orr's individual dominances. In the end both were great players, and Orr's completeness is an admirable thing. But equaling being more complete with being greater is in my view not really a proper argument, since extreme dominance in less areas is another way to win, especially in a team game. In the end, both players managed to do this, leading their teams to multiple championships.
And finally, as I already indicated in my preamble, I can only acknowledge that both individuals were amazing players which are only rarely seen. I cannot make any judgement on who was the greater, but did want to pitch in with some points about the arguments some posters are trying to use to elevate one above the other.
, but it's generally a good barometer):
