Orr Vs Gretzky

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Are you aware of how close that poll was?

Gretzky: 2,726 voting points
Orr had: 2,713 voting points
Howe: 2,681 points

Whats your source for this? Did they release the complete records of points or just the number of points the top 3 got?

 

[BraveCanadian]

Are you aware of how close that poll was?

Gretzky: 2,726 voting points
Orr had: 2,713 voting points
Howe: 2,681 points

I think we all knew already how close that vote was but I have never seen the actual numbers before.. where did you find them?

That is so slim a margin it just backs up the common view that you can't go wrong with any of those guys as your #1 pick.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I personally see him scoring in the range of 160-170 in the 80's.

Orr is amazing and all but I really don't see him competing with Mario Lemieux or Gretzky in LA, as centers, in scoring. He might be generating a ton of offense but as a defenseman he would end up with less points just by virtue of his position.

The Oilers "Having their way" with the Isles is a bit off. Ill just cut and paste the post I made when comparing these two teams.

By the last 3 games of 84 it was clear the Isles were finally at long last in decline and the Oilers were young and getting better all the time.

 

[Dark Shadows]

Orr is amazing and all but I really don't see him competing with Mario Lemieux or Gretzky in LA, as centers, in scoring.

And I think Orr, playing defense, could have scored in the 160-170 range in the 80's. He would have thrived in that low regard to defense era.

By the last 3 games of 84 it was clear the Isles were finally at long last in decline and the Oilers were young and getting better all the time.

Indeed. My point was merely that the Isles they were having their way with were far removed from their previous years greatness.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Indeed. My point was merely that the Isles they were having their way with were far removed from their previous years greatness.

Oh for sure I agree with that.. the Isles were getting older and as you said in your other post, starting to succumb more often to injury etc.

Still a hell of a team (obviously since they were in the finals again) but they didn't have enough left in the tank to topple the young and still improving Oilers.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

And I think Orr, playing defense, could have scored in the 160-170 range in the 80's. He would have thrived in that low regard to defense era.

I don't know. I get that Orr would score more, but 160-170 seems a little high, no? I mean, that means Esposito (with Orr behind him) flirts with 200 points, right? Since Espo in his best years outscored Orr by a fair margin.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I don't know. I get that Orr would score more, but 160-170 seems a little high, no? I mean, that means Esposito (with Orr behind him) flirts with 200 points, right? Since Espo in his best years outscored Orr by a fair margin.

Yeah if Coffey playing with Gretzky can only get to 138 I have a hard time seeing Orr being at 160-170.. maybe in the absolute best case scenario playing with Lemieux or Gretzky and other options it would be possible but it definitely wouldn't be a routine thing in my opinion.

In Orr's best season of 139 points the Bruins were averaging 5 goals for a game.. 399 in total. So Orr was in on 35% of his teams goals.

In the best season of the 80s the Oilers scored 446 goals for an average of 5.57 goals per game.

Orr is gonna pick up another 30 points out of the 40 extra goals? That is 75% not 35%.

 

[Ward Cornell]

Why not?

Just because he doesn't want them to.

Preconceived idea!

 

[Dark Shadows]

I don't know. I get that Orr would score more, but 160-170 seems a little high, no? I mean, that means Esposito (with Orr behind him) flirts with 200 points, right? Since Espo in his best years outscored Orr by a fair margin.

It is a matter of style I think. Personally I picture Orr, in an era where teams were not simply falling back and playing defense but constantly trying to score allowing odd man rushes, scoring much more. His ability to get the puck and transition it up ice via his skating was superior to Coffey's.

The 160-170 would be his "best year" obviously, but I fully think him capable of it.

 

[Rhiessan71]

It is a matter of style I think. Personally I picture Orr, in an era where teams were not simply falling back and playing defense but constantly trying to score allowing odd man rushes, scoring much more. His ability to get the puck and transition it up ice via his skating was superior to Coffey's.

The 160-170 would be his "best year" obviously, but I fully think him capable of it.

I have no doubt either.
Hell, I think he could of easily gotten 150+ in the 70's if he so desired.

Look at it this way, if Orr was still playing in the 80's then the Bruins never would of let him go and he would of been paired wtih Bourque....how scary is that

 

[alanschu]

Shooting it directly into a goaltenders chest for an easy save?

I never saw Orr play, but I'd be skeptical if he did stuff like this.

He may have taken it easy, but why would he just make it easy for the other team by giving their goalie easy saves and effectively wasting his team's possession?

If there's one thing I have learned about the best players is that they are the best because they have a very competitive nature about them. That's how they find the motivation to become so good.

Orr would be the first superstar athlete that I know of that would intentionally throw away possession for his team "just because."

 

[Rhiessan71]

I never saw Orr play, but I'd be skeptical if he did stuff like this.

He may have taken it easy, but why would he just make it easy for the other team by giving their goalie easy saves and effectively wasting his team's possession?

If there's one thing I have learned about the best players is that they are the best because they have a very competitive nature about them. That's how they find the motivation to become so good.

Orr would be the first superstar athlete that I know of that would intentionally throw away possession for his team "just because."

Then mark it down because it really did happen on more than one occasion and you forgot to add Orr winking at the goalie after.

 

[quasi1981]

Dude.....seriously, you need to read more thoroughly.
This is the third time you have gone at me and accused me of putting Orr down and this is the second time that I'm having to point out that I'm one of the biggest Orr supporters in this thread.

I am sorry if I seem to be doing that, but it seems whenever I read these posts of yours I commented on, they seem to put him down like the one just before this one.

Maybe I am misreading them, or not being careful and look more into what you are saying.

 

[bleeney]

Whats your source for this? Did they release the complete records of points or just the number of points the top 3 got?

It's from The Hockey News Top 100; pg 10. I have the hardcover version (I don't know if it's more in-depth than the magazine). Here's what it says:

He (Gretzky) collected 2,726 voting points, 13 more than runner-up Orr (2,713) and 45 more than Howe (2,681). Both Gretzky and Orr had 18 first-place votes... Howe received 11 first-place votes and 14 seconds. Fewer than 2 per cent in voting separates all three...
Pittsburgh Penguins' centre Mario Lemieux was a close fourth in voting (2,308), joining the trio as separate and distinct from the pack.... Montreal Canadiens' legendary right-winger Maurice (Rocket) Richard collected 2,142 points to complete the all-time top five.

It's incredible that the vote was so damned close between Gretzky, Orr and Howe. We all have our opinions (and make no mistake, they are very strong opinions) but most of us, even if we disgaree, can understand why someone would choose any of these three as #1.

But for Fischler to let his personal differences with Orr cloud his objectivity to the point where he wouldn't even have him in his top five...

Come on! Bobby Orr at #14?

 

[quasi1981]

Once again, he didn't. End of story.

He didn't what? Do you mean Orr didn't just spend maybe 20% of the time deep in the offensive zone as Gretzky did. I will tell you, that the Gman spent infinitely more time down in the zone, simply hanging there. Orr "had" to get back to the point, and that is a fact, and if you watched his highlight films, you would see this. He scored way more points than G in the amount of time spent deep in the offensive zone.

 

[quasi1981]

Ya those Habs teams of the 70's sure weren't that great.

You are right, they weren't. The Bruins were all over them on both ends of the ice, and they out shot them by a huge margin, taking great shots at Dryden. So yes they had a great team because the goalie is, by far, the most important position in hockey. And that was mostly Dryden, and everyone knew it. He was a great goalie at Cornell.

 

[quasi1981]

You make it sound like Gretzky had 1 really great year where he set a few records. He had a ton of great years, where he set every record imaginable. There's a huge difference.

As for your Barry Bonds example, its a different sport, and his records are no where near what Gretzky's are. If Bonds hit more HR than anyone else had HR+Hits combined, then you might have something, just like Gretzky has more assists than anyone else has points.

And people like me have talked about things other than stats. You've just constantly ignored our posts and ranted on with 5 or 6 straight posts of your own covering the same ground you've already covered. This used to be an interesting debate, but there's been nothing new in 10 pages.

It is boring because none of you G fans has said anything but stats. There have been many great scorers in sports and they don't always win. WE Orr fans speak of his game, and few of us care all that much about stats, and you "absolutely" can not speak of stats because one was a great scorer and the other a great player, and not one of you has shown me or any Orr fan anything but #s. It is boring and any stat can be manipulated.

Orr won 3 straight MVPs, two scoring titles I believe and 8 straight Norris trophies and none of you even acknowledged these stats, and if you would have looked at those, they are comparable. He also won all three in the same year at least once, plus something else I believe, but it means nothing to you G fans or you would have mentioned them, but you just don't want to believe he was great. All us Orr fans know G was great, but why was he great? Scoring stats is all you have to say? It says nothing to any of us. Give us something that will give us chills. We have given all of you many of Orr's gifts on the ice, not just stats. Sports are not about stats, because they say nothing about YOUR knowledge of the game. Nothing!!

 

[quasi1981]

Another bad argument. Bonds is one of the, if not the very best ball players ever.

I watched him in SF his last 13 or so seasons, and he was so overated, it was ridiculous. I have never seen a more hated player by fans outside of SF. As much good that he did with his bat, his attitude on and off the field was atrocious. I most of his 7 MVP years, and his stats said MVP, but his play said avg. He was a horrible baserunner, aways watching his long fly balls hit the fence for a single instead of at least a double. He never played with thepassion of a champion.

 

[quasi1981]

I thought you weren't cherrypicking? Also the "powerhouses" that Orr faced pale in comparison to the early 80's Isles.

As another person mentioned.. what about Wayne's 10 points in 6 games against the Isles in 81?

Wayne's playoff record is pretty much unquestionably the best a player could be, unfortunately for your argument.

Yes in 83 he and the Oilers got schooled but they got stronger as they went in 84 and really started having their way with the Isles by the last three games of 84.
Honestly

They would have never beaten the Canadians with Ken Dryden in the goal. And the great teams then were way better than later years where it got all washed up in scoring.

 

[quasi1981]

Orr is amazing and all but I really don't see him competing with Mario Lemieux or Gretzky in LA, as centers, in scoring. He might be generating a ton of offense but as a defenseman he would end up with less points just by virtue of his position.




By the last 3 games of 84 it was clear the Isles were finally at long last in decline and the Oilers were young and getting better all the time.

Orr was a center by trade, and not till he was 11 or 12 did he learn to play D, and he only learned it because he was such a great skater, that his coach, an ex defensman in the NHL, thought his charge up ice would be great at the D, and the Bruins thought long and hard as to whether he should be a center or a defenseman.

Think about this. Orr would rush up ice and cross the blue line and come down the side or in the middle and make a quick play deep in the zone, a pass or a shot, and he had to come back to the point. So in a 2 minute stretch with the puck deep in the zone, he has to pick and choose when to come all the way deep into the zone.

The G man hung down there for a minute or more as long as the puck was in the area, because he could. So if you took the little time Orr spent down low by the goal, and the same with the G man, I would bet Orr might have been deep in the zone 20% of the time at best that the Gman was down there. So do you think Orr could muster a few more points if he could have hung down there all day with his speed, skating, maneuverability, shot etc?

 

[McRpro]

You are right, they weren't. The Bruins were all over them on both ends of the ice, and they out shot them by a huge margin, taking great shots at Dryden. So yes they had a great team because the goalie is, by far, the most important position in hockey. And that was mostly Dryden, and everyone knew it. He was a great goalie at Cornell.

You sir, are a real piece of work. And now have zero credibility. Those 70's (mid to late) Habs teams were a dynasty.

Oh wait but only because of Dryden right? The rest of the team wasn't that great.

 

[quasi1981]

It's from The Hockey News Top 100; pg 10. I have the hardcover version (I don't know if it's more in-depth than the magazine). Here's what it says:

He (Gretzky) collected 2,726 voting points, 13 more than runner-up Orr (2,713) and 45 more than Howe (2,681). Both Gretzky and Orr had 18 first-place votes... Howe received 11 first-place votes and 14 seconds. Fewer than 2 per cent in voting separates all three...
Pittsburgh Penguins' centre Mario Lemieux was a close fourth in voting (2,308), joining the trio as separate and distinct from the pack.... Montreal Canadiens' legendary right-winger Maurice (Rocket) Richard collected 2,142 points to complete the all-time top five.

It's incredible that the vote was so damned close between Gretzky, Orr and Howe. We all have our opinions (and make no mistake, they are very strong opinions) but most of us, even if we disgaree, can understand why someone would choose any of these three as #1.

But for Fischler to let his personal differences with Orr cloud his objectivity to the point where he wouldn't even have him in his top five...

Come on! Bobby Orr at #14?

It's amazing it was so close!! Imagine if he didn't play 4 or 5 injury riddled seasons out of essentially only 8 seasons.

It wouldn't have even been close!!

I know! You can all disagree!!

 

[bleeney]

The problem is that you're selectively choosing examples instead of looking at everything.You keep bringing up Gretzky's stats against the Islanders in '83, while conveniently ignoring the 10 points in 6 games he had against them in the '81 series. That gives him overall 21 points in 15 playoff games against the Islanders. Did anyone else produce better against the Islanders in their dynasty years?

Yes, Gretzky was shut down by the Islanders in '83. Happens to everybody. Orr was shut down by Montreal in '68 and '69 (also conveniently not brought up by you). Lemieux and Jagr were shut down by Florida in '96. Bossy and Trottier were shut down by the Rangers in '79.

If there's a player who never had a playoff series when his production slipped, I'd love to know who he was.

Let me clear something up here:

The entire context of my original post that started this off was this: Gretzky really ran up huge numbers against weaker teams, something Orr didn't do. Orr's production was actually better against the best teams, with the best goalies (Dryden, Esposito, Giacoman, Parent, who virtually had a lock on the 1st and 2nd All-Star Teams throughout the five year period I cited). This is something to consider when comparing their scoring numbers, along with the fact that Orr was a Dman.

I used the '83-87 period for Gretzky for two reasons:
One) It put Grezky at the exact same age as Orr was during the 5-year period I used for him
Two) The Hockey Summary Project didn't have the stats for '88-90, and I really didn't feel like digging for it the old-fashioned way

So let's talk about the '68 and '69 Habs:

*This was a truly great team, the "forgotten dynasty". They won four Cups in five years between '65 and '69 (their 5 year run interrupted by the Leafs in '67)
*Orr was a sophomore Dman, who still should've been in junior (this wasn't the 21 team league with an 18 y/o draft that Gretzky entered), playing an original six powerhouse/dynasty that was virtually untouched by the expansion draft
*after an injury-riddled year in '68, this Dman, only a couple of weeks after his 20th birthday, had 2 points in 4 games against the Stanley Cup champs.
*after suffering a concussion in game one of the '69 playoffs, he had 4 points against the aging, declining Leafs, and 3 points against the champ Habs. Both series were four game sweeps. There was no dramatic drop-off.

As for the Islanders; yeah, they were a great, great team. No debate here. But here's a question: Who had the tougher task? Was it harder to put up points against the Isles in '83 and '84, or the Flyers in '74?

*in '83, the Isles allowed 226 GA in 80 games. Billy Smith, who played every minute against the Oilers, had a 2.87 GAA. Very impressive numbers
*in '84, they slipped defensively, allowing a whopping 269 GA. Smith had a 3.42 GAA
*the '74 Flyers allowed just 164 GA in 78 games. Bernie Parent was at the peak of his career, with a GAA of just 1.89, winning the Vezina and Conn Smythe. Still, Orr led all players in the series in scoring

The stats seem to indicate that it was much tougher to score against the '74 Flyers than the Isles of a decade later. Or is this just a by-product of the high-tempo, go-go '80s, where everybody's numbers went through the roof?

 

[tazzy19]

It is boring because none of you G fans has said anything but stats. There have been many great scorers in sports and they don't always win. WE Orr fans speak of his game, and few of us care all that much about stats, and you "absolutely" can not speak of stats because one was a great scorer and the other a great player, and not one of you has shown me or any Orr fan anything but #s. It is boring and any stat can be manipulated.

Orr won 3 straight MVPs, two scoring titles I believe and 8 straight Norris trophies and none of you even acknowledged these stats, and if you would have looked at those, they are comparable. He also won all three in the same year at least once, plus something else I believe, but it means nothing to you G fans or you would have mentioned them, but you just don't want to believe he was great. All us Orr fans know G was great, but why was he great? Scoring stats is all you have to say? It says nothing to any of us. Give us something that will give us chills. We have given all of you many of Orr's gifts on the ice, not just stats. Sports are not about stats, because they say nothing about YOUR knowledge of the game. Nothing!!

But Gretzky won 4 Cups and 2 Conn Smyths, and took the 4th worst team in the NHL to 4th best in one year, and beat his old team, the defending Stanley Cup Champions, that very same season in the first round of the playoffs....not to mention leading that average team to the Cup Finals within five years of his arrival...something they had never come close to doing, what, EVER? If that isn't enough, how about the 1987 Canada Cup? In case you haven't heard about it, Gretzky willed Team Canada to victory in game 2 and was in on 5 of Canada's 6 goals, including the OT winner. That game, he was all over the ice. His 5 assists were merely the symptom of his great play, as where he really shined that game was away from the puck -- creating turnovers, penalty killing, reading plays from what seemed like outer space. He was just on another level that series, and the Russians couldn't defend it...not even with Sputnik.

 

[bleeney]

I never saw Orr play, but I'd be skeptical if he did stuff like this.

He may have taken it easy, but why would he just make it easy for the other team by giving their goalie easy saves and effectively wasting his team's possession?

If there's one thing I have learned about the best players is that they are the best because they have a very competitive nature about them. That's how they find the motivation to become so good.

Orr would be the first superstar athlete that I know of that would intentionally throw away possession for his team "just because."

Make no mistake. Bobby Orr was as competitive as anybody who ever played. Particularly defensively. That's why he would drop in front of a Bobby Hull slapshot... in an All-Star game, taking it in the family jewels... and hobble back onto the ice five minutes later (see Grapes; pg 208).

Phil Esposito had this to say:

Bobby Orr was the fiercest competitor I ever met. He hated to lose. My God, did he hate to lose. And if he didn't like what was going on out there, he would give you that dirty Irish look and, holy smokes, it could kill you. It was a mean look. Bobby could be mean.
-from Phil Esposito: Thunder and Lightning; pg 66