Bobby Orr was the greatest defenceman ever. People on here have made some great points about Bobby Orr. I have read the whole thread and have to agree pretty much with everything that was said about Bobby Orr with reguards to his game and how he played. You say it is boring because people are using stats to put Gretzky ahead of Orr. Well that is because stats do not lie. Wayne Gretzky stats speak for themselves. But this bores you so you want real reasons why Gretzky is the best, here goes.
Offensively, it was not just the points it is what he could do. Gretzky could make passes and plays out of nothing. He possessed a vision that no one has ever had. For some reason he could see or maybe feel the play develop and know exactly waht to do and when. It was a god like gift. He could either skate through players, dangle around them. He would make passes that while he was doing so your first reaction was. What the he** is he doing and then all of a sudden an Oiler would get the pass and it was pure beauty. FOr example the pass Gretzky makes to Pauyl Coffey against the Flyers in the 1985 final or the pass to Jari Kurri the same year against Chicago. THsi was not just one time passes he did this all the time. How many times would gretzky skate over the puck or at least would seem so only to skate around the defenceman and then pick the puck up again.
Scoring, Wayne is not a pure goal scorer but man for a guy even I would not call a pure goal scorer. He sure could score goals. Players were so worried about his passing that alot of times they would leave him dangle with the puck and score. How many times did you see Gretzky in the slot and take a slap shot and score. It was such a weak slap shot but so accurate. It was like the puck had eyes. It would either somehow go through the goalie or just plain beat him. I will admit that alot of Gretzky's goals were not too glamourus however this was becasue of one intagible. It was the fear the opposition had when Gretzky had the puck. Defenders hated him skating with the puck. If they chased him he would pass it. If they stood their ground and be positional he would stop and back up and create a lane to skate through or pass. If you took away the passing lane he sould go to the net. Even if you took the passing lane away he would find a way to get the puck there. Gretzky might never had invented the saucer pass but he perfected it. Because of this it made the goalies and defenders so afraid of him that it was easy for him to score often. That is why Sather told him he needed to shoot more. They can't stop him. We all know what he did in 81-82.
His office. Yes Bobby Clark was the first to do this but Gretzky for the first time in NHL history made this area of the ice one of the most dangerous places in the offensive zone. He could pick apart a team when he had the puck there. How many times would a defenceman go behind to chase him and he would play keep away passing the puck to himself off the net, or using the back boards to pass the puck to himself. How many times would he pass the puck to the front of the net adn get the puck past 4 sets of legs and sticks and the puck would end up on a players stick perfectly. If you do this once or twice it coudl be called luck but it wasn't It was pure skill. Also I do not care what anyone says but when you score off of skates in front of the net as much as Gretzky did it was not luck or chance he knew what he was doing. He would bounce puck in the net off of players and even goalies. Alot of times after the puck went in players would be asking how did he do this?
Smartest player ever. Gretzky was teh smartes player ever. Here is a true story that happened in Edmonton and alot of Oilers fans who were in Edmonton in the 80's might remember. Often during practice Wayne Gretzky would take slap shots against the boards. To try and check out the bounce off the boards. He would purposely miss the net and have the puck come out at the side of the goal. He would literally do this and on a few occasions Wayne Gretzky did this in a game. He shot the puck wide of the net and the puck bounced right to Jari Kurri to an open net goal. Thsi was pure genious. He would even figure out the side boards so he could make passes off the boards to players. He did things no one ever imagined.
Gretzky never got hit. This is pure B.S. It is the thing everyone always talks about with Gretzky. Seriously every player playing in the NHL gets hit. Some just more then others. If Gretzky never got hit then how come his back was never the same after the Gary Suter hit. Which was illegal by the way. How many times was Gretzky flattened by Ken Morrow, How many times Jamie Macoun hit Gretzky. It happened but if you ated Gretzky it was a question of why it never happened more. I will tell you why Gretzky never got hit. You can't hit what you can't lline up to hit. Has anyone ever seen Gretzky do that move coming into the attacking zone full speed and then stop on a dime and move to the side, or back up and then skate into an open area. He had vision of the game no one could understand. How many times did it look like their was nothing for Gretzky to do and all of a sudden he would change up and do something you never imagine. Now put yourself in the shoes of every player in the NHL. Players usually get hit because players can anticipate what they are going to do. How can you aniticipate what he will do when you can't see the game the way he does. Yes sometimes he got caught but not as much as other players because of this. Having Semenko helped too but in order to hit Gretzky you got to catch him first and he was just too smart to be caught too often
Defensively. Yes Wayne Gretzky will never ever be mistaken for a great or even a good defensive player especially in his own zone. However what is the best way to keep the puck out of your own net. It is simple put the puck in theres and alot of the time that is what happened. Also Gretzky could anitcipate plays very well and break up a lot of plays. It is funny some people in the hockey world have said WG was more dangerous short handed then he was on a Power Play. Wouldn't that make him a kind of an effective player in his own end
Wayne Gretzky is the Greatest ever. No offence to Bobby and I will not put Bobby down as some have done to both to prove their points. If I was starting a team right now and could have anyone in the history of the NHL I would take Gretzky every day for one big reason. Wayne made every one around him better. He turned average players into good players. Good players into stars and stars into greats. Not that Bobby didn't it is just that Gretzky did this to so many players.
It is all great, but I must say Orr had everybit as great a vision and feel for the game, only he was doing all this at mach 15 and he could hang down behind the net, but he always made unbelievablly great plays behind the net, and he was truly the 1st player to play behind the net, he simply couldn't stay there more than the time it takes to skate around it at full speed, shoot or pass it right onto your stick. he could feel where everyone was on the ice, and there is nothing G could do that Orr couldn't do, he just had such a great game, and had to make plays always on the run. I am not saying G wasn't great but Orr had at least equal vision and was the greatest passer ever even while lying on his side facing his goalie and finding the puck and no look pass to his mate out front right on his stick, and one more pass and a goal. He led the league in assists 5 out of 6 years and finished very close to Espo on the 2nd place finish, and he played D. He scored over a 100 points about 6 times and only 11 guys not on his team in his 8 years did this, and the Gman in his same amount of best years, only, lol, 78 guys did it. So now you can start seeing how stats being used in all these chats are so misleading.
And every great coach I have ever admired and who were winners all said the same things about stats are for losers. They are totally misleading, and as someone said about three things that were all bad and stats were on or them. It is in here somewhere. I could take stats and sway you any way I wanted to do. In baseball they say a guy hits 300 and with guys on base he hits 350, so everyone says he is a great clutch hitter, and then I look at wade Boggs and he had similar stats, but then I see his stats with guys on base in scoring position with the game on the line, and still close, and he hits 260. So you can add or delete different stats to make your point. Bill Russell was a way better winner than Gretzky ever was, no contest, and he had lousy stats, 16 points or so per season, and he passed well and blocked shots and rebounded and played great D, but he has nothing in the books you can use to compare him to Chambelain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, and so many other great players on great teams, and he beat them all, and even West after losing his 6th or so straight title against Russell said he lost because of #6 Bill Russell, and so in the game today, on ESPN they speak of MJ, Magic, Bird, Chamberlain, West, Robertson, Kobe and so many stat kings as the great players ever, and they look back in the Russell era and see what he did to ALL the so called great players with all the stats, and say right there on their show, that Russell killed them, literally demolished them, beating West, Chamberlain, and Baylor on the same team with an old over the hill Celtic club with no coach, well Russell was, and then these analysts of today don't even mention him in the best player ever thing.
Stats truly are for losers, and is the reason stat classes are required, to show how misleading they are.
Orr had all the same offensive skills, and some were better by each, but Orr also was a specialist at EVERYTHING no matter where he played on the ice, he could do things no one else could do and if he had played center, his natural position which the Bs had think long and hard where to play him, there is no telling what he could do. He only avg less than .5 points less and as a center he would have really exploded and played in a league with much less scoring.
And the things said about Orr as great were that he had every tool, and had as great a vision, and even better was his anticipation of where his player was going to be even before the player knew, he could pass blindly and could do it at great speed with his back to the play, lying on the ice and so on. He made maybe the worse franchise ever at least at the time; six last place finishes I believe out of 7 years and the 5th place was about a point behind NY. Then in 4 years he took this impossible task and made them champions, twice in 3 years, and after already having big injuries. He was pure magic in everything he did, and he was all about the team and took a very ugly franchise, and brought them to respectability in just two years. He also started there as a rookie, and the Gman started with the Oilers after how many years as a pro before the WHA went down?
And he controlled the entire game everywhere on the ice, and when he was skating out a penalty in his own end, he was playing offense, and no one "ever" could skate even close to him in any way, as Larry Robinson, I believe said that Cournoyer, one of THE fastest skaters was at the blue line rushing in on net by himself, and Orr was at the red line and caught him from behind.
He had all the talent, and like I said, one player could do somethings better than the other, but don't think for a second that Orr didn't have all the tangibles and intangibles that Gretz had.
