BobbyAwe
Registered User
There's been threads, (or at least questions that came up), about the TOI of past greats, before the stat was kept. This because of many comments from "old timer's" who said that so and so was "always on the ice". "Always" is admittedly hyperbole, but how much TOI some past greats may have logged in an earlier era has been the source of a lot of speculation, and I think that no player's TOI is more wondered about than Bobby Orr's.
Well, I came across something that I think is pretty significant (?) I watched an entire Bruin's game on YouTube a while ago, from 1974. One of the commentators mentioned, between the 2nd and 3rd periods, that Orr had logged 23 minutes after two. That figures to 34 and 1/2 minutes for the game assuming he was on ice at the same rate in the 3rd period.
Now that's just one game, of course, so there may have been games where he logged even more minutes, and/or maybe he was on ice for MORE than 11 and 1/2 minutes in the 3rd of that particular game, but I think we have a realistic estimate there in general, of what they meant when they said he was "always" on the ice.
It's a safe assumption he logged over 34 minutes in that game, and it WASN'T the 7th game of a playoff, nor do I think we can assume that this game was the most TOI he ever had, so is it possible that he could have been close to 40 minutes in whatever game WAS the most TOI he ever had?
Maybe this can help us differentiate between legend and fact regarding the subject, or at least speculate a little more realistically?
Well, I came across something that I think is pretty significant (?) I watched an entire Bruin's game on YouTube a while ago, from 1974. One of the commentators mentioned, between the 2nd and 3rd periods, that Orr had logged 23 minutes after two. That figures to 34 and 1/2 minutes for the game assuming he was on ice at the same rate in the 3rd period.
Now that's just one game, of course, so there may have been games where he logged even more minutes, and/or maybe he was on ice for MORE than 11 and 1/2 minutes in the 3rd of that particular game, but I think we have a realistic estimate there in general, of what they meant when they said he was "always" on the ice.
It's a safe assumption he logged over 34 minutes in that game, and it WASN'T the 7th game of a playoff, nor do I think we can assume that this game was the most TOI he ever had, so is it possible that he could have been close to 40 minutes in whatever game WAS the most TOI he ever had?
Maybe this can help us differentiate between legend and fact regarding the subject, or at least speculate a little more realistically?