The 5th best player ever is a goalie.

[jigglysquishy]

Everyone thinks things are impossible and that modern players are too skilled to put up crazy margins but

Ovechkin led the league in goals 9 times. That should be impossible.

McDavid just posted arguably the best offensive season outside the Big Four. That should be impossible. In 2021 he posted the 10th highest VsX ever. In 2015, the idea of someone winning 3 Art Rosses was relegated to history. McDavid won 5.

Lebron just broke the all time point record, will hit the all time games played record, and did 10 Finals appearences across 4 teams. That should be impossible. In 1995, Wilt and Kareem were the only players to hit 30,000 points all time. Kareem being at 38,000 was lapping the field. Lebron will hit 40,000 soon.

Steph Curry broke the NBA meta and what people thought was impossible for shooting. You can't do what Steph did in pre 2015 NBA video games. It's that impossible.

Ohtani's pitching/hitting skillset is straight out of the 1920s. 10 years ago it was considered an impossibility.

Messi plays in an ancient sport with a larger talent pool than the NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL combined. Yet he continues to have historic domination.

In 1965, everyone thought an defenseman winning an Art Ross was impossible. Orr did it twice.

In 1978, everyone thought 160 points was impossible. Gretzky hit 195 points 5 times.

In 2012 everyone thought back to back Stanley Cups was never going to happen again. It's happened twice since.

Impossible keeps happening. Why do we disregard Orr's achievements because they were also impossible? It's just small minded thinking.

 

[Vilica]

I think there's a clear delineation in terms of possibilities for Bobby Orr. If you look at his statistics objectively, in terms of points percentage, Erik Karlsson has put up multiple seasons in the realm of what Bobby Orr did in his peak years. Orr's seasons are better, but Karlsson comes as close as anybody to matching Orr's P% as a defenseman.

However, there is another aspect of team goal scoring, relative to league average, where Orr's (and the Bruins) accomplishments are nigh-on impossible to replicate in a modern environment. Since the lockout, there have been 6 teams to break 25% above league average (rounded), and an additional 3 teams to break 30%. [05-06 OTT, 25.8%; 06-07 BUF, 26.3%, 11-12 PIT, 25.2%; 12-13 PIT, 27.6%; 16-17 PIT, 24.7%; 22-23 EDM, 26.0% are the 6 above 25%, 09-10 WAS, 37.9%, 18-19 TBL, 30.7%, 21-22 FLA, 32.2% are the 3 above 30%.] With that in mind, here are both Karlsson and Orr's percentage above league average for those seasons, as well as G% and P%.

Year	%LA	G%	P%	Year	%LA	%LA Adj	G%	P%
11-12	1.115	0.078	0.321	68-69	1.335	1.165	0.069	0.211
13-14	1.046	0.087	0.323	69-70	1.253	1.117	0.119	0.433
14-15	1.064	0.091	0.284	70-71	1.635	1.420	0.093	0.348
15-16	1.050	0.070	0.357	71-72	1.381	1.179	0.112	0.355
16-17	0.924	0.083	0.345	72-73	1.289	1.130	0.088	0.306
17-18	0.913	0.041	0.283	73-74	1.402	1.199	0.092	0.350
22-23	0.903	0.107	0.433	74-75	1.259	1.120	0.133	0.391

The gap between the haves and have-nots in Orr's era was such that his teams were ludicrously above average in goal scoring. Even when I adjust his league average to just be the O6 teams, all 7 of his seasons are still higher than Karlsson's best. That's where I think the replicability of seasons breaks down. The overexpansion of the 70s that led to that huge gap is not going to happen again, allowing one team to sustain 30% above league average over multiple seasons.

In conclusion, I can draw these lines in terms of imagining how Bobby Orr might perform in today's league. Could he sustain the P% he did in the 70s? Absolutely, Erik Karlsson shows that those levels are perfectly reasonable to achieve. Could his team sustain their adjusted percentage above league average? Absolutely, 1 outlier season is common for elite players/teams, and sustaining between 10-20% above league average is completely in-line with other results.

However, could his team sustain their original percentage above league average? Very unlikely, bordering on impossible. In a 250 league average, 63.5% above is 409 goals, the next closest team being the 33-34 Toronto Maple Leafs at 375 goals (50% above league average), then a grouping of teams around 350 goals who are 40% above league average. You're talking about 60 more goals than the next highest cluster. Nobody's team is sustaining 36.4% above league average over a 7 year period.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Is it even humanly possible in today's NHL to run circles around other players to the extent that was available during Orr's career?

According to your thread estimating the size of the talent pool, the competition per roster spot was at an all-time low during Orr's career. There were some pretty bad players to take advantage of in the early to mid 70s.

IMO some sort of adjustment would be equitable.

Of course, we could look at hardware and that bodes well for McDavid. Against a far larger talent pool, he's already equaled Bobby Orr in Hart placements. He's likely pacing for another 3 this season.

Orr
1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6

McDavid
1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 5

Of course you can say Orr is a defenseman so he's underrated this way. And that is a fair point. But again, that is counteracted by the gargantuan 3x difference in talent pool size.

Ranking Orr in the top 4 with only 731 total games played is inevitably problematic. It strongly implies that longevity is worth very little, and so the case against McDavid being in the top 10 right now is weak for anyone who puts Orr very high, let alone above Gordie Howe.

On that basis I think it is unreasonable for you to claim McDavid needs 5-10 more seasons. He's arguably matched Bobby Orr's regular season career right now.



Bobby Orr only made it past the second round 3 times in his entire career. It's not some big difference.

Bobby Orr only played 76 playoff games. McDavid could conceivably get close to that with 1 deep playoff run.

I think what you are saying here is pretty arbitrary. 1 player does not carry a team. It has never happened - not even with Bobby Orr. Faulting McDavid for team success is not a strong point to hang your hat on IMO - particularly given his excellent playoff statistics.

McDavid has 655 total games played vs Orr's 731. It's an 11% difference and set to be zero within roughly a year from now. You want to focus on 27 missing playoff games from McDavid's resume? That's likely going to evaporate.

There is also the shear difference in the likelihood of team advancement in a 32 team league of mostly well-established teams (and where expansion teams can do well) vs a 12/14/16/18 team league where half the teams are new expansion teams that didn't stand a chance. An adjustment in that regard would also be equitable.

You raise some fair points. Some general comments (without going line by line):

I agree with @jigglysquishy that people are too quick to say that players today can't separate themselves from their peers the way that they used to. Ovechkin is a great example. Think back to 2005. If someone have told me that Ovechkin (or anyone) would win 9 RR trophies, I would've said it's preposterous. There's too much talent, too many teams, etc. Other players have had some major historical accomplishments since the lockout. Although it seems like Orr's accomplishments would be impossible today, people said the same thing in the 1970's.

I've gone on the record a few times saying that comparing Hart trophy voting results between forwards and defensemen is meaningless. It tells us about the voting patterns of journalists (who mysteriously stopped voting for defensemen for the Hart in 1954) and nothing about the two players.

Despite having such a short career, Orr objectively accomplished more than any other defenseman in NHL history. He has the record for most Norris trophies. He has the record for most Conn Smythe trophies. He has the record for most Art Ross trophies. And he more Hart trophies than any defenseman in the past 80 years. Had he played ten more years, he would have accomplished even more - but he already did enough to surpass the career accomplishments of Bourque, Lidstrom, Harvey, etc.

That goes back to what I was saying about McDavid. I fully expect him to end up #5 all-time. But if he retired today, after 600-something games, I wouldn't rank him ahead of Jaromir Jagr. (I wouldn't rank him ahead of Crosby or Ovechkin either, but Jagr is probably the closest match in terms of resume, strengths, and weaknesses). After 600-something games, Orr did what no defenseman has ever done (before or since). After 600-something games, at least for me, McDavid hasn't separated himself from the Jagr/Crosby/Ovechkin tier (based on what he's actually accomplished, as opposed to projections).

On top of that, Orr was an excellent defensive player. I think that McDavid's critics overrate his (supposed) defensive inadequacies. But he's still far from matching Orr's two-way impact.

I agree that Orr's playoff resume, although not exactly disappointing, could have been better. But there's no comparison to McDavid. Orr was by far the best player on two Cup winning team (1970 and 1972). He was arguably the best player on another Stanley Cup finalist (though this year it wasn't as clear cut). Even in a few of the years where the Bruins were upset (1971 and 1975), he was still pretty clearly their best player.

I think McDavid's critics exaggerate his lack of playoff success. He's been truly excellent the past two springs (despite being let down by a weak team). But when comparing him to Orr, all of these statements seem to be true - Orr maintained his excellent per-game rate over longer and deeper playoff runs (this is why, for example, in the 1990's, Sakic was regarded as a better playoff performer than Jagr, despite them being very close on a per-game basis); Orr separated himself from his teammates in terms of impact in a way that McDavid hasn't (Draisaitl scored more points and more PPG over their career); and again there's no comparison in terms of their defensive play.

For the record, I rank Howe above Orr. I have no doubt that Orr was the better player, but the difference in longevity is too big for me to ignore.