Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 1

[ImporterExporter]

I haven't seen any good information on exactly how much Orr was playing per game, seventies even shot down someone saying he was playing over 35 minutes. So any citation/information to back this up?

Math.

He played half of Boston's time at ES (averaged over his career) plus 98% of their power play and over 60% of the PK.

That should get him right around 35 minutes I believe.

 

[DannyGallivan]

My ranking (as of now) as well. But has anyone even considered a lesser player (as in not Gretzky, Howe, Lemieux) with greater longevity over Orr? Like... does anyone have a magic formula for how much more individually talented Jean Beliveau would have to be to be ranked above Orr?

I have Beliveau firmly in my top 10, his name is popping up a lot as being the next name after the big four. In my opinion, that overrates Le Gros Bull just a tad. We'll get to those debates soon enough.

 

[The Macho King]

I know a d man winning the art ross has only happened with Orr but it’s not like he would have came anywhere close to a healthy Lemieux or Gretzky

Stop. You're not helping.

 

[ted2019]

I wanted to compare the very best seasons/playoffs of each of the big 4. Initially I was going to do this just for myself - but I figure I did all of the research and I may as well post it to see if it's helpful for anyone else.

So I did a breakdown of individual seasons and playoffs for each of the big 4 players, and awarded points for each season. This was based on personal preference/subjective – and I heavily reward offense usually, but tried to be as objective as possible nonetheless.

What really sets the big 4 (and really – it’s Orr/Lemieux/Gretzky as I maintain Howe is mostly longevity) apart is their absolutely ridiculous peak – heights that no other players touched. That’s why to me they’re in the big 4 , and so it was important for me to reward what I consider super human performances (or video game stats). So I took apart each player’s regular season, and then each player’s playoffs, and awarded it a grade on the following scale:

Superhuman - 10
Great - 5
Good - 2
OK - 1
Zero - 0

Superhuman is the special stuff. 215 points, 199, ross for Orr, 1953 for Howe or 1955 playoffs. The types of seasons/records that no one else approached outside of these 4 (and mostly 3) players.

Great – This is for great seasons where you won a ross, or a Norris, or a hart, or a smythe – or where you maybe finished 2nd in one of those but your stats were worthy of being in this category. The “human” stuff – so for Gretzky his first “great” season is 1988 (after his rookie year) where he only scored 149 points.

Good – Good seasons worthy of adding to a player’s resume, but a step below “great”. Because I want to really reward peak for the big 4 (and even more – video game worthy stats) – I’m only awarding 2 points here. For Gretzky 1992 (121 point in 74 games) is his first “good” season.

Ok – Seasons worthy of adding longevity to a player, but without necessarily being at the very top of the league. Sticking to Gretzky – 1994-1995 with 48 points in 48 games is “ok”.

Zero – Not enough games played (ie Orr after 1975) or simply a really bad year not really worth of adding much (ie Howe’s rookie year in 1947 – 22 points in 58 games).

Here are the results:

Player	Total Score - Regular season	Total Score - Playoffs	Total Combined Score
Wayne Gretzky	121	83	204
Mario Lemieux	76	41	117
Gordie Howe	71	45	116
Bobby Orr	67	29	96

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Player	Average per ranked season	Average per ranked playoffs	Total average
Wayne Gretzky	6.05	5.19	5.67
Mario Lemieux	6.33	5.13	5.85
Gordie Howe	2.96	2.81	2.90
Bobby Orr	7.44	3.63	5.65

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Player	Number of ranked seasons	Number of ranked playoffs	Total Ranked
Wayne Gretzky	20	16	36
Mario Lemieux	12	8	20
Gordie Howe	24	16	40
Bobby Orr	9	8	17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Regular seasons	Zero	OK	Good	Great	Superhuman
Wayne Gretzky	0	3	4	4	9
Mario Lemieux	5	0	3	4	5
Gordie Howe	1	6	10	7	1
Bobby Orr	3	0	1	3	5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs	Zero	OK	Good	Great	Superhuman
Wayne Gretzky	0	1	6	4	5
Mario Lemieux	0	0	3	3	2
Gordie Howe	3	4	8	3	1
Bobby Orr	0	2	2	2	2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Also here’s the specific breakdown per season/playoff per player - i'm sure some will disagree with rankings of specific seasons/playoffs:

Gretzky Regular Season:
Superhuman: 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86. 87, 89, 91
Great: 80, 88, 90, 94
Good: 92, 96, 97, 98
Ok: 93, 95, 99
Zero:

Gretzky Playoffs:
Superhuman: 83, 84, 85, 87, 88
Great: 81, 86, 89, 83
Good: 82, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97
Ok: 80
Zero:

Lemieux Regular Season:
Superhuman: 88, 89, 92, 93, 96
Great: 86, 90, 97, 01
Good: 85, 87 2003
Ok:
Zero: 91, 94, 2002, 2004, 2006

Lemieux Playoff:
Superhuman: 91, 92
Great: 89, 93, 96
Good: 94, 97, 2001
Ok:
Zero:

Howe Regular Season:
Superhuman: 53
Great: 51, 52, 54, 57, 58, 60, 63
Good: 56, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65 ,66, 68, 69, 70
Ok: 48, 49, 50, 55, 67, 71
Zero: 47

Howe Playoffs:
Superhuman: 55
Great: 49, 64, 65
Good: 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61
Ok: 58, 65, 66, 70
Zero: 47, 48, 50

Orr Regular Season:
Superhuman: 70, 71, 72, 74, 75
Great: 68, 69, 73
Good: 67
Ok:
Zero: 76, 77, 79

Orr Playoffs:
Superhuman: 70, 72
Great: 71, 74
Good: 69, 75
Ok: 68, 73
Zero:


Conclusions I draw:
1. Gretzky is really in a class of his own. Peak + longevity + playoffs - no one touches him.
2. Averages are interesting – but keep in mind for Gretzky if you only average his best 9 season he scores a perfect 10, so you have to take that into account when the average includes a player's decline, vs not (Orr).
3. Orr really comes up short on longevity, anyway you look at it. He does so vs Howe and Gretzky obviously - but against Lemieux too.
4. A big belief of mine is enough longevity can trump "better" player - and this is where Howe makes a run at both Orr and Lemieux, despite my belief he wasn't "better".

Just curious. Where would you rank Jean Beliveau?

 

[ImporterExporter]

I know a d man winning the art ross has only happened with Orr but it’s not like he would have came anywhere close to a healthy Lemieux or Gretzky

Put Orr on a dynasty in the 80's and I'd bet my house he'd have pushed absurd boundaries. He was a 140 point player at a time when scoring was around a goal less per game. Put him in a league with even more weak teams to beat up on and completely wide open offensive flow and he'd likely have pushed 190-200 point seaons...at least once.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Stop. You're not helping.

I’m voicing an opinion. I wonder how Gretzky and Lemieux would look if they retired at 30.
Career of straight domination never seen before or after just like Orr.

 

[ted2019]

I have Beliveau firmly in my top 10, his name is popping up a lot as being the next name after the big four. In my opinion, that overrates Le Gros Bull just a tad. We'll get to those debates soon enough.

Beliveau might make my top 4.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Put Orr on a dynasty in the 80's and I'd bet my house he'd have pushed absurd boundaries. He was a 140 point player at a time when scoring was around a goal less per game. Put him in a league with even more weak teams to beat up on and completely wide open offensive flow and he'd likely have pushed 190-200 point seaons...at least once.

No way is Orr pushing 190.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Yes agreed. I'm counting more quantity per category - then qualifying each specific individual season against itself within each category. That would be going a step beyond - which I can do, but i haven't yet. And that is definitely one limitation.

But still without this i think we're able to draw some useful conclusions.

On overall sheer numbers alone it's hard to see anyone but Gretzky at #1. Even if you somehow stipulate that each of Orr's 5 best seasons is worth double the value of Gretzky's best (so 20 points vs 10) - he still ends up behind in regular season, let alone playoffs. And there's no way Orr's better seasons are worth twice as much as Gretzky. Maybe some are a "bit" better, but not much. Gretzky also easily ahead of everyone else in playoffs.

Your point structure is designed to produce a desired result.

Four players, 4/3/2/1 would suffice.

 

[ImporterExporter]

I have Doug Harvey as the greatest Hab, unless you count Roy but Pat played a lot more with a secondary team. Roy at 5 and Harvey 6th.

 

[quoipourquoi]

You're missing my point.

If he's going to toss out the Hockey News saying someone was the best defensive defenceman of all time (something hard to quantify) he should consider that they have Gretzky > Orr

Potentially (definitely) different electorate in 1998 than in 2004 (the first Great Debates issue I can recall) or later.

But THN is still a very good resource, as are player polls, awards results, etc. Looking at widespread opinion can be as beneficial as the numbers on the back of a hockey card. Nothing is gospel, but if a large quantity of people say one thing, it’s worth mentioning and investigating why they said it and why you agree or disagree.

 

[The Macho King]

Put Orr on a dynasty in the 80's and I'd bet my house he'd have pushed absurd boundaries. He was a 140 point player at a time when scoring was around a goal less per game. Put him in a league with even more weak teams to beat up on and completely wide open offensive flow and he'd likely have pushed 190-200 point seaons...at least once.

I question this a bit, just because Coffey is so clearly the second best offensive Dman and he couldn't even approach Orr's records. Part of that is (on the Oilers) the offense flowed through Wayne rather than the back end. So maybe replace him and Potvin and you get those absurd numbers, but I don't think the same thing would happen on the Oilers.

 

[ImporterExporter]

No way is Orr pushing 190.

If he didn't care about defense like Coffey and played in that era, I'd wish there was a way to make it possible to see. Again, just a hunch, but Orr would have made his already absurd numbers look pretty pedestrian.

But that's enough hypotheticals!

 

[The Macho King]

Your point structure is designed to produce a desired result.

Four players, 4/3/2/1 would suffice.

I think it weights peak more than a 4/3/2/1 ranking would.

 

[Canadiens1958]

The hockey news also published a top 50 since 1967 in which Orr was second to Gretzky

The hockey news also published a top 100 players of all time with voters like, Don Cherry, John Davidson, Milt Dunnell, Stan Fischler, Dick Irvin, Brian McFarlane, Bob McKenzie, Jim Matheson, Harry Neale, Al Abour, Scotty Bowman, Emile Francis, Howie Meeker, Scotty Morrison, Roger Neilson, Bud Poile, Sam Pollock, Marcel Pronovost, Billy Reay, Glen Sather, Frank Selke, Harry Sniden and Red Storey.

They also put Gretzky at #1. So if you're going to take hard to quantify categorizes as gospel from the Hockey News, you should also consider their best player of all time lists in which Gretzky routinely comes in first.

Voters only as opposed to generators and debating participants in the creation of the list.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I think it weights peak more than a 4/3/2/1 ranking would.

Which is the objective.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I wanted to compare the very best seasons/playoffs of each of the big 4. Initially I was going to do this just for myself - but I figure I did all of the research and I may as well post it to see if it's helpful for anyone else.

So I did a breakdown of individual seasons and playoffs for each of the big 4 players, and awarded points for each season. This was based on personal preference/subjective – and I heavily reward offense usually, but tried to be as objective as possible nonetheless.

What really sets the big 4 (and really – it’s Orr/Lemieux/Gretzky as I maintain Howe is mostly longevity) apart is their absolutely ridiculous peak – heights that no other players touched. That’s why to me they’re in the big 4 , and so it was important for me to reward what I consider super human performances (or video game stats). So I took apart each player’s regular season, and then each player’s playoffs, and awarded it a grade on the following scale:

Superhuman - 10
Great - 5
Good - 2
OK - 1
Zero - 0

Superhuman is the special stuff. 215 points, 199, ross for Orr, 1953 for Howe or 1955 playoffs. The types of seasons/records that no one else approached outside of these 4 (and mostly 3) players.

Great – This is for great seasons where you won a ross, or a Norris, or a hart, or a smythe – or where you maybe finished 2nd in one of those but your stats were worthy of being in this category. The “human” stuff – so for Gretzky his first “great” season is 1988 (after his rookie year) where he only scored 149 points.

Good – Good seasons worthy of adding to a player’s resume, but a step below “great”. Because I want to really reward peak for the big 4 (and even more – video game worthy stats) – I’m only awarding 2 points here. For Gretzky 1992 (121 point in 74 games) is his first “good” season.

Ok – Seasons worthy of adding longevity to a player, but without necessarily being at the very top of the league. Sticking to Gretzky – 1994-1995 with 48 points in 48 games is “ok”.

Zero – Not enough games played (ie Orr after 1975) or simply a really bad year not really worth of adding much (ie Howe’s rookie year in 1947 – 22 points in 58 games).

Here are the results:

Player	Total Score - Regular season	Total Score - Playoffs	Total Combined Score
Wayne Gretzky	121	83	204
Mario Lemieux	76	41	117
Gordie Howe	71	45	116
Bobby Orr	67	29	96

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Player	Average per ranked season	Average per ranked playoffs	Total average
Wayne Gretzky	6.05	5.19	5.67
Mario Lemieux	6.33	5.13	5.85
Gordie Howe	2.96	2.81	2.90
Bobby Orr	7.44	3.63	5.65

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Player	Number of ranked seasons	Number of ranked playoffs	Total Ranked
Wayne Gretzky	20	16	36
Mario Lemieux	12	8	20
Gordie Howe	24	16	40
Bobby Orr	9	8	17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Regular seasons	Zero	OK	Good	Great	Superhuman
Wayne Gretzky	0	3	4	4	9
Mario Lemieux	5	0	3	4	5
Gordie Howe	1	6	10	7	1
Bobby Orr	3	0	1	3	5

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs	Zero	OK	Good	Great	Superhuman
Wayne Gretzky	0	1	6	4	5
Mario Lemieux	0	0	3	3	2
Gordie Howe	3	4	8	3	1
Bobby Orr	0	2	2	2	2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Also here’s the specific breakdown per season/playoff per player - i'm sure some will disagree with rankings of specific seasons/playoffs:

Gretzky Regular Season:
Superhuman: 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86. 87, 89, 91
Great: 80, 88, 90, 94
Good: 92, 96, 97, 98
Ok: 93, 95, 99
Zero:

Gretzky Playoffs:
Superhuman: 83, 84, 85, 87, 88
Great: 81, 86, 89, 83
Good: 82, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97
Ok: 80
Zero:

Lemieux Regular Season:
Superhuman: 88, 89, 92, 93, 96
Great: 86, 90, 97, 01
Good: 85, 87 2003
Ok:
Zero: 91, 94, 2002, 2004, 2006

Lemieux Playoff:
Superhuman: 91, 92
Great: 89, 93, 96
Good: 94, 97, 2001
Ok:
Zero:

Howe Regular Season:
Superhuman: 53
Great: 51, 52, 54, 57, 58, 60, 63
Good: 56, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65 ,66, 68, 69, 70
Ok: 48, 49, 50, 55, 67, 71
Zero: 47

Howe Playoffs:
Superhuman: 55
Great: 49, 64, 65
Good: 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61
Ok: 58, 65, 66, 70
Zero: 47, 48, 50

Orr Regular Season:
Superhuman: 70, 71, 72, 74, 75
Great: 68, 69, 73
Good: 67
Ok:
Zero: 76, 77, 79

Orr Playoffs:
Superhuman: 70, 72
Great: 71, 74
Good: 69, 75
Ok: 68, 73
Zero:


Conclusions I draw:
1. Gretzky is really in a class of his own. Peak + longevity + playoffs - no one touches him.
2. Averages are interesting – but keep in mind for Gretzky if you only average his best 9 season he scores a perfect 10, so you have to take that into account when the average includes a player's decline, vs not (Orr).
3. Orr really comes up short on longevity, anyway you look at it. He does so vs Howe and Gretzky obviously - but against Lemieux too.
4. A big belief of mine is enough longevity can trump "better" player - and this is where Howe makes a run at both Orr and Lemieux, despite my belief he wasn't "better".

A lot of work to make the subjective look objective. For example, not all "superhuman" are created equal. And again, so many dimensions of hockey are being ignored. I do applaud the effort, though.

 

[ted2019]

I have Doug Harvey as the greatest Hab, unless you count Roy but Pat played a lot more with a secondary team. Roy at 5 and Harvey 6th.

I don't even have Roy as the top goalie on my list. I have Roy firmly at 10. Harvey didn't have the competition like I thought he had when winning the Norris Trophies. That will have him lower then I had him. I have Richard in the 9th spot and Bourque is most likely 8th for me. I judging Mario, Beliveau, Hull with a change up in my top 4.

 

[The Macho King]

Which is the objective.

Right, and if you're the type of person that ranks peak over other seasons (which is perfectly reasonable), that achieves that result. 4/3/2/1 biases toward longevity versus peak and is just as arbitrary.

 

[DannyGallivan]

I don't know hockey? (You post that right after quoting my opinion.)

I've played it for five years, assistant coached it for nearly two seasons, reported on it as an NHL-accredited journalist for over three years and watched it religiously for over a third of a century. Thanks for the insult. You may not like my opinion but a slur ain't going unaddressed. Ideally your useless post I just quoted gets deleted along with my reply. Alternatively, let's have a call to rational debate and tolerance for different perspectives.

Totally tongue in cheek, just like you suggesting that Lemieux had a chance of finishing ahead of Orr in this debate.

 

[ImporterExporter]

I don't even have Roy as the top goalie on my list. I have Roy firmly at 10. Harvey didn't have the competition like I thought he had when winning the Norris Trophies. That will have him lower then I had him. I have Richard in the 9th spot and Bourque is most likely 8th for me. I judging Mario, Beliveau, Hull with a change up in my top 4.

Harvey was besting a younger Red Kelly head to head. I agree the depth wasn't as good as say the 80's or 90's but I'm not docking Harvey points when his direct comp is a guy most people have int their top 20 players all time.

And again, the postseason gap between Roy and Hasek is much, much wider than than regular season, IMHO.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Harvey was besting a younger Red Kelly head to head. I agree the depth wasn't as good as say the 80's or 90's but I'm not docking Harvey points when his direct comp is a guy most people have int their top 20 players all time.

And again, the postseason gap between Roy and Hasek is much, much wider than than regular season, IMHO.

I'm ready to go to war in the next vote

 

[The Macho King]

I don't even have Roy as the top goalie on my list. I have Roy firmly at 10. Harvey didn't have the competition like I thought he had when winning the Norris Trophies. That will have him lower then I had him. I have Richard in the 9th spot and Bourque is most likely 8th for me. I judging Mario, Beliveau, Hull with a change up in my top 4.

Eh - Orr's competition wasn't great either. Look at their seasons rather than docking points because the second best season wasn't that great.

 

[DannyGallivan]

No way is Orr pushing 190.

I'm sure in October of 1969 there wasn't anybody who said he was winning the Art Ross either.

 

[sr edler]

I hope you're just trying to make a point, because I mentioned earlier how those who dismiss Howe as merely a guy who played forever is what the computer nerds call a "noob" (that's the right term, correct?)

Well, if you have good enough reading skills you'll probably figure it out, like most other people.