What's The Argument For Lemieux Over Orr?

[ChiTownPhilly]

I find myself re-posting this every now-and-then...

"Orr versus Lemieux in Three Acts:

Act I- ages 18 to 21-22: they're comparable. I got Orr with the edge in two years- Lemieux with the edge in two years. If ya wanna say (for the sake of argument) Orr has a slight edge (cuz his advantages are wider than Lemieux's, e.g.: playing age 21) I won't argue strenuously. Still- I'll call it comparable.

Act II- ages 21-22 to 26: it's Orr with the edge- there's daylight between them- but Lemieux is doing some historically significant things during that time, too. Also, let's not lose sight of the fact that, from age 18 to this point, Orr's building his legacy with considerably more teammate-help than Lemieux.

Act III- Orr did not provide us with an Act III. To the extent that Lemieux's career continues, he is competing against a virtually blank sheet of paper. After playing age 26, Lemieux scored 709 points. Orr scored 45.

Lemieux from age 27 onwards: 2 Harts/Pearsons (Lindsays), 3 Art Ross, 4 All-Star Teams (3x 1st). My case is- Lemieux's advantage in Act III more than offsets any disadvantages in the first two Acts."

(Review of the thread from whence this came also reminded me that a lot of Orr's hitherto-unprecedented scoring-stat numbers came via hyper-thrashing recently-minted expansion teams...)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

And I'm telling you that season shouldn't move the needle in a Big 4 debate, and that there have been a hundred better seasons from defenders who didn't win the Norris Trophy.

But again, if you want to argue for Lemieux, this is the one time you do it with volume, and now we're talking about Orr's 8th best season, and Lemieux's 10th-12th best. Orr was 3rd in Hart voting on equal footing with others in the half of the season he played, and Lemieux was 2nd in Hart voting putting his half season against everyone else's 82(-ish) games.

So, a 19-year-old wins the Norris trophy and comes in 4th in Hart voting and that's not really a big deal?

Top 5 in 1968 Hart voting:

1. Stan Mikita 40-47-87 and +/- was even
2. Jean Beliveau 31-37-68 and +25
3. Bobby Hull 44-31-75 and +13
4. Bobby Orr 11-20-31 and +28 (in 46 games)
5. Gordie Howe 39-43-82 and +12

Pretty good company for the kid.

Also, I think Mario coming back after 3 seasons at age 35 and putting up 1.77 points per game should also be considered a needle mover.

Lastly, let me say, in my opinion, I rank Orr higher simply because he was a better overall hockey player than Mario.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I find myself re-posting this every now-and-then...

"Orr versus Lemieux in Three Acts:

Act I- ages 18 to 21-22: they're comparable. I got Orr with the edge in two years- Lemieux with the edge in two years. If ya wanna say (for the sake of argument) Orr has a slight edge (cuz his advantages are wider than Lemieux's, e.g.: playing age 21) I won't argue strenuously. Still- I'll call it comparable.

Act II- ages 21-22 to 26: it's Orr with the edge- there's daylight between them- but Lemieux is doing some historically significant things during that time, too. Also, let's not lose sight of the fact that, from age 18 to this point, Orr's building his legacy with considerably more teammate-help than Lemieux.

Act III- Orr did not provide us with an Act III. To the extent that Lemieux's career continues, he is competing against a virtually blank sheet of paper. After playing age 26, Lemieux scored 709 points. Orr scored 45.

Lemieux from age 27 onwards: 2 Harts/Pearsons (Lindsays), 3 Art Ross, 4 All-Star Teams (3x 1st). My case is- Lemieux's advantage in Act III more than offsets any disadvantages in the first two Acts."

(Review of the thread from whence this came also reminded me that a lot of Orr's hitherto-unprecedented scoring-stat numbers came via hyper-thrashing recently-minted expansion teams...)

Believe me, Act 1, they were not comparable.

 

[JackSlater]

Lastly, let me say, in my opinion, I rank Orr higher simply because he was a better overall hockey player than Mario.

Seems like an afterthought a lot of the time. Also the most important thing.

 

[blogofmike]

So, a 19-year-old wins the Norris trophy and comes in 4th in Hart voting and that's not really a big deal?

Top 5 in 1968 Hart voting:

1. Stan Mikita 40-47-87 and +/- was even
2. Jean Beliveau 31-37-68 and +25
3. Bobby Hull 44-31-75 and +13
4. Bobby Orr 11-20-31 and +28 (in 46 games)
5. Gordie Howe 39-43-82 and +12

Pretty good company for the kid.

Also, I think Mario coming back after 3 seasons at age 35 and putting up 1.77 points per game should also be considered a needle mover.

Lastly, let me say, in my opinion, I rank Orr higher simply because he was a better overall hockey player than Mario.

Right...

So when you compare 1968 Orr to 2001 Lemieux, the needle moves backwards for Orr. And compared to Gretzky and Howe, it's a very weak 8th best season.

Orr had a great 2nd season (or half of one), but it's a Big 4 debate. For this discussion his goal posts are set at Gretzky/Howe/Lemieux.

In 2001, Lemieux finished 2nd in Hart voting, and had a solid playoff run. Pittsburgh was .500 when he was out of the lineup, and .662 when he played (for Orr these numbers are .518 and .598.)

If we're comparing (and we are), the needle moves in Lemieux's direction.

Believe me, Act 1, they were not comparable.

Keep in mind in Lemieux's 2nd season, he was 2nd in scoring, and 2nd in Hart voting to a 215 point scorer, and he won the Pearson. Before 1969-70, Orr doesn't beat that. Yes, he runs up huge +/- scores, but even through 1969-70, it's still largely built up in games against the Expansion 6.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Even your own post offers a vastly superior insight to the size of the talent pool:

Hockey Canada Registrations & The High Costs of Hockey

This is a for reference post. I started researching Hockey Canada registrations to try and determine how the feed of Canadian hockey players has been over time. I just don't have a lot of time to continue at the moment so I wanted to put this out there in case someone else wants to pursue or...

forums.hfboards.com

Of course there are flaws. Some posters have pointed out in the thread (and also in other threads) how the real number of players was higher than the official number. I don't know to what degree they are right but if we wanna talk about the talent pool in the game of hockey we should start by looking at people who play the game of hockey and not at people who do not.

The registrations, participation numbers, population numbers and demographics are all pieces of the puzzle that we have to use as proxies because the single actual number doesn’t exist.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

The other complication is that there are a lot of steps between “playing hockey” and developing a player who is at the NHL level of “playing hockey”. So even if you had the number it still doesn’t tell the whole story.

Greatness tends to cluster so there are many environmental/development variables that mean it isn’t as simple as more players = more good players.

 

[Staniowski]

I think there're multiple reasons why Lemieux is doing very well in public opinion of the best hockey players of all-time. He is - a bit surprising, I'd say - easily #2 now for most people (I thought that Orr would stay at #2 for longer), and he should continue to rise (relative to almost everybody else), unless McDavid passes him.

One of the reasons, of course, is that nobody has really matched his talent since he played (it's 40 years since he entered the NHL). That's a long time.

Also, it's pretty easy for people to see that he and Gretzky are in a league of their own offensively - their numbers and their creativity.

But I think another interesting factor is personal popularity. When he played, Lemieux was probably the least popular of all the NHL's megastars in history. Most people just didn't like him very much, and many people particularly disliked him. Gretzky probably had 1000 fans for every Lemieux fan. So that was always working against him.

But I think general hostility towards Lemieux has decreased a lot, and continues to do so. The younger generations don't really care about that stuff, and don't remember it. (Of course, the older Gretzky fans still dislike Lemieux, as everybody can plainly see on a daily basis in the HOH subforum, where he remains the most disliked player of all-time).

But the younger generations are not anti-Lemieux, and this has an effect on personal rankings.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Right...So when you compare 1968 Orr to 2001 Lemieux, the needle moves backwards for Orr. And compared to Gretzky and Howe, it's a very weak 8th best season.
Orr had a great 2nd season (or half of one), but it's a Big 4 debate. For this discussion his goal posts are set at Gretzky/Howe/Lemieux.
In 2001, Lemieux finished 2nd in Hart voting, and had a solid playoff run. Pittsburgh was .500 when he was out of the lineup, and .662 when he played (for Orr these numbers are .518 and .598.)
If we're comparing (and we are), the needle moves in Lemieux's direction.
Keep in mind in Lemieux's 2nd season, he was 2nd in scoring, and 2nd in Hart voting to a 215 point scorer, and he won the Pearson. Before 1969-70, Orr doesn't beat that. Yes, he runs up huge +/- scores, but even through 1969-70, it's still largely built up in games against the Expansion 6.

No, it doesn't. Where do you get that from?

Winning the Norris trophy as a 19-year-old is absolutely Big 4 debate material. No one else has done that. Or being a defenseman that's top 5 in Hart voting at 19. Never been done. Much like winning an Art Ross as a defenseman has never been down. But Orr did it twice.

As for Mario being 2nd in Hart voting in his 2nd season, check out the numbers. Talk about ludicrous voting:

2. Lemieux 48-93-141 and -8 (only 5 players on the Pens with a worse plus/minus)
3. Mark Howe 24-58-82 and +87
4. Paul Coffey 48-90-138 and +61

 

[Gorskyontario]

I think there're multiple reasons why Lemieux is doing very well in public opinion of the best hockey players of all-time.

All this proves is public opinion can't be trusted, and should not be taken seriously.

Selanne at 17....Lol.

 

[Sentinel]

The two arguments for Lemieux over Orr are:

1. Lemieux played in the strongest era of hockey ever and Orr possibly in the weakest.
2. Orr lost the MVP trophy to his teammate twice. Lemieux -- never.
3. Hasek should be the consensus #5 (at least) player of all time.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

Gretzky
Orr
Howe
McDavid
Lemieux
Hasek
Roy
Richard
Beliveau
Messier
Crosby
Lafleur
Coffey
Hull
Bossy
Sawchuk
Yzerman
Ovechkin
Kurri
Plante

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

Lemieux dominated longer and in a much tougher era. As recent as 2003 lemieux was dominating a scoring race. He was crosbys teamate. We have no idea what orr would do in a modern league. We 100 percent know mario would be the best. Regardless majority of the hockey world has mario over orr. So the title should be switched

 

[MadLuke]

That was such a wild start of a season for a 37 years old:

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Lemieux_kovalev-Hrdina-Tarnstrom-Morozov was like a 30% pp during that stretch in a era when 25% was almost impossible to do. That said -4, team playing .500, could still dominate the scoring race but not sure we can say even in stretch dominate the league, like Orr or young mario.

Was this the season nhl.com had a Mario Lemieux tracker tool ? That projected his pace

 

[blogofmike]

No, it doesn't. Where do you get that from?

Winning the Norris trophy as a 19-year-old is absolutely Big 4 debate material. No one else has done that. Or being a defenseman that's top 5 in Hart voting at 19. Never been done. Much like winning an Art Ross as a defenseman has never been down. But Orr did it twice.

As for Mario being 2nd in Hart voting in his 2nd season, check out the numbers. Talk about ludicrous voting:

2. Lemieux 48-93-141 and -8 (only 5 players on the Pens with a worse plus/minus)
3. Mark Howe 24-58-82 and +87
4. Paul Coffey 48-90-138 and +61

They vote for Orr and it's evidence, but they vote for Lemieux and it's ludicrous. Got it.

The age thing is just style points. There's no substance to it. Whether he was 19 or 29, what matters is the impact he made. Again, it's Big 4 debate. Gretzky won the Hart Trophy from ages 19-26 (or 18-25 if you use an age cutoff). Had it not been for Gretzky sticking around, Lemieux would have won the 1986 Hart Trophy at 20.

As for the trophies, I hope you'll concede that the '68 Norris competition was dreadful. One of the all time weakest fields, which allowed for such a weak winner (it WAS half a season).

As for the Hart, let's look at the competition, so we can see that in 1968 there were some big names - and some very weak competition.

Mikita scored 10 fewer points than the year before in 2 more games, and at the time of voting, Stan was also a minus player (-2, I believe, before the NHL 100 update). Beliveau missed 15 games and at 36 was not the same guy who scored at higher rates in a lower scoring environment a decade earlier. Bobby Hull scored 50 goals 3 times in 4 seasons - and this was the time he scored 44, and was 22 points below the mark he set 2 years prior. In short, this is the 1960s equivalent of a season where everyone underperforms, or is hurt, and then Jamie Benn wins the scoring title.

As for 1986, 141 points is the 2nd best non-Gretzky total since Esposito scored 145 in 1974, and unlike Esposito and Bossy, Lemieux's team was not a powerhouse. Lemieux takes second place to Gretzky setting the single season assists and points records, but as you pointed out, Lemieux does beat Mark Howe in Hart voting. Remember how I said there were a hundred non-Norris seasons that were better than Orr's in 1969? Mark Howe had one of them.

Mark Howe even posts a ridiculous r-on/r-off of about 3.19 (someone feel free to check my math) which not even Bobby Orr came remotely close to pulling off at his peak. And still, Lemieux was ahead of him on at least 50 of 63 ballots.

Lemieux dominated longer and in a much tougher era. As recent as 2003 lemieux was dominating a scoring race. He was crosbys teamate. We have no idea what orr would do in a modern league. We 100 percent know mario would be the best. Regardless majority of the hockey world has mario over orr. So the title should be switched

Please stop helping.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I have yet to see a player who combined size, strength, and skill like Lemieux, in absolute or relative terms. I have seen defensemen who remind me of Orr, at least offensively (in absolute terms).

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Lemieux dominated longer and in a much tougher era. As recent as 2003 lemieux was dominating a scoring race. He was crosbys teamate. We have no idea what orr would do in a modern league. We 100 percent know mario would be the best.

if it’s axiomatic that there was some point in the 90s that hockey became modern and got much much harder then so be it

but there are fewer years between orr’s second art ross (double digit lead on peak seasons by dionne and lafleur) and mario’s best season than there are between the 2003 season and today.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

I'll argue that no one has had a greater year than 1969-70 Orr winning the Hart/Ross/Norris/Cup/Smythe in the same year

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I have yet to see a player who combined size, strength, and skill like Lemieux, in absolute or relative terms. I have seen defensemen who remind me of Orr, at least offensively (in absolute terms).

Lindros, and he actually used his size and strength to get the puck rather than just to keep the puck.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Hey man, Hockey Outsider put some time into that thread. His data was well-sourced and his rationale was solid. Stuff like that improves the caliber of discussion in the forum. Even if you disagree, he really doesn't deserve to be spoken to in this tone.

The overall size of the talent pool and the talent per roster spot are two different metrics:

One is an estimate of how many people are playing hockey that could potentially feed into the NHL.

The other is that same number divided by the number of NHL roster spots available. It's likely going to change massively between a 6 team league and a 32 team league.

The competition per roster spot could potentially go down while the total talent pool size increases by a factor of 4x or more. You realize that, right?

I would hope that you can see the difference between "Competition per NHL roster spot" and "Estimated global talent pool." If you don't comprehend that distinction (your posts betray that you haven't), then you aren't going to be able to make a cogent argument on this subject.

That was a nice reply on my behalf. Thank you for that.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'll argue that no one has had a greater year than 1969-70 Orr winning the Hart/Ross/Norris/Cup/Smythe in the same year

Yeah, I've said here before that 1970 Bobby Orr was the greatest player I had ever seen...whatever you want to say about the era is whatever...just watching the player, you can see that it would have dominated any time.

It's the old thing I go to...but...when I watch, say, Minnesota High School or New England Prep School hockey and I see a kid dominate, I don't go, "well, that's too bad he's not playing in the OHL - a far better amateur league" - yes, the level of competition isn't good. But that doesn't make the player bad. It can. It can be deceiving.

So you have to have a gauge of "scalable dominance" vs "exploitative dominance".

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Yeah, I've said here before that 1970 Bobby Orr was the greatest player I had ever seen...whatever you want to say about the era is whatever...just watching the player, you can see that it would have dominated any time.

It's the old thing I go to...but...when I watch, say, Minnesota High School or New England Prep School hockey and I see a kid dominate, I don't go, "well, that's too bad he's not playing in the OHL - a far better amateur league" - yes, the level of competition isn't good. But that doesn't make the player bad. It can. It can be deceiving.

So you have to have a gauge of "scalable dominance" vs "exploitative dominance".

Yeah, the era strength argument gets tired because it usually just points to depth while ignoring the top end talent. 1970 Orr did what he did against prime Espo, Hull, Mikita, Ratelle and had 21% more points than 2nd, 56% more than 5th and 71% more than 10th. Not even getting into the defensive impact.

To your point, the underlying scale #s are there for that Orr season

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I am not misrepresenting anything. We're talking about the talent pool as it pertains to the NHL quality so of course I was focusing on the "per team" basis. There were only 6 teams back then. According to your statistical compilation of how many males were born in Canada (lol at calling it a study) there was more talent on a per team basis (by a HUUUGE margin) in the 50s than now. Of course the conclusions of what you were trying to do were so misleading it baffles me you or anyone would ever link it in any argument. Staniowski made the perfect rebuttal which made the whole post redundant I wonder why it's even brought up.

By the way this is the amount of talent according to your post on a per team basis:
View attachment 881364

MJ already covered this, but just so that my response is on the record - there's a difference between the global talent pool (which absolutely, unquestionably has increased over the past 60 years) and the amount of competition for a roster spot (ie, the talent pool, divided by the number of jobs - it's unclear to me if that's actually increased, because we have five times the number of teams, and a few extra roster spots per team).

This is an internet message board, not a doctoral thesis. I'm not trying to get a PhD here. But in the original post, spent a fair amount of time documenting what the key assumptions were. I also explain the factors (which need to be considered, but haven't been incorporated into the results) that would both underestimate the size of the talent pool today (ie more financial incentives), and overestimate the size (ie decreased fitness/physical activity, and much of the growth in the population due to aging and/or immigration).

If someone can present a better methodology and/or more accurate data, I'm all for it. (As you see in the original thread, I revised all the data based on better information that I was able to get from Statistics Canada - so I'm not pretending that these numbers are set in stone). They're an estimate based on the data that's available. The whole point of posting all those tables, with all that data, is to be transparent, so that we (as a group) can improve the results.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'm not trying to get a PhD here.

Clearly...

Given your work here, you should have several hung up on your wall already...

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Gretzky
Orr
Howe
McDavid
Lemieux
Hasek
Roy
Richard
Beliveau
Messier
Crosby
Lafleur
Coffey
Hull
Bossy
Sawchuk
Yzerman
Ovechkin
Kurri
Plante

Bobby Hull needs to be quite a bit higher.

 

[MXD]

I perused this thread and it felt to me like a race as to whom would come up with the worst possible imaginable take.