Bobby Orr, you're out!

Like a movie spoiler, I warn you that every sentence after this one will be considered Blasphemy by every single hockey pundit over 40 so be careful, you may wish to stop here.

The debate has raged for a long time, twenty years at the very least. Who was the greatest hockey player of all-time, Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky?

No offence to Gordie Howe, but I think that general consensus has decided that while he was excellent, he never dominated the way that Gretzky or Orr did. Whatever the generation Howe played in, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s, there was always someone better. Not much better, but Richard, Hull, Orr to name a few. Longevity is great, but it only goes so far.

So I return to the original question. Who was better, Gretzky or Orr? Well I am afraid this is where the blasphemy begins. I believe, nay, I know that not only is Wayne Gretzky the greatest player of all-time, but Orr really is not even in the top ten.

Holy cow, what a relief, it is finally out there.

The facts are relatively simple, Gretzky broke every record imaginable. He has more assists than the next closest player has point and he has the most career goals. Add to that the single season and playoff records, four Stanley cups, 6 appearances in the final, MVP’s and scoring titles, international acclaim and only a fool would question the fact. The problem is that there are a lot of fools in hockey journalism and they have kept this debate alive for a very long time.

I can hear it now, “Ben, you don’t know because you never saw Orr play”. No, I did not and that is why I can say with perfect objectivity that Bobby Orr was good, but it was the terrible state of the hockey in the 1970’s that made him look like a candidate for the greatest title.

So why do I believe that Bobby Orr was not the greatest? Firstly, I refuse to give him credit for what might have been. Do not even talk to me about injuries. Orr’s injuries are irrelevant. For Gretzky or Orr there can only be one thought on injuries. If they are not in the line up, they are not helping the team and they are not performing so their greatest cannot be measured. Sure Orr only played for parts of 12 years, cry me a river, that is plenty of time to establish a career. Orr’s stats for 12 years were impressive, but in 12 years he only had six impressive seasons. Sure he may have walked on water in those six seasons, but remember over five seasons Gretzky scored a total of 1000pts.

That’s right from 1981-82 to 1985-86 Gretzky scored over 1000 points (1036 to be exact) something Orr never did in his career. Remember until the 1990’s a 1000 points was a ticket to the Hall of Fame, and Gretzky did it in a five season window, something to few people talk about when they speak about the carnival of records that was his career. (Note to the Hall of fame, Bobby Smith 1036 points and Brian Propp 1004 points deserve their ticket). I hope you noticed that in five years Gretzky did what the “Great” prospect of 1979, Bobby Smith, achieved over his entire 15 year career. Smith was a point a game player for his career and he won’t even make the Hall of Fame because of the types of number Gretzky put up, 1000 points just seems ordinary now.

So let’s talk about why Bobby Orr wasn’t so great.

In his first three years in the league Bobby Orr was not even a point a game player. In fact, he won the Norris trophy unbelievably after scoring 31 points in 46 games. You have to wonder how bad every other defenseman was to allow this to happen.

FACT:
Bobby Orr scored basically 130 points in his first 160 games during the tight checking Original Six era and the acceptable 12 team era.

This is where it gets interesting, only when the league continued to expand and the talent thinned to next to nothing did Bobby Orr’s statistics take off. Expansion was apart of Gretzky’s life as well, but nothing like the explosion Orr benefited from. It is mind boggling how many teams and cities joined the NHL in the 1960’s and 70’s. After his first season Bobby Orr’s NHL went from 6 teams to 12, 14, 16, and finally reaching 18 teams by his 9th season.

To add to the depletion of skill at the same time as this massive NHL expansion was underway a new professional league emerged, the WHA, taking talent from the weakening NHL to fill over 15 additional teams. What that means is that an 18 year old Bobby Orr managed 40 points in 60 games in a tight checking established league while a 22 year old Orr scored 139 points in a North American hockey system with over 30 major pro teams.

What I am suggesting is that Orr’s play was contained when opposing talent was sufficient say in the 6 and 12 team league, but when Canada literally ran dry of skilled hockey players, hence the heavy scouting of Europe and the US, Bobby Orr took full advantage of a league with nothing to offer by way of opposition.

Most agree that the league needed to expand from 6 teams because there was too much talent trying to get into the league. I agree, of course; however, there was a limit to reasonable expansion that was far exceeded by the NHL’s new cities and the creation of the WHA. The lack of talent to support the 30 teams of the NHL and WHA can be illustrated in the prolongation of the careers of players like Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley, Dave Keon, Frank Mahovilch, Doug Harvey, Boom Boom Geoffrion and Gordie Howe to name but a few. Without the money they were offered and their skill level being artificially maintained by the saturated leagues there is no way these players try to play as long as they did.

Where is my real evidence?

We have all seen amazing highlights of a Bobby Orr rush or cheered at his Stanley Cup winning goal, but can you remember a moment when one of those amazing plays was done against an established NHL original six franchise? How many Orr highlights came against the Cleveland Barons or the California Golden Seals? Too many, that’s how many. Go through one of his many highlight retrospectives and I defy you to find a meaning full team being victimized. I realize a game is a game and all points count, but Orr’s genius was always more apparent when the Bruins destroyed a medicore team. Even his great Stanley cup winning goal came against a team that had only existed for three short years.

Gretzky on the contrary joined the league with an expansion team, okay technically an expansion team, but by the time Gretzky entered the NHL the WHA was dead and the talent of that league was able to find homes in the NHL (Rick Viave, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Mike Rogers, Blaine Stoughton again to name just a few 100 point and 50 goal scorers). The NHL had found its stabilization point as some of the leagues poorer decisions played themselves out and teams were folded or combined. In other words the strong survived. In addition to overall team quality the NHL had now embraced the immense talent pool of Europe thanks to the WHA and the foolish expansion of the 1970's into the United States (Kansas City, Atlanta, Cleveland, Oakland) began to bare fruit as witnessed by the so-called miracle on ice. Don’t get me started about that miracle moniker. What that so-called “micracle” did was give the NHL an excellent group of young America players.

I hate the 1980 Miracle (What made it a miracle?)
http://angryrants2006.blogspot.com/2006/01/1980-us-winter-olympic-hockey-team.html

So as of 1979, there was a level of players capable of supplying and supporting a 21 team league. Gretzky was now playing in the most competitive period the league had seen in a very long time and what many see as the golden age of modern NHL hockey, the 1980’s. Not only did he compete, but he made everyone, EVERYONE, the class of the league, the All-stars, everyone, look like second class citizens, and he did it for 10 straight years, and when those ten years were up he dazzled for another 10 continuously grabbing prizes and making highlights.

I have always heard, arguments like “who knows what Orr could have done if he could have avoided the injuries”, but for all we know Orr could have been a flash in the pan. After all, he was really only very good for six years. Maybe regardless of the injuries he was finished, the NHL was just about to get very good and maybe there was no room in the league for his style of play. Could it be a coincidence that he entered the league during the last season of the original six period and left the year before the league found its feet again? Perhaps he was perfectly poised for a ten year window and once it closed, injuries or not, Orr’s hay day was over.

Even at their peak the Orr led Bruins could not compete with the defensively strong Canadiens and aggressive Flyers of the Middle Seventies. I think even Orr’s greatness would have found little success against the magnificent Islanders of the early 80’s and he would have no doubt retired a very sad man thinking of the prospect of taking on the mighty Oilers of the middle 1980’s.

Bobby Orr was very good and his statistics are impressive, but I think that an overall league wide adjustment to his style of play and the gradual improvement in talent would have severely cut his personal statistics long before an estimated or natural end to his career.

It is my beielf that the early end to Bobby Orr’s career, like most early ends, has helped to propagate the Orr myth. He is cemented in our minds as a player at his peak. He never got old, he never hung on a season too long (debatable). The dream is over and we need to wake up. Sure he was great, but because of the league he played in he was simply the best at the worst time. There will only ever be one Great One.