Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkGio
I couldn't take Orr over Gretzky or Lemieux because Orr played through an era where the league went from 6 teams to 18. And Orr had a short career, so all of a sudden the league needs to fill rosters with warm bodies.
Think about that. In less that ten years the needed to obtain 260 jobs, so where did these guys come from? The draft? Well based on a quick Google search, only 19% of NHL picks play NHL games, and this where there's over 400 jobs[1]. Keep in mind, Europeans did not play in the league back then, with the Red Curtain and all that. S
So this massive surge in players meant that most of the league was filled with amateurs. So yeah, a defenseman like Orr could just weave his way through all these guys. It was also a time where players had a smoke on the bench and some guys had other jobs besides playing hockey.
Gretzky played in a more stable league that has only expanded from Orr's 18 to the 10 years of 22 teams, and that last expansion came from an already organized hockey league (WHA). And Lemieux played in another massive surge in jobs during his tenure of the last 8 teams to make up the current 30.
So look at Vegas roster. It's not exactly going to be the dream team when it's taking guys like Kulak or Jokipakka from the Flames. Imagine the kind of competitors that happens when a league goes from six to 18 teams in a short period of time, and during those expansions, teams weren't giving away their good talent like they are with next year's expansion draft.
Bobby Orr was playing against mostly amateurs IMO, so no, he's not in the conversation as GOAT.
[1]http://proicehockey.about.com/od/prospects/f/draft_success.htm
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No, only Orr could do it. There isn't any other defenseman "like Orr", hence why he's in the conversation for GOAT. Do you consider Crosby the GOAT? He has the highest average level of competition around him due to the era he plays in, and if Orr is discredited due to the quality of his peers, Crosby should surely be your choice right? But few would choose Crosby despite being the best player of this generation. The reason for this is because players should be judged by how dominating they are/were in comparison to their peers. He may be the best of today's NHL, but he isn't other-worldly like Bobby Orr was. Your argument that Orr wasn't so great because his competition was weak falls apart when you consider that there wasn't any other player from that era who had even a remotely similar impact as Bobby Orr, even against the same "amateur" competition Orr allegedly played against. The general consensus is that there are only two other players in the history of the NHL who were as far ahead of everybody else in their time - Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. That's why these are the three players that people consider to be the GOAT.