[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

There was no dismissal there, he praised Johnny. Sure he said it was a tougher game when he played but what is wrong with that? It was. Gretzky has said the same thing when talking about McDavid, he must be a self centred jerk as well. Or it could just be a player saying the game was rougher back then and not read into it.

No. It was more pointed than you describe. But I didn't care about it either way. And I never said "self-centred jerk". You chose to read that in.

“There’s only one Theo Fleury,” says the one Theo Fleury, when asked about the Flames’ new diminutive talent. “He has less challenges now than I ever did. I was carrying 250-pound defencemen on my back night after night because of the hooking and holding.”

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...small-players/

“I love the era I played in. I think I played in the greatest era of talent in the history of the game,” says Fleury, a point-a-game player through 1,084 games. “I was considered one of those guys who had incredible talent, incredible ability. But a guy like Johnny Gaudreau can play in the NHL right now. He couldn’t play in the era that I played in, unless he changed his style of game.”

That’s not a knock on Johnny Hockey, Fleury clarifies; it’s more of an evaluation on how the game has softened. He’s never met the 21-year-old kid from Jersey, hasn’t measured his heart, isn’t certain Gaudreau wouldn’t learn to adapt to the clutch-and-grab tactics Fleury had to battle through.

“But I see how he plays. And I see times when he does have to be physical, it’s difficult for him. I see Johnny Gaudreau as Cliff Ronning. Cliff played that same style of game, and Cliff almost had 1,000 points in the NHL,” Fleury says. Ronning left the NHL with 869 points in 1,137 games.