I don’t know if Mr. Coffee is old enough to have watched (and remembered) but some fans underrate players they didn’t see or if they were too young to appreciate. Orr is top three to five all time, in my opinion, right up with Gretz, Lemieux, and Howe.
Then we actually agree. Read the thread again. I was saying he wasn’t the greatest of all time.
There is a HUGE difference between saying someone is overrated or the greatest of all time.
Location: Wondering when # became hashtag and not a number sign.
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Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
You think he was better than Gretzky?
IMO its hard to pick between the two because of positions played.
There is a case to be made for both and compelling ones at that. Both changed the game forever for different reasons.
Both did things and played the game at levels no one had before them. What Orr used to single handedly do was unlike anything ever seen before and i would argue..since.
Same thing can be said for Gretzky..but in his case he made use of his line mated like no one ever had before and saw the game on a completely different level than anyone to ever play up front.
Both had hockey IQ that was off the charts.
It's a fascinating discussion though and one i believe will be weighed heavily to how much any one person actually saw them play....which will always be advantage Gretzky at this point.
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J
Lidstrom was basically a slightly better Bouwmeester. If he was on any other team I doubt he wins a single Norris. He wasn't actually that great defensively, it's one of the biggest myths in hockey. He wouldn't hit or block shots. Basically relied on positioning, which was often bad, especially in the 90s.
In poll after poll, year after year, NHL players named Lidstrom as the most difficult d-man in the league to beat one-on-one. Playing outstanding defence has very little to do with hitting. That goes for forwards as well. How often did Carbonneau, Lehtinen, or Bergeron hit?
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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Jagr was described as a top 10 all time player and Lidstrom as the best defenceman ever in this thread. I think it's fair to say that's overrating them.
Jagr probably wasn't even a top 10 player in the 90s. Would a GM would acquire him for one of Lemieux, Gretzky, Forsberg, Fedorov, Sakic, Yzerman, Lindros in 1990? I really doubt it.
Lidstrom was basically a slightly better Bouwmeester. If he was on any other team I doubt he wins a single Norris. He wasn't actually that great defensively, it's one of the biggest myths in hockey. He wouldn't hit or block shots. Basically relied on positioning, which was often bad, especially in the 90s. He was pretty brilliant offensively I will say, very good vision. But again, he played on an allstar team his entire career. Pronger, Bourque, and probably Stevens were better. Doughty and Karlsson in their prime years were waaay better, but probably wont have as good careers.
Holy Christ, there is so much blatently wrong with this post about Lidstrom I can't wrap my head around it. Doughty and Karlsson way better than Nik fn Lidstrom? Lmao!
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I'm shocked by Lidstrom appearing in this thread. Orr is clearly the #1D all-time, but after him Lidstrom has as good an argument as anyone for #2. He didn't "get to play on a super team", they were a super team because they had players like Lidstrom.
In the 5 years before his rookie year, Detroit finished in the top-10 league standings once. For Lidstrom's entire career, they never finished lower than 8th. Since he's retired, they've been outside the top-10 every season. Lidstrom's career coincides perfectly with Detroit's time as a 100+ point super team. The year before his rookie year, an Yzerman/Fedorov led team missed the playoffs. The year after he retired, a Datsyuk/Zetterberg led team squeaked into the playoffs by a single point.
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Haha Woah woah, hang on now. To clarify, I didn’t say Orr was overrated, I said I didn’t think he is the greatest of all time, which is quite different thank you. I was responding to the one post alluding to Orr.
There are some incredibly bad takes here - Jagr, Brodeur, Hasek, Lidstrom - are you kidding me? These are seriously some of the best players that I’ve ever seen play the game.
An overrated player for me is a guy like Jari Kurri. Definitely a good player but seriously inflated stats. Almost anyone who plays on a line with Crosby or McDavid will end up overrated as well.
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Yeah sorry, I did not mean that to mean I thought he was overrated. But he was kinda a forward playing defence no? Orr changed the game by having D carry the puck and contribute offensively. I meant was that he changed the way the game played albeit it was poorly worded and I don’t think he’s the greatest to ever play.
i dont feel Doughty is overrated either but Karlson is big time overrated. since that year when ottawa almost made the finals, he has been average at best.
Re: The Orr vs Gretzky debate.
It is instructional to consider that the argument for Orr tends to revolve around the notion that he fundamentally changed the game. While this may be true, I believe that a similar case could be made for Gretzky. His impact on the game was also transformative. Coaching against him led to the development of some of the modern schemes still in use today. Also, if you strip away all the qualifiers and equivocations that get mixed up in these kind of debates Gretzky was simply the greatest player statistically and it is not even close whether you adjust for era or whatever.
I think there is a bit of Gretzky fatigue at play here especially as the years roll by and the memories get hazy, and he has seemed to become a bit of a caricature of himself. All of a sudden he is lucky to be playing in the era he played in; he played against bad goalies, defensemen, etc. Are you kidding me? He was a skinny kid that came into the best league in the world at a time when clutching and grabbing and goonery was near its peak and he turned the league on it head every season for a decade. He re-wrote the whole record book, made every player around him better, was ulta-clutch, won it all multiple times. What more do you want?
Orr was great and its nice that there are people carrying a torch for him; he won't ever be forgotten. But there is only one player who is the greatest to ever play the game.
If you want to argue that anyone other than Gretzky was the best you NEED a qualifier: Era, Injuries, Linemates, Team, Quality of competition, Intangible impact on the game itself, How loathsome Glen Sather is...If you want to argue for Gretzky there is a mountain of pure statistical data you can refer to.
Full disclosure: I'm a lifelong Flames fan that grew up on a steady diet of Gretzky's Oilers. I hated him as much as I've ever hated any player.
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Trevor Linden, but maybe that's because I live in Vancouver.
People here act like he's their Iginla. Nice guy, but as a player he's more like a Craig Conroy.
+1 on Shane Doan too.
Like many players, he's probably overrated in the city he played in. Not so much the rest of the league.
Most over-rated has to be Glenn Anderson or Kevin Lowe. Both were plugs who were elevated above their station by playing with greater players.
With regards to the GOAT debate, there's three for me that are hard to separate. Howe, Orr and Gretzky. I saw all three play, although not Howe in his prime. Howe was the most complete hockey player physically. He was the perfect power forward. Orr had the most natural talent, and Gretzky had the highest hockey IQ. Since each was elite at different aspects of the game and in different eras no comparison is perfect. Orr and Gretzky changed the game though whereas Howe didn't so give them the edge over Howe. But Orr in my opinion was the greatest. If poetry could play hockey it's name would be Bobby Orr. Gretzky played in probably the weakest era in the league's history due to expansion and watered down talent, so that takes a little shine off his luster. Orr on the other hand had his career abbreviated because the only way opponents could stop him was to use their sticks as axes and chop him down.
FWIW, Howe is my personal favrourite. But Orr was and is unparalleled at playing hockey IMO.
Last edited by Ford Prefect; 04-12-2020 at 01:14 PM.
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Hasek for me is a Top 5 greatest player all time. My jaw has never dropped as much watching any other goalie ever. Surprised anyone mentioned him.
Over rated I would say Rick Nash. The media drooling and propping up that went on with him becuase he had size and played a power game was pretty amazing. He was never better than Iggy. You can throw the current fapping over Josh Anderson in there to to a much lesser extent though. Maybe its a Blue Jackets thing?
Mike Gartner - I always saw him as a very good player who was never exceptionally great, but who was consistent and put up a lot of goals based on longevity and the era that he played in. I don't know how he was voted as a top 100 player of all time when you consider he never won any awards or was ever a top 10 player at any point in time in his career. In terms of peak performance during their careers John Ogrodnick would be a comparable player in the same era and he never made any top 100 lists.
