You might be the only person in the world who would include Crosby, Lidstrom & Hasek in their top 5 best NHL players list, and, not include Bobby freaking Orr. Perhaps you should do some research on the game that predates your birthdate. Also, ask yourself...WYC?

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Crosby still has to play a full career, I get that. But many hockey fans consider Lidstrom and Hasek the best of all time at their respective positions. Maybe you just need to talk to more hockey people.

Orr I'd put in my top 10, not my top 5. I don't see what the big deal is.

As far as researching the game that predates my birthdate, I have. I've watched so many games from back in the day that I couldn't even give you a number. I respect what the old timers did but not as much as the greats that came after them. With every era the competition keeps getting tougher.

That's my problem with Howe being considering the best of all time. The most points he ever put up in a single season in the NHL was 103 in 76 games. I don't understand how someone can say he's the best of all time when someone like Gretzky and Mario played and put up way better numbers in a tougher era.

Heres the thing with that. Orr did all those things and did them better. Lidstrom is in the notch below with guys like Potvin and Bourque.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Potvin was a great player, but much more in line with traditional pre-Orr defensemen.

The argument that guys couldn't skate back then is just another version of Butkus being slow, tiny, and white or Mantle not being faster than everyone in today's game. Without the racial aspect, of course. I guarantee there isn't anyone skating today any faster than Yvan Cournoyer. And it's very difficult to mentally transport players to different eras. Had Gretzky played in Howe's era, he would have gotten pounded way more than he did. You talk about a guy like Beliveau, and he was 6'3", 230 and skated like Leddy and stickhandled like Savard.

Ironically, Gordie Howe only had two or three Gordie Howe Hat Tricks in his career while Rick Tocchet has close to twenty.

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Don't take it personally.

Take a stab at who has the most...the answer should amuse you a bit...

I can't believe Marcel Dionne gets no love nor does Petr Forsberg

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The game is way faster now than it was back then. That's what made Orr so special at that time. He was so much better than everyone else at skating that towards the end of his career when he was pretty much playing on one leg, he was still better.

Forsberg was an awesome player that has become way overrated along the way. Some hockey people consider him the best player to ever live which is just downright absurd. Still a great player though.

That's the thing people need to remember about guys like Forsberg, Sakic and Jagr. They played most of their prime during the dead puck era yet still put up some pretty good numbers.

Exactly. No one even came close to doing what Orr did . Its like when Babe Ruth by himself out homered every team in baseball but 1 in 1920. Its so far ahead of anything ever seen before it just transcended the sport. It couldn't have even been conceived someone could do that before it happened.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I think Tocchet is the all-time leader, isn't he? Tkachuk and Shanahan have to be up there too. I don't know how well they keep a record of fights, especially going back in time and instances where maybe there wasn't a penalty for whatever reason. This is the kind of thing I prefer not to look up. I like my bar argument skills to be sharp and off the top of my head rather than powered by Google. You know who the logical guys are. Secord would be another guy with a lot.

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Don't take it personally.

Based on what I found, it's not Tocchet. Since you prefer not to look these things up, spoilers:

According to the Society for International Hockey Research, the all-time leader in Gordie Howe Hat Tricks is Brendan Shanahan with 17, Rick Tocchet has 15 and Brian Sutter with 12

But I think the presumption that the game is faster because guys skate better is incorrect. It's faster because the style of play is different. I don't think there are any guys skating today better or faster than Guy Lafleur or Gilbert Perreault.

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Don't take it personally.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

It's not that I don't want to know. I just don't want to rely on Google for everything. So it's Shanahan, eh?

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Don't take it personally.

Yup...the guy who's in charge of handing out discipline.

Sounded a lot funnier to me at the time. Oh well.

I think in general there are more "skaters" today than back in the day. Like Football, the game of Hockey has become more of a skill game than a physical game. Many of todays players would get killed if they played in the old days. Likewise, many of the tough guys from years past would have trouble playing today as well.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

You have to talk about the difference in goalies between then and now. They were smaller, wore less padding, and were worse athletes than the goalies of today. That, to me, is worth concentrating on more than improved skating. I mean, there were always great goalies, but now there are no bad ones. Even Ondrej Pavelec, the hands-down worst starter in the league, can hit .900 every year.

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But on the other hand, when there were only six teams and you had the six best goaltenders in the world playing against each other night in and night out. You had Glen Hall, Ed Giacomin, Bernie Parent, Gump Worsley, Terry Sawchuk, and Roger Crozier and I think every one of those guys is a Hall of Famer except Crozier who was damn good.

You're likely correct regarding the superior athleticism of modern goalies, though. I suspect that going back in time the kid who ended up playing in the net was the one who wasn't as good at skating or handling the puck, whereas more recently there have been many more goalies who undoubtedly could have been successful as skaters had they gone a different way.

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Don't take it personally.

Right, I'm thinking more of the expansion era of the '70s, when the WHA was adding teams here and there and the NHL was adding teams just to freeze out the WHA (this is literally the only reason the New York Islanders exist). Goaltending took a long time to catch up to the influx of European skating talent.

The equipment, though. Look at Mike Vernon, who was one of the better goalies Gretzky and the Oilers faced on a regular basis:


Listed at 5'9'', 180. Look at all that net! Imagine what Toews/Kane/Sharp/Hossa would do to a goalie that slight. Poor little Darren Pang would be bathed in red light like a rotisserie chicken. A goalie who doesn't break 6'0'' and 200 today has to have a glove hand like a mousetrap to survive, and even then it's dicey. it's why I worry about Antti Raanta. There's just not a lot of him.

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It's weird looking back at old games and highlights and seeing how many goals were scored by slapshots from 50 feet out while on the rush. If that goes in today it's considered a soft goal and everyone is bitching about the goalie during the post game.

Fuckin Jonathan Quick sliding all over the crease while in the splits and shit nowadays.

No team is going to break 300 goals this year. No one's done it since Washington in 2010. Now, granted, it certainly didn't do them a hell of a lot of good when Montreal's shell slowly ate them alive, but barring onslaughts from the Bruins or Ducks, the Hawks are probably going to lead the league in scoring this year with, like, 263. That feels rather low.

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This is definitely a low-scoring era. I think you probably have to go back to the 50s to find something like it. And that's with plenty of teams playing a pretty wide open style. You certainly know more about current hockey than I do, so to what do you attribute the dearth of goals?

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You don't even have to go back to the '50s. You can go back to 1994-2004, the Dead Puck Era that the league consciously tried to get rid of in 2005. That ended up lasting five, maybe six years. It was officially dead by the 2012 playoffs, arguably the worst postseason in years.

One big development, as with big goalies who are all big and good, is the equipment. Look at the fearlessness with which skaters block shots today. There are very few players who can wind up a shot that defenders will dodge. Shea Weber in Nashville is the big one; he's even injured his own teammates with his slapshot. But now more than ever, you can put all five guys in front of the goalie and let them soak up shots with impunity. The 2012 Rangers had a very good roster and yet Tortorella still had them playing like the Nashville Predators, collapsing in front of Lundqvist and absorbing everything the offense fired. I have no problem with shot-blocking specialists, but when you're demanding it of everyone, it's bad hockey. I think Tortorella found this out in Vancouver when he tried to get the fucking Sedins to block shots. He'll probably get fired in a week.

The other problem is that refs aren't calling obstruction/restraining fouls anymore. Teams figured out that if you do it all the time, they can't call it all the time, and so now the Blues, Coyotes, Kings, and even the Red Wings spend entire games tripping/holding/interfering, now called "good hard-nosed hockey." The league called off the dogs on rule enforcement because they got scared by a rash of concussions and decided they needed to "slow the game down," i.e. allowing players to pin each other along the boards and grind the pace to a halt. I've never grasped the engineering here -- if you're calling a game by the book, you'll not only condition players not to obstruct but also not to lay the injurious hits that cause concussions -- but maybe that's just me.

It's outside my purview, but the really scary thing that a lot of people talk about is that young players are coached to above all else not make mistakes. Yes, you have to teach the fundamentals, but if youth-development programs are just churning out robots (that is, even more robotic than most Canadians) with all the creativity coached out of them, then we're left with what's become nothing but a game of risk-aversion. What did "risk-aversion at all costs" get the Tribune Company?

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Scoring race right now:

Crosby: 102
Getzlaf: 86
Seguin: 82
Perry: 80
Kessel: 80

Goal race:
Ovechkin: 49
Perry: 42
Pavelski: 39
Pacioretty: 39
Kessel: 37

Weak. WEEEAAAAK. If not for Crosby and Ovechkin, this would be a repeat of the 2004 season where no one broke 50 goals or 100 points, a season that preceded having to shut the entire league down for repairs. We're in trouble.

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That's pathetic

Look at the difference in goalie sizes and pad sizes from Espositio to Bannerman to Belfour to Crawford. There is your answer. Even the famous NJ Devils clutch didn't have it this low.

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The scoring leader for your Florida Panthers is Scottie Upshall, with 36 points. Brad Boyes has 20 goals but only 34 points. They have three games left. Very possible no one hits 40.

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Ovechkin is on pace to finish the season as the leading goal scorer, and dead last in +/-. He would be the first player in NHL history to do so. It would be hard to find a more lazy player on Defense. Some of the goals that the caps opponents have scored recently due to Ovechkin are pathetic.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

People used to joke about Gretzky and still do a little about Sid being cherry pickers. But Ovi is beyond a one way player by all imagination.

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Can't believe I didn't see this thread until now. I suppose an argument could be made for Lemieux, especially given the time off for illness, but it's Gretzky.

I agree with pittmike on Orr. He was a great player, clearly, but there have been better defensemen all-around since he played (not sure there's been 10, but there have been). An argument can be made that Orr is one of the most over-rated players in league history. If he doesn't dive for show after scoring that goal, he's a notch or two down on every body's list (west of Syracuse).

None of this matters until Stink scolds us.

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