Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutt
there were Soviet players who played outside the NHL during the 60's and 70's that were right up there with Hull and Lafleur - Anatoly Firsov and Kharlamov
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Let's not forget probably the best single line of all time outside of NHL - Makarov, Larionov, Krutov, Kasatonov, Fetisov.
All those guys went to the NHL after the Soviet times (Sergei Makarov, Vladimir Krutov and Alexander Kasatonov didn't last that long as Igor Larionov and Vyacheslav Fetisov) but they still made their mark.
I remember I had Igor Larionov's no.8 on my helmet as a kid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutt
I think it's Orr vs Gretzky and I think Orr was the best. Gretzky did it all with smarts and with a great supporting cast and a goon protecting him at all times. Nobody protected Orr. If you took a person to a hockey game who had never seen one before - and you told him Gretzky was the greatest he'd say 'That guy? 99? He skates kinda funny. I didn't see him do that much." Then you'd go to the scoring summary and see Gretzky had 2 goals and 3 assists.
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That's seems like comparing uncomparable to me - a playmaker with a defenseman, you simply cannot compare Wayne with Bobby Orr, because Wayne was someone every team has - a playmaker / an MVP / the scoring leader / a brain of all the power plays and a man for the last minutes of the game - so it makes the perfect sense that every team has to assure their most valuable offensive asset is in the best shape possible.
Bobby Orr was something that was never on the ice before, a defenseman AND a playmaker / hell even a scorer.
I mean you can't compare players in two positions that are so different, they both got a whole lot of gameplay / minutes on average / played the power plays etc. but their roles / pace / style / movement / even physical constitution were completely different.
I would personally be very much interested in how would all time Mario Lemieux stats look like if there was not so much downtime due to the bad health.
Let's phrase the question differently, how about the most gifted player of all time?