Bobby Orr: He was so much better than everyone else

It’s always a fun debate when hockey people talk about “the best player” any one of us has ever seen.

In the really “olden days”, you might have been talking about Montreal greats Aurel Joliat or Howie Morenz. In later years, through the 1950s in particular, Gordie Howe was widely considered the best all-around player in the game. He was skilled, tough, and a natural goal scorer.

In more modern times, the debate always seems to center around Gretzky or Lemieux, though there have been many other outstanding talents along the way.

These days, the “best player” discussion usually comes down to a discussion involving Crosby or Ovechkin.

But for me, there’s one guy who still stands above everybody else, and that’s Bobby Orr.

I say this for a number of reasons, but primarily because the gap between Orr (pictured above in action against Eddie Giacomin and the Rangers) and every other player in his generation was huge. He was, in my mind, just that much better than literally everybody else.

In terms of skating ability and speed, he was in a class by himself. When he needed to, he just pulled away from people. If you were on a breakaway and he was behind you, he would catch up. It was that simple.

He could stop on a dime and make a play. Or do the “spinorama” to get away from a checker.

If you look at his slap shot technique, it was different from pretty well everyone else. The angle at which he cocked his stick just seemed to give the puck an extra kick as he launched it to the net.

His passing ability was uncanny—and he made plays at high speed. No one saw the ice like him.

When he was in the offensive zone, guarding the blue line, no one was better at keeping the puck in. He was so intimidating that guys would just get rid of the puck, rather than try to get by Orr in their own zone, for fear they would lose the puck and give the Bruins a goal-scoring opportunity.

He hit, played tough all over the ice, and could fight.

Now, the big “knock” on Orr in his early days was that he wasn’t good defensively. This was, in my mind, simply untrue.

No one blocked more shots than Orr. And it wasn’t just a matter of his willingness to give up his body. He certainly had guts but his timing was also impeccable.

Anyone trying to go one-on-one on the rush against Orr was wasting his time. He would deftly take the puck away from onrushing forwards. When I look back now and old games, it verifies what I remember: most forwards didn’t even bother to deke him—they just shot the puck into the corner and tried to get it there.

So the “poor defensive” thing was just a bad rap. He was great all over the ice.

Just to be clear, I hated Orr. I’ve posted earlier about meeting Orr as a kid (Bobby Orr and the night my Dad didn’t believe me) and that was a huge thrill. But I was a serious Leaf fan and absolutely loathed the Bruins when they became a good team in the late 1960s. And I hated Orr.

But goodness, he was the best player I’ve seen.

The NHL first started keeping “plus-minus” as an official stat in 1967-’68. That year, Orr, at 19, was a +30 in only 46 games. Over the next seven seasons, when he played relatively “healthy” (he always had the bad knees to deal with), his plus-minus ranged from +54 to +124.

I’ve admired plenty of players through the years- Beliveau, Keon, Howe, Gilbert Perreault and of course Lemieux, Gretzky, Yzerman and many others.

But Orr was the best. By far.