Ovechkin pass Gretzy?

[Hazelwood72]

Bieksa was talking about how much harder ovie is/was to cover than a guy like Crosby.

Much more unpredictable

3,682 hits. Pretty much doubling a guy like Benn. More than reaves. Heavy, heavy hits too in his late 30’s. I’m almost as impressed with that.

Legend

When you compare eras, Gretz played in the highest scoring era in my lifetime (I’m 71). Goalies like me wore heavy, short pads. We had to skate out to cut down the angle thus being vulnerable to back door goals. The center ice trap hadn’t been invented by the Devils yet. Taking nothing away from Wayne, Ovie’s performance is truly stud-like, when you consider Gretz had a fabulous cadre of teammates in the glory days in Edmonton.

Heck, think about it. Wayne won 4 Cups with Messier. Messier won 2 more without Gretz! Messier IMO is one of the most underrated players ever.

And…..all that said, I still rate Bobby Orr as the greatest of all time. He utterly CHANGED the game. Before Orr, defensemen hardly ever got more than 25 points a year or 5 goals a year. I still see Orr’s headlong 190 foot rink length rushes, and his ability to quickly get back and play defense in his own zone.

It’s always an interesting convo comparing athletes from different generations.

Orr was great. But let’s be honest the competition really wasn’t too amazing. It’s hard to compare generations like you said

Good point about the competition. While there were fewer NHL teams and theoretically less dilution, the WHA started up and pulled a lot of the NHL’ers over where salaries were better (at least until the WHA started running out of money).

Guys were smoking, drinking and just Canadian farm boys. Different time … different athletes.

You got that right. And it wasn’t just Canadian boys in hockey. Lots of hilarious stories, smokers, coke heads, etc, in Major League Baseball and the NFL. I don’t follow the NBA, but I’m sure they had their “party boys” there too!

Mike Bossy smoked 2 packs a day. That always floored me given how good he was

RIP Boss

Imagine if Chris Mason never smoked.

Seriously though, Guy LaFleur was also a big smoker.

You are correct. Lafleur used to smoke between periods. Ironically (or sadly) Lafleur and Bossy both died of lung cancer within a couple months of each other.

Both grew up in Montreal, and apparently smoking was very common for young people of their generation in Montreal.

[GCBluesFan]

2 to tie, 3 to break it. 1 more period left tonight.

Then 7 more games.