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OMG...Top 100. Simmons picks someone other than Gretzky as their #1!


alt kilgore

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16 hours ago, Devon Jade said:

It's just a freakin' list.

 

Here's my list:

 

1.Eggs

2. Milk

3. Bread

4. Tea

5. Coffee

6. Cheese

7. Lettuce

8. Chicken

9. Oranges

10. Chocolate

Lettuce made your top ten?  Where the hell is the food of the Gods - BACON? 

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20 hours ago, Tre Mac said:

Old people always vote for thier idles they grew up watching.  All I can think of watching that Bobby Orr clip is not how good Orr was but how bad everyone else on the ice was at the time.  Same with all the 80's stars: Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull, etc.  Watching them shoot at a 5'8 goalie with stick thin pads and it's pretty easy to see thier totals.  Seems like if you grew up playing street hockey you already had the skills to play in the NHL all the way upto the late 80's.

 

The reality with alltime lists no matter the sport is the newer generation is just better.  They perform at an allstar level with greater parity than thier predecessors.  Problem is old people just want to relive thier glory days of "I saw shoeless Joe Smith box 45 irounds with a Russian Polar Bear for a nickel and he still had a haircut you could set your watch to".

 

That being said, this game is won on goals.  The fact that Bossey isn't in the top ten is the most disgusting part of his lst imo.

 

Young people, We can blame all the problems of the world on people that were young at one point in their lives!

 

I agree with the ball hockey claim, a perfect example is our own Alex Burrows, Burrows played competitive ball hockey thru his years in the ECHL, AHL(Moose) and his first year of NHL with the Canucks where he retired from Ball Hockey when he was inducted into the Ball Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 2006,  he was voted in a Canadian poll as the country's greatest ball hockey player ever!

Tonight he plays in his 800th NHL game. 

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1 hour ago, Standing_Tall#37 said:

Because he played in the era when anybody could have made the NHL. I don't know if he'd be anything more than a top 6 in the NHL we have today.

 

LOL!!!!!!!  :lol:

 

1997-1998 Scoring Leaders (the year before Gretzky retired):

 

1. Jaromir Jagr (age 26) - 102 points 

2. Peter Forsberg (age 24) - 91 points

3. Pavel Bure (age 27) - 90 points 

3. Wayne Gretzky (age 37) -  90 points 

8. Teemu Selanne (age 27) - 87 points 

 

So Gretzky, at the age of 37 on an average New York Rangers team that missed the playoffs and finished in 21st out of 26 teams and without Kurri, Messier, Anderson and Coffey, finished tied for 3rd overall in scoring, ahead of the great Temmu Selanne who was in his prime, tied with Pavel Bure who had his 3rd best season ever, behind by only 1 point to the hall of famer Peter Forsberg who was hitting his prime and was playing on a team that won the cup two years prior with Joe Sakic, and behind by only 12 points to the overall leader, Jaromir Jagr, who was in his prime and is one of the greatest players of all time, and is STILL playing!! 

 

If Bure has been traded to the Rangers before Gretzky retired instead of Florida which was the trade rumour at the time (Rangers were in the mix but Burke ultimately made the Florida deal) there is no doubt Gretzky would have won the scoring title at age 37 and probably would have continued playing for several more years with Bure at his side. These are comments Gretzky had directly made after his retirement. 

 

Gretzky finishing tied for 3rd in scoring in 1998 is the equivalent of Henrik Sedin finishing 3rd today playing in the same era as Crosby, McDavid, Tarasenko, etc. Henrik Sedin at age 36 is currently 86th in scoring. 

 

Gretzky and his skill set would have adapted to any era. He wasn't the fastest skater even in his prime. It was his passing, his on ice intelligence and his 6th sense to know where other players would be on the ice before they even knew that made him so dominant. He was scoring 200 points in an era where hall of famers were scoring 100 points. Think about that for a second. 

 

Saying Gretzky would not have been even a top 6 player today in his prime is quite frankly an ignorant statement and tells me you never ever watched Gretzky play at all. 

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http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0000481998.html

 

"

99 Wayne Gretzky   1961-01-26 36 C 82 23 67 90 28 -11 -- -- -- --  
16 Pat LaFontaine   1965-02-22 32 C 67 23 39 62 36 -16 -- -- -- -- --
27 Alexei Kovalev   1973-02-24 24 R 73 23 30 53 44 -22 -- -- -- -- --
2 Brian Leetch   1968-03-03 29 D 76 17 33 50 32 -36 -- -- -- -- --
24 Niklas Sundstrom   1975-06-06 22 R 70 19 28 47 24 0 -- -- -- -- --
17 Kevin Stevens   1965-04-15 32 L 80 14 27 41 130 -7 -- -- -- -- -
9 Adam Graves  

 

 

 

29 L 72 23 12 35 41 -30 -- -- -- --

                      

 

 

                                                                                                                                                      

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^ 90 points and a minus 11? There were some good players on that team and Gretzky wasn't the only minus.

 

I'm not a Wayne fan, but he could play in today's league were he young enough. Still a top 5-6 player in history, even in my book

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1 hour ago, IBatch said:

But...If you compare Gretzky's PPG after the same number of games he blows away Lemieux...Both before and after he came back...

But if you compare the years they played in, were points "easier" to get in Gretzky's earlier  seasons than Mario's?

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1 hour ago, canuck73_3 said:

I think what a lot of the younger generation misses is that Bobby Orr did everything he did while being injured the majority of his career. 

 

I could only imagine what he could have done with healthy knees. 

Same with Lemieux.  Seeng him come back from cancer treatment to catch LaFontaine stands as my favourite individual accomplishment in the sport.  Orr's playing hurt is even more impressive when you consider he didn't access to nearly the same quality of medical attention today's generation does.

 

Orr completely revolutionized the way the game is played and coached.  I think you can make an argument for any of Orr, Lemieux, or Gretzky (my personal order) in the #1 spot.  Howe and Richard round out the top 5.

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I can understand the argument for Orr at #1. However, given that he only played 10 seasons I don't think you can say he was the greatest of all time because longevity has to be a part of the equation. Unfortunately he had a bad knee that couldn't be fixed properly due to the medical treatments available at the time. If he had played injury free until he was 35 or so then no doubt there could be an argument he was better than Gretzky.

 

But given the fact that Gretzky was so dominant over other hall of famers in his era and came close to winning the scoring title at age 37 and the fact that he played 20 years there is no doubt he is THE greatest hockey player of all time. 

 

Gretzky 

Orr

Howe 

Lemieux

 

The rest of the bunch are not close to these four really. 

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