Bobby Orr
Gordie Howe
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Gordie Howe leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Bobby Orr at #2 and Gordie Howe at #4.
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The case for Bobby Orr
Bobby Orr redefined what a defenceman could be, and many who saw both call him the most purely dominant player ever. Before Orr, blueliners defended; he attacked, rushing the puck end to end and quarterbacking the offence with unprecedented speed and vision. He remains the only defenceman to win the Art Ross as scoring champion, doing it twice, and his plus-124 in 1970-71 is a record that will never fall. Orr won eight consecutive Norris Trophies as the league's best defenceman, three straight Hart Trophies as MVP, and two Stanley Cups with the Boston Bruins, the first sealed by his airborne, flying goal in overtime of the 1970 Final, hockey's most famous photograph. Chronic knee injuries wrecked his body and forced retirement at 30 after just 12 seasons, leaving fans to wonder what fuller health might have yielded. Even truncated, his peak, a stretch of the early 1970s when he led the entire league in scoring from the back end, stands as arguably the highest any player has reached.
The case for Gordie Howe
Mr. Hockey combined scoring, toughness and almost supernatural longevity across an astonishing five decades of professional play. Gordie Howe won four Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings, six Hart Trophies as MVP and six Art Ross scoring titles, finishing in the NHL's top five in scoring for 20 consecutive seasons, a record of sustained excellence unmatched in the sport. He retired, then returned at 45 to play alongside his sons in the WHA, and skated one final NHL shift at age 52 in 1980. Howe scored 801 NHL goals and 1,850 points, figures that stood atop the all-time list until Gretzky surpassed them. He was as feared as he was skilled: the Gordie Howe hat trick, a goal, an assist and a fight in one game, immortalizes his willingness to punish anyone who challenged him. Ambidextrous, powerful and endlessly durable, he defined the complete power forward and served as the standard against which every scorer was measured for a generation.