From: prb@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Botts)
Subject: Players who changed the sport
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 05:06:32 GMT

So, in the wake of Lawrence Taylor's possibly career-ending injury this
past weekend, I got to thinking about how he was one of those rare
players who really left a permanent mark of change on his sport. In LT's
case it is the now-protoypical speedy pass-rushing outside linebacker,
and now a number of teams focus their entire pass defense around such
players. Before LT the defensive linemen were the whole focus of pass
rushing, except for occasional blitzes which were regarded as high-risk
"tricky" plays.

So anyway, that got me thinking about the NHL and my favorite sport, and
about players who had left such permanent changes, big or small, in
their wake. Dunno why I find this subject so engrossing exactly, but
anyway I came up with a draft list which I herein make public.

Oh, hold on, let me don the ol' asbestos suit....
^L
Ok, here we go:

I figure #1 has got to be
BOBBY ORR, who foreever changed the role of defensemen on NHL teams, and
thereby changed the whole concept of offense. There had been rushing
defensemen before, but never ones who were actual threats to lead their
team, and even the league, in points. Orr showed that a supremely
talented defenseman could become a fourth forward with the puck, and
still do the job when the other team has it. Before him, players of that
talent were not played at defense, where their puck-handling and
shooting ability would have been seen as largely wasted. Before Orr,
none of the candidates for the title "franchise player" were defensemen.
They really ought to rename that trophy the "Orr Trophy" for best
defenseman, especially since they obviously favor offense-minded
defensemen in awarding it.

None of the rest of this list can rank with Orr's impact, but others who
left permanent marks might be:

Jacques Plante, who not only invented and wore the first goalie's mask,
but was also the first goalie to make a regular practice of handling the
puck. Before him, goalies rarely ventured from the crease, even to go
behind the net to stop dump-ins.

Tony Esposito, who was the first highly successful "butterly" or
"flopper" style goalie. Before him, virtually all goalies played what is
now known as "stand-up" style, and so of course the traditional wisdom
among shooters was to aim for the low corners. Esposito came into the
league with that butterfly spread, dropping down to stop all those low
blasts, and his rookie year set the league on its ear: 15 shutouts
(previous record had been 10), and the Calder and Vezina trophies. Later
in his career, the shooters had adjusted and started going high on him,
but he left behind a generation of goalies for whom playing "butterfly"
style is now a respectable option.

Wayne Gretzky, who besides being simply the best of his time, also
brought into widespread use the tactic of setting up behind the net on
offense, sort of like a point guard in basketball, looking for the right
person the dish to. Perhaps more importantly,  Gretzky was also the leader
of a special team listing, namely:

The Edmonton Oilers of the mid-80s, who showed that a "european-style"
team, disdaining the traditional NHL "defense-first" approach, could win
and win big. Not that the Oilers couldn't play some defense, but the
focus of the team was scoring. The current Penquins are among their
heirs.

The Montreal Canadiens of the late 1950s changed the game by being the
first team to really focus on having a dominant special "power-play
unit" (Geoffrion, Beliveau, Richard, etc.). They became so good at
scoring on power plays that the NHL had to change the rules, making a
power play end when a goal is scored by the team with the advantage. Now
it is routine for every team to have a specific set of players who are
the power play unit, and who practice as such regularly.

Mike Bossy. I;m a bit less sure of this one, but it is my impression
that he was the first player to make regular, routine use of "one-time"
shots as his dominant method of trying to convert scoring chances. Now,
one-timers are a standard tactic from the faceoff circles in toward the
goalmouth.

Stan Mikita, for two equipment innovations: he was the first star player
to routinely wear a helmet, and perhaps more importantly, he and Bobby
Hull invented the curved stick blade. The story is that they were
fooling around in practice one day in the early 60s with a slightly
broken stick, and noticed that it was easier to lift the puck with zip
on it with wrist shots. They got some sticks made special, and the next
thing you know Mikita was winning back-to-back MVP awards.

And that leads us to Bobby Hull, who took that curved stick and his own
astonishing talent and started shattering every goal-scoring record
there was. Hull's lasting mark is the idea of the slap shot as a viable
offensive weapon. BEfore him, it was seen as a strictly low-percentage
shot, just a way for the point men to get the puck in towards the
crease. I have a "how-to" book written by the coach of the 1960 USA
goal-medal team which spends an entire chapter explaining why no player
should ever take a slap shot if there's any other alternative. After
Hull broke all those records and terrorized all those goalies taking
slapshots on 2-on-1 breaks and the like, coaches and players stopped
seeing things quite that way!

 (Actually I once saw his brother Dennis,
who could shoot just as hard, crank it up on a breakaway, but that was
because Dennis wasn't really good enough to go in and deke the
goalie...the really scary thing was that Dennis's blast destroyed an
entire panel of plexiglass behind the net - you didn't think he'd *hit*
the net, did you? - into a billion pieces. Doug Flavel was the goalie,
and I will always admire the fact that he didn't take of the pads
forever right then and there as they cleaned up all the broken glass and
carted a front-row fan off to the hospital. But I digress.)


Okay, I now open the floor for critiques and other
nominations....remember we're not looking to identify who was the
best at any given position or era, but players who left an identifiable
mark (strategic, tactical, or other, like equipment) behind. The same
idea holds for teams: The early 80s Islanders may well have been the
greatest team of all time, but they are not listed here because I don't
see any particular revolutionary change they brought to the game. They
were just better than everyone else with the existing strategies and
tactics.

Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey