To me, one of the most impressive stats in NHL history is the plus-124 plus/minus rating that Bobby Orr posted with the Boston Bruins during the 1970-71 season. It’s a record that will never be broken.
Orr posted 34-95-129 totals that season to finish second in NHL scoring behind teammate Phil Esposito, who had 76-76-152 totals and was plus-69. Orr won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player and the Norris Trophy as the top defenceman.
There are only three players in NHL history who have posted a plus/minus of plus-100 or better: Orr, former Canadiens defenceman Larry Robinson, who was plus-120 in 1976-77, and Wayne Gretzky, who was plus-100 with the Edmonton Oilers in 1984-85.
The NHL first introduced the plus/minus stat for the 1967-68 season and analytics people will tell you today that it’s outdated and basically useless. Like so many stats — including a lot of the fancy new ones — plus/minus needs to be taken with a grain of salt and sometimes a big one. A top-pairing defenceman on a lousy team probably isn’t going to have a good plus/minus.
Rick Green is a perfect example of that.
In 1978-79, during his third season with the Washington Capitals after being the No. 1 overall pick at the 1976 NHL Draft, Green finished minus-45, tied with St. Louis Blues centre Gary Unger for the worst plus/minus in the league. The Capitals finished with a 24-41-15 record.
“I was playing on average 40 minutes a game and it was getting a little ridiculous because every time I was on there I was scored against,” Green recalled with some sarcasm in a recent HI/O Show bonus question on hockeyinsideout.com . “I used to have a guy sitting in the corner on the way into the dressing room (in Washington) and every game he would give an update, from minus-41 to, in between periods, cross it off to minus-43.
“I appreciated him following me that closely,” Green added with more sarcasm.
During the intermission of one game — after seeing his latest plus/minus update from the sign man — Green grabbed a photo of himself taken by the team, signed it “To my No. 1 fan” and asked the stick boy to deliver it to the fan, adding: “Tell him I really appreciated him keeping the details on that.”
“The good news was he ended up destroying the sign in the third period and I didn’t have to read about my plus/minus,” Green recalled. “All good in fun and games, right?”
It couldn’t have been all fun and games for Bill Mikkelson, a defenceman with the Capitals during their inaugural season as an expansion team in 1974-75. Mikkelson finished that season minus-82, the worst plus/minus in NHL history as the Capitals posted an 8-67-5 record.
Plus/minus numbers don’t get so low or so high in today’s salary-capped NHL with much more parity. Last season, Colorado Avalanche defenceman Ryan Graves led the league with a plus-40 and centre Andreas Athanasiou had the worst plus/minus of minus-46 while playing for the Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers.
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Fans in Montreal might be following plus/minus stats more closely than usual this season since Canadiens defenceman Joel Edmundson is leading the NHL with a plus-22. His defence partner, Jeff Petry, ranks third at plus-15, with Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl sitting second at plus-17. Edmundson and Petry were both plus-4 in Saturday’s 7-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets at the Bell Centre.
“When you’re that far ahead, obviously it’s a good sign,” Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme said after Monday’s morning skate in Vancouver when asked about Edmundson’s plus/minus. “You have to take everything in consideration. I like to look at who’s involved in scoring chances on both sides. So that’s one thing. But to see a guy being in the pluses like he is and being first in the league, it shows that he’s playing some pretty solid hockey.”
Edmundson and Petry were both even in plus/minus in Monday night’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Canucks in Vancouver.
When Edmundson was asked earlier this season about his plus/minus stat, he said: “For me, I’m not really a stats guy, especially when it comes to goals and assists. But plus/minus, that’s one of the stats that I really care about. I think it shows how I play my game. The points will come here and there, but I’m not too worried about that. I just want to produce defensively. It’s nice, but it’s a team effort, that’s for sure.”
Since the NHL started keeping the stat, Robinson is one of only five Canadiens to finish a season with the best plus/minus. The others were Jacques Laperrière (plus-77 in 1972-73), Guy Lafleur (plus-73, 1977-78), Brian Engblom (plus-63, 1980-81) and Max Pacioretty (who tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov at plus-38 in 2014-15).
Robinson holds the record for best career plus/minus at plus-722.
Like Orr’s plus-124, that’s another record that will never be broken.
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