re plus minus stat in article ramsey cs laurentian ca maynard ramsey cs laurentian ca roger maynard writes in apr sol uvic ca gballent hudson uvic ca greg ballentine writes gainey is the best defensive forward ever i stand by that assessment he was a very good player who belongs in the hall of fame did you ever watch him play he never made a technical error i watched him over his entire career i have never seen a player and that includes russell courtnall and davie keon screw up as many breakaways as bob gainey and i will never forget the time denis potvin caught gainey with his head down you have been sold a bill of goods on bob gainey gainey was a plugger and when the press runs out of things to say about the stars on dynasties they start to hype the pluggers grant fuhr essa tikkannen butch goring bob nystrom bob gainey doug jarvis derek sanderson wayne cashman bob baun bob pulford ralph backstrom henri richard dick duff and so on these players all are pretty good players they are the depth that the dynasties had to win stanley cups they tend to be the very good second line guys who would be first liners on most weaker clubs in the nhl they were all important to their clubs probably several of these stanley cup winning teams would not have won the cups they did if it were not for the depth provided by these players they compare to rick tocchet and ron francis of the penguins very good players who can lead lesser teams francis hartford tocchet philly who provide the depth to the team that is currently best in the nhl as a defensive forward there have been none better than bob gainey that doesn t mean he was the best player or even the best forward the canadians had at that time but he was excellent at what he did gainey could dominate games with his defence he didn t need to get goals to dominate he shut down the opposition and was thus valuable there has never been anyone any better at doing this not ever gregmeister
