The Puck Stops Here

Joe Pelletier has a request on his legends of hockey blog to come up with a list of the 36 best hockey players ever as part of a book to be written by a sports historian from Ireland.

As I am strongly interested in the history of the game of hockey, this was a question that immediately captured my attention. Ideally, one could make a sabermetric list of the best players to solve that question, except hockey is not a sport that lends itself so easily to statistical interpretation (though we are trying). That makes the answer to this question a bit more open to interpretation. Nevertheless, I sat down and wrote out my list of the 36 best players of all time (listed below in alphabetical order)

Jean Beliveau
Mike Bossy
Ray Bourque
Chris Chelios
Bobby Clarke
Paul Coffey
Marcel Dionne
Phil Esposito
Wayne Gretzky
Glenn Hall
Doug Harvey
Dominik Hasek
Gordie Howe
Brett Hull
Bobby Hull
Jaromir Jagr
Red Kelly
Guy Lafleur
Mario Lemieux
Nicklas Lidstrom
Ted Lindsay
Frank Mahovlich
Mark Messier
Stan Mikita
Howie Morenz
Bobby Orr
Jacques Plante
Denis Potvin
Maurice Richard
Larry Robnison
Patrick Roy
Joe Sakic
Terry Sawchuk
Eddie Shore
Bryan Trottier
Steve Yzerman

I then compared to the list Joe had suggested on his site and found we agree on 31 players and disagree on five. My choices that he omitted are: Paul Coffey, Marcel Dionne, Nicklas Lidstrom, Frank Mahovlich and Joe Sakic. His choices that I omitted are: Syl Apps, Martin Brodeur, Valeri Kharlamov, Henri Richard and Vladislav Tretiak. I will explain why I selected my five and omitted his.

Paul Coffey He is the second highest scoring defenceman of all time (behind Ray Bourque). He was part of four Stanley Cup championships in Edmonton and Pittsburgh. Aside from Bobby Orr, I have never seen any defenceman start an offensive play and consistently and successfully as Coffey. Presumably, he was omitted due to his defensive abilities. Though they were never the best in the league, they were not a liability until late into his career when his offensive abilities had started to fade. He won two Norris Trophies and was runner up to two others which is strong evidence for his ranking in the top 36 players of all time.

Marcel Dionne Dionne is the fifth highest scorer in NHL history. He did this despite never playing on any particularly great teams. As he did this, his best regular linemate was probably Dave Taylor (who will likely never make the Hockey Hall of Fame). Having a great career with weaker Los Angeles teams is what makes Dionne a top 36 player of all time. It is also what makes him overlooked. As a member of the weak Kings, Dionne never won a Stanley Cup. He never really came close. He had no finals appearances. No semi-finals appearances. People unfairly put the blame on Dionne for this. He scored 45 points in 49 career playoff games, so his lack of playoff success was not the problem with his teams; it was that nobody was around to support him.

Nicklas Lidstrom He is the best defenceman of our time. Lidstrom is a five time Norris Trophy winner (only Bobby Orr and Doug Harvey have done it more). He certainly isn't done yet; Lidstrom has a good chance of winning more Norris Trophies before he is done. Often, we tend to overlook the current stars on lists like this because we have not had time to put them into perspective yet.

Frank Mahovlich He is nearly universally considered the second or third best left winger of all time (behind Bobby Hull and in competition with Ted Lindsay). Although left wing is a historically weak position having three of them in a top 36 player list is quite reasonable. Especially when you consider that Mahovlich made the post season all star teams nine times (in the same years Bobby Hull was around so he had competition). When Mahovlich retired he was fifth all time in career goals with 533 and had over 1100 points. These are very respectable marks. He was likely left off Joe's list because despite all his accomplishments, Mahovlich seemed like somebody who could have done even more in his career. When he was on his game his graceful effortless skating and powerful shot were dominating. He played a finesse game despite being big enough that many expected a more physical game and thus he is looked at by some as a "failure". That is remarkable that one can fail and retire the fifth highest goal scorer ever.

Joe Sakic I think this is a case of overlooking today's stars because we have not yet put them in historical perspective in our minds. Along with Jaromir Jagr, Sakic has been the best scorer of the last fifteen years or so. He is the highest scoring active player in his career.

As for players Joe selected and I omitted:

Syl Apps I am conscious of the fact that the 30's and 40's are poorly represented on this list. I think it is due to the ever improving level of hockey played in the world and the ever increasing talent pool from which hockey players are drawn. I never seriously considered Apps and am a bit surprised to see his name on this list. I had Milt Schmidt and Dit Clapper as the most likely choices from this era that were omitted. Why way Apps selected? I am not sure. He never won an Art Ross or Hart Trophy. I suppose the reason is that he played in Toronto and was the best Leaf of this time. Toronto had a good team that won Stanley Cups and they are the hugest hockey media market so they have been able to make the legend of Syl Apps a bigger star than the actual Syl Apps was.

Martin Brodeur I am uncertain of where he should go historically. He will likely retire as the all time wins leader among goalies (though in an era where there are no more ties, this achievement is not as big as it once was) and could also be the all time shutout leader too. It's hard to argue that anyone who did that well in those statistics was not a good goalie (though it is possible to argue the value of those statistics). Martin Brodeur played behind a very good defensive team his whole career. He faced less shots per game and less quality shots then most (if not all) goalies most seasons. How much of his success was from team defence? Despite his win and shutout totals, many years Brodeur did not have a league leading saves percentage (though some years he did). New Jersey has remained a top team with Brodeur in net, despite losing Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer, so this is an argument in Brodeur's favor. Brian Rafalski will be gone next year. How would Brodeur do with a more mediocre defence in front of him? I am uncertain on the answer to this question and thus unwilling to rank Brodeur in the top 36 all time - though I must admit he is close.

Valeri Kharlamov His case is covered well in this piece I wrote when he was inducted to the Hall of Fame. It is clear that Kharlamov was a good player, but because he played so few games against top competition in his career it is very hard to know just how good. It is quite a leap to say he was top 36 good. He might have been, but more likely was not. For example, based on a limited number of international games played (and nothing else) you could make a strong argument that Mats Sundin is one of the 36 best of all time (he isn't). How certain are we that Kharlamov is not a similar case? I think it is most likely he is.

Henri Richard The case for Henri is 11 Stanley Cup wins. That is a record for a player. He was a good player, but never the best on his team. Never even the second best (though his team was stacked). That Richard retires with only 358 goals after 20 years and never won or was runner up to a Hart Trophy is an argument that he was a very good player in the right place at the right time to win all those cups. I would be more likely to choose Bernie Geoffrion is I needed another Hab from that era on this list - though I wound up choosing other players. Wasn't Geoffrion more dominant then Richard?

Vladislav Tretiak Another Russian who never managed to leave Russia to play in the NHL (like Kharlamov). Clearly he was a good player, but how certain are we he belong on this top 36 player list? How certain are we that Tretiak is not roughly equal to Ken Dryden or Tony Esposito - who were both very good goalies but do not find their names on this list? I think that would be a much more reasonable ranking for Tretiak.

Like any top player list, there will be some argument about some of the choices. Is there anyone else that should have been included? Did anyone make these lists that should not be there? Go to the Legends of Hockey site and make your case (or argue with me here).