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30 Greatest Hockey Players according to Sentinel

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Sentinel

Sentinel

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May 26, 2009
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Per request of Killion et al, I have finally compiled my list. The main reason: not to pollute other threads :) Obviously, there will not be one person here who agrees with me, but that's what makes it fun. I put some comments behind my choices below, but just a few.

1. Wayne Gretzky (C)
2. Bobby Orr (D)
3. Gordie Howe (RW)
4. Dominic Hasek (G)
5. Mario Lemieux (C)
6. Jean Beliveau (C)
7. Maurice Richard (RW)
8. Sergei Makarov (RW)
9. Bobby Hull (LW)
10. Steve Yzerman (C)
11. Mike Bossy (RW)
12. Nicklas Lidstrom (D)
13. Doug Harvey (D)
14. Guy Lafleur (RW)
15. Jaromir Jagr (RW)
16. Vyacheslav Fetisov (D)
17. Bryan Trottier (C)
18. Vladislav Tretiak (G)
19. Raymond Bourque (D)
20. Patrick Roy (G)
21. Phil Esposito (C)
22. Mark Messier (C)
23. Sergei Fedorov (C)
24. Joe Sakic (C)
25. Valeri Kharlamov (LW)
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

First of all, I left 5 places blank. I simply don't know anything about pre-50s hockey, but I am willing to concede there were a couple players (Morenz, Shore, etc.) worthy of the list. I just don't know them. Fill them in if you want to. :)

The list has 5 Russians, 2 Czechs, and 1 Swede. I think that's a proper distribution of talent by national origin, given the history of the sport. A fewer number would constitute Canadian bias, sorry :)

Some further notes.

1. Hasek over Lemieux. Hasek was just more vital to his team's results. Lemieux never had the performance equal to that of Hasek in Nagano: his 93 regular season heroics are somewhat offset by the playoffs.
2. Sergei Makarov – 9X scoring leader, 3 “Soviet Harts,” 1 Canada Cup, 8X World champ, 2 OG, 11X national champ, Challenge Cup, Rendezvous Cup, Calder. This is total and absolute domination. And to me it handily beats Bobby Hull's one Cup, three Art Rosses, and 2 Harts.
3. Yzerman over Bossy. Bossy has prime, Yzerman has peak (arguable, I know) and career. Yzerman also has his captaincy.
4. Lidstrom over Harvey by a hair. Harvey has six Cups to Lidstrom's four, but Lidstrom has Olympic Gold, captaincy, and twelve first and second All-Star Team appearances to Harvey's nine.
5. Messier would be higher on my list (great playoff performer he was), if not for things discussed in other threads. Clarke is not on my list because of things discussed in other threads. :)

Now flame away. :yo:
 
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Haven't gone through the list in detail (yet), but thank you for taking the effort.
 
Sentinel said:
Per request of Killion et al, I have finally compiled my list... Now flame away. :yo:
Click to expand...

Excellent!. And quite the thought process huh? Takes some guts to "put it out there" I know. On Business of Hockey same thing whenever I ask someone "ok smart guy, you want Contraction, what teams would you eliminate? List please". Of course the proverbial_____ hits the fan in Florida, the Southwest, South etc... fun n' games. Pretty much an Invitation to an Infraction Party.

Anyhoo. Not bad. Personally, I usually remove the Top 3 in Gretzky, Orr & Howe, cheat, call them like the three 000's. Alpha Triplets... so good luck trying to get me to even debate that one. Not happening. Start thereafter with Mario Lemieux et al (and on your rankings, Id be rating Kharlamov a lot higher than that, lots, mondo)... Also remove Goalies entirely. Separate List. So I'll deal with your ranking of Goalies simply by putting up mine, several of course who you didnt include for obvious reasons, impossible when compiling an all time all position all time players list.

1. Sawchuk
2. Plante
3. Roy
4. Tretiak
5. Dryden
6. Durnan
7. Parent
8. Hasek

etc


... what I actually saw (though I never did see Durnan the Legend, what he accomplished breath taking, and ya, I know it was the war years but still)... more important to me than stats, Vezinas etc... well, you get the picture. ;)
 
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Vancouver Blazers said:
What's the argument for Fedorov over Clarke?
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Maybe the honest question is why dont you like Bobby Clarke, and why would you rate Fedorov above him? Go straight for the jugular, something Clarkie made a career of.... and for that reason alone, I too would rate Fedorov over #16. I never liked Clarke and watched his entire career. You want Old School? Im as Old School as you'll find on this board. To me & countless others of my generation & those older he was gutless. A Dirty Hockey Player. Cheater. Now, I appreciate a talented, malicious instigator. But there are lines you simply dont cross & Clarke made his rep, his "bones" doing so and never once had to really back it up. Very talented hockey player and had he stuck to playing the game instead of consistently throughout his career gone out there with malicious intent then no problem. Fedorov was pure talent, an artist with far more vision & innate talent than Clarke had. Bobby Clarke was a product of that generation of hockey & players that for the game was like a toxic spill on a highway. I played with proto-typical Clarke types back in the day when violence reigned supreme, and guys with far better wheels & softer hands than Clarke who did pay the price for going subterranean dirty & got their clocks cleaned, right out of the game. For good. Serious talent wasted. Bobby got real lucky with his GM/Coach & the surrounding cast in Philly. Escaped justice. Nothing really all that special but for the fact that he had absolutely no conscience in doing whatever the Hell it took to win & not once did he ever truly face the consequences for his actions.
 
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Out of the many, many things I completely disagree with about this list, I‘ll keep it short and go with the most, IMO, ridiculous.

Lidstrom at 12 ahead of Harvey and Bourque is bad enough for me but whatever, I have least seen that ranking tried (and failed) before. Fetisov ahead of Bourque...thats just silly.
I would absolutely love to hear the rational behind that one. That thread won‘t last a single page before Fetisov gets buried.

Second, not only do you have Hasek at #4 which far too high (ahead of Mario for pete‘s sake) but then Roy at 20...
And as if that‘s not bad enough, you have Tretiak ahead of him!

Terrible, terrible list afaic. Like I said, what I listed here was only what I had the greatest issue with.
 
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Rhiessan71 said:
Terrible, terrible list afaic.
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Fine. Now I'd like to see your Top 10 list of the following;

1) Greatest Goaltenders
2) Greatest Defensemen
3) Greatest Left Wingers
4) Greatest Right Wingers
5) Greatest Centers

Then I'd like to see a Top 25 List of Greatest All Time.

Signed,
Wolverine
 
Lidstrom ahead of Bourque, both of whom are behind Yzerman. I think your Red Wings fandom is showing. Also, what prompted this list being made anyway? What's the context?
 
Sentinel said:
1. Wayne Gretzky (C)
2. Bobby Orr (D)
3. Gordie Howe (RW)
4. Dominic Hasek (G)
5. Mario Lemieux (C)
6. Jean Beliveau (C)
7. Maurice Richard (RW)
8. Sergei Makarov (RW)
9. Bobby Hull (LW)
10. Steve Yzerman (C)
11. Mike Bossy (RW)
12. Nicklas Lidstrom (D)
13. Doug Harvey (D)
14. Guy Lafleur (RW)
15. Jaromir Jagr (RW)
16. Vyacheslav Fetisov (D)
17. Bryan Trottier (C)
18. Vladislav Tretiak (G)
19. Raymond Bourque (D)
20. Patrick Roy (G)
21. Phil Esposito (C)
22. Mark Messier (C)
23. Sergei Fedorov (C)
24. Joe Sakic (C)
25. Valeri Kharlamov (LW)
26.

1. Hasek over Lemieux. Hasek was just more vital to his team's results. Lemieux never had the performance equal to that of Hasek in Nagano: his 93 regular season heroics are somewhat offset by the playoffs.
2. Sergei Makarov – 9X scoring leader, 3 “Soviet Harts,†1 Canada Cup, 8X World champ, 2 OG, 11X national champ, Challenge Cup, Rendezvous Cup, Calder. This is total and absolute domination. And to me it handily beats Bobby Hull's one Cup, three Art Rosses, and 2 Harts.
3. Yzerman over Bossy. Bossy has prime, Yzerman has peak (arguable, I know) and career. Yzerman also has his captaincy.
4. Lidstrom over Harvey by a hair. Harvey has six Cups to Lidstrom's four, but Lidstrom has Olympic Gold, captaincy, and twelve first and second All-Star Team appearances to Harvey's nine.
5. Messier would be higher on my list (great playoff performer he was), if not for things discussed in other threads. Clarke is not on my list because of things discussed in other threads. :)
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Thanks for the list.

If you value career highly above peak, Makarov over Hull, Yzerman over Bossy, Lidstrom over Harvey, what are the arguments for that big difference between Hasek and Roy? Or Sakic and Yzerman?
 
Chalupa Batman said:
Haven't gone through the list in detail (yet), but thank you for taking the effort.
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Hear, hear! It is a gutsy effort. It's always easy to carp about one list or other... but much more difficult to build something like this from the ground-up.

First impressions: Mikita off the list: iconoclastic position with which I agree.
Tretiak as second-best goaltender of all-time: iconoclastic position for which I have sympathy.
Hašek over Lemieux: iconoclastic position that's defensible. [For nearly two decades, Hašek in net=chance to steal any game in which he's involved.]
Lidström over Harvey/Bourque: iconoclastic position that's defensible- Norris-after-Norris-after-Norris-after-Norris... in the post-international 82-game NHL-- should be in any GoaT discussion for defensemen.

Now, don't get me wrong... I got my deep disagreements, too... but I thought I'd say something positive, first. Nature's course will ensure enough negative commentary---
 
quoipourquoi said:
Is it also your opinion that Lemieux does not have a performance equal to that of Niittymaki in Turin and Miller in Vancouver?
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Niittymaki and Miller didn't actually WIN anything, did they? Hasek did. When he had any semblance of the support cast, he won. Mario... well...

Killion: wow, you placed Dom LOW! Why is that? Is that his technique? Because it can't be his record ;)

Roy at 20...
And as if that‘s not bad enough, you have Tretiak ahead of him!
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Tretiak won the Soviet MVP title FIVE (5) times! Over every Soviet field player in the 70s! His play against the NHLers was legendary as well.

I left out Sawchuk by a hair (addressing my DRW bias and all). Feel free to put him at #26 :D IMO Mikita was a big time underachiever. Not far from Dionne, in fact, given their support cast.

With Fedorov vs. Clarke, Killion summed it up perfectly. The guy was an absolute *********, beyond all hockey class.

I explained why I placed Lidstrom over Harvey. Lidstrom vs. Bourque has been debated for years ad nauseum. Lidstrom was a winner and a better "defenseman." But I can totally see the argument against; that's just how I picked.

For the record, I love Joe Sakic. A pleasure to watch and a ton of respect. Just not quite on the level of Stevie. ;)
 
I dont think you can compare goalies worth to a team with a forwards straight off. Surely goalies are in a position to more easily win games for their team than a forward is. You have to look at it relatively speaking: Compare goalies with other goalies, and my belief is that Mario was a more unique forward than Hasek were a goalie. But i do like Hasek, and other goalies too, more high on your list than many others. It's very odd that the most lists does not have a goalie in the top-10. People choose to bunch them up in the 15-25 range. Personally i feel that there are separation in the top-6 goalies of all time. There is just Hasek and Roy, the latter becouse of his clutchness of course he was no all-time in lesser games.
 
Sentinel said:
Niittymaki and Miller didn't actually WIN anything, did they? Hasek did. When he had any semblance of the support cast, he won. Mario... well...
Click to expand...

Silver Medals, Tournament MVP Awards, and the same 5-1 record that Hasek had in Nagano. Is the difference between being better than Mario Lemieux and not being better than Mario Lemieux equal to the good fortune that allowed the Czech Republic a second game against Russia who already beat them? A game in which Hasek "was rarely tested over the final 30 minutes as the high-powered Russians were repeatedly frustrated by a tight Czech defense"?

It was six games. One of which was against Kazakhstan. That is not long enough to determine that one player did anything that rivals the best of Mario Lemieux - a player who on multiple occasions in his career scored 24 points over six-game segments against teams who have played together for longer than two weeks.

If six games is enough, then why isn't Patrick Roy (#20) - a player who once stopped 193/198 shots (compare to Hasek's 149/155) in six-consecutive playoff games - not given the better than Lemieux treatment? Or how about Marty Turco's 167/173 with three shutouts in one of his six-consecutive playoff games samples? Or how about Jean-Sebastien Giguere who stopped at Hasek's Nagano rate for three-consecutive playoff rounds? Or Ilya Bryzgalov's 141/144 in the first six playoff games of his career? Or what about Brian Boucher's unmatched 150/151 saves over six games in 2003-04?

Exactly how many goaltenders in the past 20 years have performed at a level over a six-game span that Mario Lemieux has not equaled? Is it enough for you to recognize that you are giving too much weight to six games?
 
I think Hasek's 1998 performance is thought of in awe because it serves two different narratives.

Europeans get to point to it as proof that a European hockey player was the best at something. Canadians get to point to it as proof that Canada is the best team, but just couldn't solve the goalie.
 
Hasek at number 4 just really irked me. I just can't understand the logic of placing him higher than Lemieux. Most people agree that Roy and Hasek are basically on par, usually with Roy ahead. How Hasek ends up at #4 and Roy at #20... wow. Oh, and Tretiak at #18 somehow in-between them. I'm sorry buddy, but this list (outside of the top 3) is pretty terrible.
 
Kicking the sacred cows named "Lemieux" and "Roy" caused a predictable outrage. :nod:

Roy vs. Hasek will be debated for years to come. I personally happen to think that the support cast of Carbonneau, Chelios, Corson, Gainey, C. Lemieux-in-the-playoffs-mode, and Tremblay in 1986 and Carbonneau, Corson, Desjardins, Damphousse, and Leclaire in 1993 make better support cast than Wooley, Holzinger, Peca, Zhitnik, and Satan in 1999. Regular season is a wipeout. Hasek has a clear winning record against Roy, on weaker teams. And when everything was on the line, in 98 and 02, he won. Tretiak I already commented on. Where would a guy with five Harts be on most people's charts?

Lemieux vs. Hasek is a tricky one. It's the nature of the position, as Killion mentioned. IMO, Hasek carried his team places with minimal support. Lemieux didn't.

my belief is that Mario was a more unique forward than Hasek were a goalie.
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Hasek was as unique as it possibly gets without having four arms and five legs. Which is what he seemed like when he was flapping around the crease. :D
 
dr robbie said:
Hasek at number 4 just really irked me. I just can't understand the logic of placing him higher than Lemieux. Most people agree that Roy and Hasek are basically on par, usually with Roy ahead. How Hasek ends up at #4 and Roy at #20... wow. Oh, and Tretiak at #18 somehow in-between them. I'm sorry buddy, but this list (outside of the top 3) is pretty terrible.
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To me, the list seems like two mind-sets fighting each other. On the one hand, Sentinel clearly values peak performance, justifying high placement of Hasek and Yzerman and Fedorov - as well as Orr over Howe and Lafleur over Jagr. But that doesn't necessarily jive with Lidstrom's high positioning - a player who is notable primarily for his consistency rather than a peak that was exceeded by less durable contemporaries. Relative to the rather large gaps between Yzerman/Sakic (the latter being more consistent), Hasek/Roy (the latter being more consistent), and possibly the lowest position I've seen Bourque ranked, Lidstrom that high sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now, I don't mind Lidstrom at #2 among his position - even if I don't agree with it at all, but I don't think it's a position that can be reconciled with some of the other choices. Based upon the gaps, I would expect someone like Potvin up there because of his peak - or if Lidstrom is to remain #2, I would expect to see a more narrow gap between Yzerman/Sakic, Hasek/Roy, an elevation of Bourque, and an inclusion of Brodeur. And this is just my opinion on the players that don't fall into Sentinel's blind spot.
 
Not a bad list. I like Hasek at #5 so his placement is only somewhat strange to me. I can't really see reasons for Lidstrom over Bourque or Lafleur over Jagr though.
 
SOME people just need to chill out here. It's one guys list, and likely biased because of his emotion attached to certain players. The outrage is just freakin' silly and senseless. Disagree, fine, but to berate and insult the man is immature.
 
LeBlondeDemon10 said:
SOME people just need to chill out here. It's one guys list, and likely biased because of his emotion attached to certain players. The outrage is just freakin' silly and senseless. Disagree, fine, but to berate and insult the man is immature.
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Well, when the OP has been going around for some time now berating opinions that don't agree with his own, and finally, after much prodding, produces his own list, you can see why people would be quick to look for its flaws.

I agree that it might be best if everyone chilled out a little bit.
 
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