Best Defensive Wingers

[Dale53130]

No, he doesn't.

I'm curious. Does he have a bloated reputation among Boston fans?

 

[Staniowski]

Two of my favourites:

 

[Gorskyontario]

not to be that guy, but alex burrows was an all timer

No he wasn't. He was above average at best.

 

[carjackmalone]

Dave Poulin
Steve Kasper
Dave Lowry

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'm curious. Does he have a bloated reputation among Boston fans?

Not really. No more so than all teams fan bases overrating their stars.

But we are talking about the best defensive wingers ever here.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

No, he doesn't.

Yeah a winger who is arguably the best PK'er of his era and a routine Selke vote getter is totally not what qualifies for this thread...

 

[rmartin65]

Yeah a winger who is arguably the best PK'er of his era and a routine Selke vote getter is totally not what qualifies for this thread...

That’s a pretty generous qualification of “routine Selke vote getter". Never higher than 9th.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Yeah a winger who is arguably the best PK'er of his era and a routine Selke vote getter is totally not what qualifies for this thread...

Correct.

We are talking about all-time great defensive wingers. Not a guy whose best finish in Selke voting is 9th. And that's been primarily due to Boston writers voting for Marchand. Playing with Bergeron made it a much easier job to defend also.

 

[BenchBrawl]

In terms of pure wingers in the early eras George Hay has to be up there.

Not sure he would have been "Selke winner level" considering the myriad of great defensive centers, but his defense was praised during his entire career.

 

[seventieslord]

Although Marchand is an all-time great penalty killer, the numbers don't really support him being an excellent defensive player at even strength. His analytics numbers for defense have mostly hovered around average.

Which, to be fair, is excellent for a player with his offensive abilities. Most guys who are consistently above 80% in offensive play driving metrics tend to be bottom of the barrel defensively. Managing to show up as average defensively means he's WELL above average, for a high scoring winger, but in the grand scheme of things, still average.

Give him a huge bonus for his otherworldly penalty killing record, and I still don't see how he's deserving of mention in this thread.

Chronologically, I'd name guys like Rusty Crawford, George Hay, Frank Finnigan, Baldy Northcott, Marty Pavelich, Nick Metz, Pulford, Armstrong, Marshall, Marcotte, Westfall, Ramsay, Gainey, Kurri, Tikkanen, Erixon, Lehtinen and Stone.

The fact that this was all I was able to come up with off the top of my head shows how most of the all-time defensive forward greats played center. I could name four times as many of them in the same amount of time.

 

[Davenport]

How about a Hall of Fame centre whose skating ability and hockey sense was such that he could be put at left wing to defend against the opposition's top right winger? He was so good at left wing that he was named to All Star team at that position (second team) in 1958-59. That was Alex Delvecchio.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I always wondered Lehtinen's reputation (deserved surely) about defensive prowess. I was young during his career and didn't catch a lot of his games since we rarely got games in Finnish TV. He never realle seemed to hustle that much. Not lazy by any means, but never got the impression of him being high energy player who covered ice/opponents with effort and speed. His 3 Selke trophies tell a story but was his game more refined and smart than hustle and work?

This is only a rough comparison, but Lehtinen had some similarities to Lidstrom. Neither was the biggest, strongest or fastest player on the ice - their success was due to smart positioning and a great ability to read and anticipate their opponents. Lehtinen was calm and disciplined. (His career high was 30 penalty minutes - a miniscule amount given the amount of ice time he received, and the difficulty of many of his assignments). His strength was underrated - he wasn't going to throw thunderous checks, but despite being fairly average size, he could outmuscle opponents ten or twenty pounds heavier. He was very good at using his stick to poke away the puck, or to lift up the opponent's stick. He was masterful in the 1999 Stanley Cup finals, completely shutting down Miro Satan.

In terms of weaknesses - Lehtinen was a fairly poor passer. His goal-scoring wasn't quite as good as his totals suggested (many of them were a result of Modano's underrated playmaking). But strictly in terms of defensive play? He may have been the second best defensive winger ever (after Gainey, of course).

 

[Crosby2010]

I had to do a double take on the plight of wingers winning the Selke. Because originally the ones who won it were wingers. Gainey won the first 4, Craig Ramsay won it and was a constant threat to win it.

Kurri comes to mind for me as someone who was one of the more recent wingers who was elite defensively. John Tonelli too. Just tenacious on the forecheck, excellent two-way guy winger in the playoffs too.

However I think why centres get the love is because of things like the faceoff being the starting point of puck control and just more overall responsibility on the ice. Maybe the most recent elite winger defensively could be Zetterberg, when he was actually playing on the wing. Alfredsson was mentioned already, he peaked at 4th in Selke voting.

But I am going to say Mitch Marner would be the guy today who is the most elite winger defensively. Mark Stone as well would be my next thought. Stone has done it elite in the playoffs too while Marner for whatever reason hasn't hit that next gear. I could honestly see Marner winning the Selke sometime. He isn't overly physical, but neither was Lehtinen, who is the last winger to win it.