Top 10 Best NHL Players of All Time

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Looking to be educated, what are the points that put Hull over Ovechkin? On the surface it looks like he has no case.

Better holistic point producer.

Hull: 1,1,1,2,2,2,4,5,6,7,9
Ovechkin: 1,2,2,3,3,4,7,8

In relation, their assist finishes
Bobby Hull - 5,6,6,7,8
Ovechkin - 6,6,10

There's the video evidence. Hull jumps on the screen in a pretty incredible way in the 60s. Ovechkin does too from 2005-2010, but doesn't afterwards. Hull jumps off the screen from 1960-1972. This bleeds into contemporary reports. Game to game, season to season, Hull gets immense praise throughout the 60s. More dynamic, stronger defensively, more versatile. It's just a decade of praise.

Really, what it comes down to is that Hull was the better player. The resume helps signal the how, but it's just a plain difference in quality of play.

 

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Back in Orr's time, no one was ranking players or comparing careers.

After the Cup win in 1970 just about everyone considered Orr the best player they had ever seen.

The talk of Orr being the greatest defenceman ever

The Calgary Herald · ‎Apr 8, 1967

Coach Harry Sinden said "How good is Bobby Orr? I'll tell you how good - he's the greatest player in the National Hockey League."

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Jan 6, 1968

Joe Watson of the Philadelphia Flyers "That Orr is the greatest defenceman I have ever seen "

The Phoenix · ‎May 11, 1968

"This guys almost never does anything wrong," [teammate Derek Sanderson said]. "He's the greatest I've ever seen."

The Telegraph · ‎Dec 16, 1968

Boston Coach Harry Sinden said. "As for Bobby Orr, that was the greatest offensive game 'ever played by a defenseman. He was super great. No one can tell me a defenseman ever played better."

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Jan 9, 1969

Bobby Orr is obviously the best hockey player to break into the league in many and he isn't 21 yet.

Ottawa Citizen · ‎Dec 17, 1970

Sports Illustrated, in its cover story this week called Orr "the greatest player ever to don skates. Not the greatest defenceman, the greatest player at either end of the ice."

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Mar 31, 1970

A lot of people are beginning to suspect that Bobby Orr is the greatest hockey player who ever laced on skates.

Red Kelly, the Pittsburgh Penguins coach "He's really smart. If you try to anticipate his moves, he'll do something else and make you look foolish. He's done it a few times to our guys this season."

"Orr has everything," Dit Clapper, a former Boston great said recently. "In a couple more years he may be the perfect hockey player."

A couple more years? He may be that right now.

The Windsor Star · ‎May 11, 1970

Bobby Orr, greatest hockey player of these times, perhaps the greatest of any