Top 10 Best NHL Players of All Time

[Michael Farkas]

Uh oh...we don't need to break out the shift by shift videos do we...?

 

[1909]

I want to know who yhall's top 10 Players of all time are, this list includes foward's, defensemen, and goalies.

My List
1. Wayne Gretzky
2. Mario Lemuiex
3. Connor Mcdavid (assuming his career stays on track)
4. Bobby Orr
5. Sidney Crosby
6. Alexander Ovechkin
7. Dominik Hasek
8. Nicklas Lindstrom
9. Gordie Howe
10. Jaromir Jagr

Lemieux

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Lemieux

Lemieux is your top ten player of all-time?

 

[buffalowing88]

Lemieux is your top ten player of all-time?

Maybe he's a Claude guy.

The arguments made here are really great. I can't say it shifted me on Hull > Ovechkin, but it gave me a newfound appreciation of the metrics used to try and compare these guys from very different eras.

My only contribution is that Hull tops Ovie in the pure run of First Team All-Star selections. That tells me that he was a notch above everyone else, but we can argue whether or not the growth of the league since then has hurt or helped...

 

[Hockey Outsider]

There's been a lot of discussion on Hull vs Ovechkin in this thread. I think there's a meaningful difference between their playoff performances (see thread).

I don't think that the edge is so decisive that it necessarily means we have to rank Hull higher. But we should be doing a deeper dive than saying (paraphrasing) "both were the best players on teams that didn't win as much as they should have".

 

[VistamarCroissants]

Honourable mention: Gilbert Perreault

 

[Daximus]

Maybe he's a Claude guy.

The arguments made here are really great. I can't say it shifted me on Hull > Ovechkin, but it gave me a newfound appreciation of the metrics used to try and compare these guys from very different eras.

My only contribution is that Hull tops Ovie in the pure run of First Team All-Star selections. That tells me that he was a notch above everyone else, but we can argue whether or not the growth of the league since then has hurt or helped...

Just for the fun of it I wanted to look up who they had to go up against in terms of competition for AST votes.

Ovi's biggest competition early in his career was D. Sedin, Heatley and Kovalchuk who he beat pretty handidly for the first 5 seasons. Once he started to slow down he was losing votes to D. Sedin and Benn mostly. Hall posed some competition for a bit once Benn started to slow down, Then Gaudreau took over for a bit and now it seems Kaprizov is likely going to take most of the votes regardless of how many goals Ovi scores. Though through much of his early career there would have been big competition from the RW side like Jagr, St. Louis, Perry, Hossa, Iggy, Selanne and later on Kane, Kucherov, Tarasenko and even Draisaitl getting some RW votes.

For Hull early in his career his biggest competition was Dickie Moore and Dean Prentice who he was miles ahead of at the time. A lot of the big named wingers were getting votes on RW side like Howe, Bathgate and Geoffrion.
During Hulls prime years where he went on a pretty deep run of 1st Team Selection his biggest competition was Bucyk and Mahovlich who weren't really posing much of a threat. Again it still seems like the big competition for wingers was on the RW side with Howe and Cournoyer.

I've always wondered why we separate the two sides in All-star selections. I get why we generally separate for C's as most years if we just voted in the top 3 forwards it would likely all be C's. But I do wonder how much things would change if there was no handedness bias and we just voted in one C and two wingers. Or just the 3 best forwards. There is no such bias applied to defencemen.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Just for the fun of it I wanted to look up who they had to go up against in terms of competition for AST votes.

Ovi's biggest competition early in his career was D. Sedin, Heatley and Kovalchuk who he beat pretty handidly for the first 5 seasons. Once he started to slow down he was losing votes to D. Sedin and Benn mostly. Hall posed some competition for a bit once Benn started to slow down, Then Gaudreau took over for a bit and now it seems Kaprizov is likely going to take most of the votes regardless of how many goals Ovi scores. Though through much of his early career there would have been big competition from the RW side like Jagr, St. Louis, Perry, Hossa, Iggy, Selanne and later on Kane, Kucherov, Tarasenko and even Draisaitl getting some RW votes.

For Hull early in his career his biggest competition was Dickie Moore and Dean Prentice who he was miles ahead of at the time. A lot of the big named wingers were getting votes on RW side like Howe, Bathgate and Geoffrion.
During Hulls prime years where he went on a pretty deep run of 1st Team Selection his biggest competition was Bucyk and Mahovlich who weren't really posing much of a threat. Again it still seems like the big competition for wingers was on the RW side with Howe and Cournoyer.

I've always wondered why we separate the two sides in All-star selections. I get why we generally separate for C's as most years if we just voted in the top 3 forwards it would likely all be C's. But I do wonder how much things would change if there was no handedness bias and we just voted in one C and two wingers. Or just the 3 best forwards. There is no such bias applied to defencemen.

I looked at that (post expansion onwards) in this thread.

If we use the "top three forwards" framework, Ovechkin would have had five years on the first team (2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015), and two years on the second team (2006, 2016). Still impressive, but less so than his 11 years at LW/RW (eight first, three second - he shouldn't get credit for 2013 twice because the NHL made an administrative error).

I didn't post it in that thread (since I was looking at pre expansion only), but looking at the results quickly, Hull would have been on the first team eight times (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1971), and the second team two times (1969, 1972).

Under this approach (top three forwards each season regardless of position), Hull is ahead 8-5 for the first all-star team, and 10-7 overall (including the second team). On the one hand, Ovechkin was playing against a larger talent pool, and it's not clear is Hull being up 8-5 or 10-7 is enough to compensate for that. On the other hand, this ignores Hull's two MVP titles in the WHA, and it's not at all clear how much that should be weighed either.

 

[Golden_Jet]

If you put Hull's seasons starting from 05-06 through 19-20, to match his NHL career, here are the points ranks compared to Ovechkin:

	Hull	Hull		Hull	Hull	Ovechkin	Ovechkin
Year	Points	Pts Rank		Adj Points	Pts Rank	Points	Pts Rank
57-58	47	20	05-06	59.47	80	106	3
58-59	50	21	06-07	58.13	85	92	13
59-60	81	1	07-08	87.68	10	112	1
60-61	56	13	08-09	62.40	55	110	2
61-62	84	2	09-10	90.37	8	109	2
62-63	62	9	10-11	66.77	28	85	7
63-64	87	2	11-12	96.87	2	65	37
64-65	71	4	12-13	44.86	20	56	3
65-66	97	1	13-14	99.73	2	79	8
66-67	80	2	14-15	83.44	4	81	4
67-68	75	6	15-16	79.73	6	71	15
68-69	107	2	16-17	105.11	1	69	20
69-70	67	15	17-18	72.76	31	87	11
70-71	96	5	18-19	96.00	10	89	15
71-72	93	7	19-20	80.94	9	67	18

A lot of it is down to variance in individual years, but as you can see, anything top 5ish normally hangs around in the top 10, but outside the top 10 can get pushed way down the rankings. You can see the big jump is in the 20 rank, because that represents in the O6 the beginning of the 2nd liners counting linearly, whereas you see the second liners starting in the 80s in a 30 team league. Hull's Ross win in 59-60 gets pushed down so much because it was akin to the Jamie Benn Ross year (Hull's adjusted points in 14-15 scoring is ~86, Benn won with 87 points).

Spoiler: More Detailed Stats

	Old					Hull	Hull	Hull	Ovi	Ovi	Ovi
Name	Year	Year	Goals	Assists	Points	Goals Rank	Assists Rank	Pts Rank	Goals Rank	Assist Rank	Pts Rank
Bobby Hull	57-58	05-06	16.45	43.02	59.47	159	52	80	3	20	3
Bobby Hull	58-59	06-07	20.93	37.20	58.13	101	77	85	4	39	13
Bobby Hull	59-60	07-08	42.22	45.47	87.68	7	32	10	1	29	1
Bobby Hull	60-61	08-09	34.54	27.86	62.40	14	129	55	1	10	2
Bobby Hull	61-62	09-10	53.79	36.58	90.37	1	58	8	3	6	2
Bobby Hull	62-63	10-11	33.38	33.38	66.77	12	75	28	14	6	7
Bobby Hull	63-64	11-12	47.88	48.99	96.87	3	11	2	5	122	37
Bobby Hull	64-65	12-13	24.64	20.22	44.86	5	67	20	1	35	3
Bobby Hull	65-66	13-14	55.52	44.21	99.73	1	15	2	1	121	8
Bobby Hull	66-67	14-15	54.24	29.21	83.44	1	106	4	1	115	4
Bobby Hull	67-68	15-16	46.78	32.96	79.73	2	67	6	1	202	15
Bobby Hull	68-69	16-17	56.98	48.14	105.11	1	9	1	13	51	20
Bobby Hull	69-70	17-18	41.27	31.49	72.76	6	99	31	1	68	11
Bobby Hull	70-71	18-19	44.00	52.00	96.00	5	26	10	1	71	15
Bobby Hull	71-72	19-20	43.51	37.42	80.94	4	42	9	1	212	18

You can compare Hull seasons to Ovechkin seasons individually, but it's better to do an overview. The goal scoring translates from era to era, but the assists and points ranks fall off much like Ovechkin's did in his non-peak years. Assist finishes of 9, 11, 15, 26, 32, 42, 52, 58, 67, 67 aren't much different than finishes of 6, 6, 10, 20, 29, 35, 39, 51, 68, 71, to use the top 10 seasons. Their point finishes are very comparable at the top end, but Hull's other years are outside the top 20 whereas almost all of the Ovechkin years are inside the top 20. That's mainly because Hull's first two years are very pedestrian, whereas Ovechkin was an impact player from day 1.

How are doing adjusted points, seems flawed.

Is this taking into consideration the seasons were 12 games shorter,

and the goals per game per season are similar in both eras, maybe slightly higher for OV, but not much.

You’re also comparing Hull at 18 vs OV at 20 ….

 

[Cisse]

1. Wayne Gretzky
2. Bobby Orr
3. Gordie Howe
4. Mario Lemieux
5.Sidney Crosby
6. Mike Bossy
7. Nicklas Lidström
8. Ray Bourque
9. Marcel Dionne
10. Guy Lafleur

 

[Daximus]

I looked at that (post expansion onwards) in this thread.

If we use the "top three forwards" framework, Ovechkin would have had five years on the first team (2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015), and two years on the second team (2006, 2016). Still impressive, but less so than his 11 years at LW/RW (eight first, three second - he shouldn't get credit for 2013 twice because the NHL made an administrative error).

I didn't post it in that thread (since I was looking at pre expansion only), but looking at the results quickly, Hull would have been on the first team eight times (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1971), and the second team two times (1969, 1972).

Under this approach (top three forwards each season regardless of position), Hull is ahead 8-5 for the first all-star team, and 10-7 overall (including the second team). On the one hand, Ovechkin was playing against a larger talent pool, and it's not clear is Hull being up 8-5 or 10-7 is enough to compensate for that. On the other hand, this ignores Hull's two MVP titles in the WHA, and it's not at all clear how much that should be weighed either.

I think you could make a case for Ovi on first team in 2006 and 2014;

2006 - Thornton, Jagr are clearly ahead of everyone else then Ovi seems like #3 that year. Heatley and Alfie come close but I think Ovi's season is more impressive overall, voters might have disagreed. Staal and Crosby may have garnered some votes as well.

2014 - Crosby, Getzlaf and toss up honestly between Ovi, Perry, Benn, Giroux, Seguin and Pavelski. Ovi's 51 goals might give him the nod but they might lean towards someone else.

So I think it's more likely 7 first teams for Ovi which makes things a little bit closer. I personally have Ovi over Hull currently but had Hull stayed in the NHL it's likely that he may have made things a bit more out of reach in terms of total impact in the NHL. It's really hard to weigh those WHA seasons so I unfortunately ignore them. There is no arguing that Hull wasn't a more complete player but Ovechkin's dominance of league goal scoring and goal scoring longevity is really only rivaled by Howe in my opinion. Hull comes very very close though, it's just another one of those "what if?" scenarios but I don't like to deal in those.

 

[buffalowing88]

Just for the fun of it I wanted to look up who they had to go up against in terms of competition for AST votes.

Ovi's biggest competition early in his career was D. Sedin, Heatley and Kovalchuk who he beat pretty handidly for the first 5 seasons. Once he started to slow down he was losing votes to D. Sedin and Benn mostly. Hall posed some competition for a bit once Benn started to slow down, Then Gaudreau took over for a bit and now it seems Kaprizov is likely going to take most of the votes regardless of how many goals Ovi scores. Though through much of his early career there would have been big competition from the RW side like Jagr, St. Louis, Perry, Hossa, Iggy, Selanne and later on Kane, Kucherov, Tarasenko and even Draisaitl getting some RW votes.

For Hull early in his career his biggest competition was Dickie Moore and Dean Prentice who he was miles ahead of at the time. A lot of the big named wingers were getting votes on RW side like Howe, Bathgate and Geoffrion.
During Hulls prime years where he went on a pretty deep run of 1st Team Selection his biggest competition was Bucyk and Mahovlich who weren't really posing much of a threat. Again it still seems like the big competition for wingers was on the RW side with Howe and Cournoyer.

I've always wondered why we separate the two sides in All-star selections. I get why we generally separate for C's as most years if we just voted in the top 3 forwards it would likely all be C's. But I do wonder how much things would change if there was no handedness bias and we just voted in one C and two wingers. Or just the 3 best forwards. There is no such bias applied to defencemen.

This is just an excellent post and rebuttal. I fear I may harbor some personal bias for Bobby Hull but it's good to get these stats contextualized, like you just did.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I think you could make a case for Ovi on first team in 2006 and 2014;

2006 - Thornton, Jagr are clearly ahead of everyone else then Ovi seems like #3 that year. Heatley and Alfie come close but I think Ovi's season is more impressive overall, voters might have disagreed. Staal and Crosby may have garnered some votes as well.

2014 - Crosby, Getzlaf and toss up honestly between Ovi, Perry, Benn, Giroux, Seguin and Pavelski. Ovi's 51 goals might give him the nod but they might lean towards someone else.

So I think it's more likely 7 first teams for Ovi which makes things a little bit closer. I personally have Ovi over Hull currently but had Hull stayed in the NHL it's likely that he may have made things a bit more out of reach in terms of total impact in the NHL. It's really hard to weigh those WHA seasons so I unfortunately ignore them. There is no arguing that Hull wasn't a more complete player but Ovechkin's dominance of league goal scoring and goal scoring longevity is really only rivaled by Howe in my opinion. Hull comes very very close though, it's just another one of those "what if?" scenarios but I don't like to deal in those.

In that post, I took the actual Hart trophy voting results (whether I agreed with them or not).

But, for what it's worth, in 2006, I agree that Ovechkin was either the 3rd or 4th best forward. I would probably rank Alfredsson ahead, but it's close to a coinflip. Ovechkin was more physical and had a much weaker supporting cast, but Alfredsson was much better defensively. But in 2014, I don't think Ovechkin was anywhere close to the top six forwards. Yes, he scored a lot of goals, but he was horrendously bad at even strength.

 

[Daximus]

In that post, I took the actual Hart trophy voting results (whether I agreed with them or not).

But, for what it's worth, in 2006, I agree that Ovechkin was either the 3rd or 4th best forward. I would probably rank Alfredsson ahead, but it's close to a coinflip. Ovechkin was more physical and had a much weaker supporting cast, but Alfredsson was much better defensively. But in 2014, I don't think Ovechkin was anywhere close to the top six forwards. Yes, he scored a lot of goals, but he was horrendously bad at even strength.

That's fair looking a little deeper at things I can agree with your 2014 analysis. But 2006 for being a rookie and doing what he did, on that team, I think he should get the nod.

 

[VanIslander]

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

But to scale: 6 teams vs. 32 teams.

 

[Daximus]

This is just an excellent post and rebuttal. I fear I may harbor some personal bias for Bobby Hull but it's good to get these stats contextualized, like you just did.

Everyone has a bias. When it comes to splitting hairs, which is really what we are doing in regards to Hull and Ovi, it's always good to get as much information as possible. Coming from watching the game from the 90's onwards, I never got the chance to see Hull really play. I can really only dig into the stats from every angle, watch a bit of old tape (it's just not the same as today's) and try and piece it all together. We just have to try and set the bias aside and let the stats and tape do the talking.

But to scale: 6 teams vs. 32 teams.

I think there is a good argument to be had that regardless of whether there are 6 teams or 36 teams if you are a top player, you will always be a top player. The cream rises to the top so to speak. But when it comes to later finishes like 7+, then it can be a bit tougher to really parse that in a smaller league.

 

[Staniowski]

There's only four players- Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, McDavid (probably in that order) - who currently have some significant support as the best hockey player ever.

Gretzky is way ahead, though.

Howe's support has cratered over the past couple decades; Maurice Richard's did so long before that.

 

[JackSlater]

Hull and Ovechkin are similar calbre players who belong on the same tier, but it feels difficult to get them both in the top ten. Both in the 15-5 range.

 

[pappyline]

Hull and Ovechkin are similar calbre players who belong on the same tier, but it feels difficult to get them both in the top ten. Both in the 15-5 range.

A lot of people would disagree. Hull comes in at #5 on every HOH all time list. Hull is on a much higher tier than Ovechkin. People feel compelled to compare them because of their goal scoring prowess but Hull was a much superior player.

 

[JackSlater]

A lot of people would disagree. Hull comes in at #5 on every HOH all time list. Hull is on a much higher tier than Ovechkin. People feel compelled to compare them because of their goal scoring prowess but Hull was a much superior player.

I'd probably lean toward Hull over Ovechkin but if the gap was like you're describing we'd all be calling Hull the best player ever. I don't particularly care that Hull comes in at five when the history section makes a list.

 

[VanIslander]

9 & 99 are a tier above all others.

Peak, career, accomplishments, leadership, intangibles, by all criteria.

It'd take highly selective partitioning to claim otherwise.

 

[pappyline]

I'd probably lean toward Hull over Ovechkin but if the gap was like you're describing we'd all be calling Hull the best player ever. I don't particularly care that Hull comes in at five when the history section makes a list.

I don't think anybody was calling Hull the best player ever but A lot of people have him ranked in the 5 to !0 range. The consensus In HOH was #5. I don't think many have Ovechkin there so there is a considerable gap. And I don't particularly care about your opinion.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I don't think anybody was calling Hull the best player ever but A lot of people have him ranked in the 5 to !0 range. The consensus In HOH was #5. I don't think many have Ovechkin there so there is a considerable gap. And I don't particularly care about your opinion.

I wouldn't say consensus. There were 32 voters last time. 30 adhered to the Big Four

On the preliminary lists
7 had Hull 5th
7 had Beliveau 5th
7 had Harvey 5th
3 had Hasek 5th
3 had Roy 5th
2 had Richard 5nd
2 had Lemieux 5th
1 had Crosby 5th


There was a lot of spread. He ended up 5th but it was far from consensus.

 

[Professor What]

There's only four players- Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, McDavid (probably in that order) - who currently have some significant support as the best hockey player ever.

Gretzky is way ahead, though.

Howe's support has cratered over the past couple decades; Maurice Richard's did so long before that.

You're fooling yourself if you think those who study hockey history don't revere Howe up there. And if you think they put McDavid on that pedestal. As for the hockey community in general, most of them don't know what they're talking about when it comes to history. I'd be more interested on the thoughts of a handful of PhDs on a topic than a mass of first graders.

 

[pappyline]

I wouldn't say consensus. There were 32 voters last time. 30 adhered to the Big Four

On the preliminary lists
7 had Hull 5th
7 had Beliveau 5th
7 had Harvey 5th
3 had Hasek 5th
3 had Roy 5th
2 had Richard 5nd
2 had Lemieux 5th
1 had Crosby 5th


There was a lot of spread. He ended up 5th but it was far from consensus.

My bad. You are absolutely right. It was not a consensus. But he did receive enough high rankings to finish 5th.