Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time (The Third)

[bobholly39]

I get a kick out of posts that laugh at Plus/Minus but go strictly by points to determine the better player.

Comparing Joe Thornton to Eric Lindros? Now that's a joke.

Ok but you're purposefully taking what I said out of context. Why, just for fun?

I said Lindros > Thornton for best 7 years.

But the specific question posed was "was any player best/co-best for 7 years ranked in the ~95+ on this list". And since I completely disagree with Lindros being best/co-best (he's 4th max, maybe 5th or 6th) in his best 7 years - I offered Thornton as an answer to that question. Thornton for his best 7 year stretch is certainly a top 4 player in the league, and he was ranked very close to where Lindros is.

Also - I certainly value points/offense a whole lot - but i'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion i value points only in my post.

This is just a bad post

 

[Theokritos]

Then participate in the project and quit whining.

Just to make it clear: Participation in the project is not a requirement for criticizing the rankings. You're free to challenge critics on the validity of their arguments and on how their ranking would look like, but non-participants are welcome to state their disapproval.

 

[bobholly39]

The list is the top 100 players of all-time.

Says nothing about best career. If its implicit to you, fine. But instructions for voting did not specify based on career. It is not by definition the best careers.

It is not a different list.

Again - you're right. But majority of voters clearly seemed to be favoring "better career" vs "better player/peak". So all we're doing by disagreeing here is arguing about the semantics of the meaning "top 100" - which seems like a waste of time.

If you want to engage in a conversation of where Lindros should rank career-rise in relation to Sakic or others, by all means let's discuss.
If you want to engage in a conversation of where Lindros should rank peak-wise based on best ~7 years vs Sakic and others, by all means let's discuss.

But if all we're going to do is argue about whether or not "top 100" means the first or second - it's kind of boring.

That was the most frustrating part of the project for me for what it's worth.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Should be noted that this was kept perfectly ambiguous regarding best vs. greatest (which are essentially terms of art for HFBoards). By design, even. I know some people skew towards what we would consider a “best” list while others skewed towards what we would consider a “greatest” list, but as long as no one blatantly disregarded eras or positions, I wanted people to select what felt natural.

Every player’s entire career was fair game, but if someone strongly de-emphasizes everything after 5, 7, 10, or 12 years, I wasn’t going to get on their case or anything. I tried to treat it more as a moving target based on the era in which the player existed.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Ok but you're purposefully taking what I said out of context. Why, just for fun?
I said Lindros > Thornton for best 7 years.

But the specific question posed was "was any player best/co-best for 7 years ranked in the ~95+ on this list". And since I completely disagree with Lindros being best/co-best (he's 4th max, maybe 5th or 6th) in his best 7 years - I offered Thornton as an answer to that question. Thornton for his best 7 year stretch is certainly a top 4 player in the league, and he was ranked very close to where Lindros is.
Also - I certainly value points/offense a whole lot - but i'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion i value points only in my post.

This is just a bad post

This is your quote:

"lol - did you really just use +/- over 82 games to show Lindros as a better player than Jagr, and an argument for best in the world? I guess this means that since 2017 - Connor McDavid isn't the best player in the world, but rather only 41st best....

From 1995 to 2001:

Lemieux 1.90
Jagr 1.54
Lindros 1.35
Sakic 1.30
Forsberg 1.24"

Lol at plus/minus.

List points per game (I assume, didn't say what the numbers were).

That was all I commented on.

And that Joe Thornton was no Eric Lindros. Just my opinion from watching them play.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Again - you're right. But majority of voters clearly seemed to be favoring "better career" vs "better player/peak". So all we're doing by disagreeing here is arguing about the semantics of the meaning "top 100" - which seems like a waste of time.

If you want to engage in a conversation of where Lindros should rank career-rise in relation to Sakic or others, by all means let's discuss.
If you want to engage in a conversation of where Lindros should rank peak-wise based on best ~7 years vs Sakic and others, by all means let's discuss.

But if all we're going to do is argue about whether or not "top 100" means the first or second - it's kind of boring.

That was the most frustrating part of the project for me for what it's worth.

I didn't bring up the meaning of the list.

 

[The Panther]

lol - did you really just use +/- over 82 games to show Lindros as a better player than Jagr, and an argument for best in the world?

I don't know if you're trolling at this point, or just ignoring the part where I said Jagr is clearly ranked well ahead of Lindros overall, and deserves to be. (I rank Jagr higher than most do.)

 

[seventieslord]

Overall goal-differential per 82 games
+73 Jagr
+74 Lindros

Oh, here we go again with this bullshit statistic that punishes players for killing penalties..

(Guy Carbonneau is a career -250, don'tchaknow....)

 

[Perennial]

I have, and he's not a top 100 player yet. He will be, but he's not there yet. Give him another 3 years before including on such a prestigious list.

If you need 3 more years to accurately assess McDavid as a player, that's fine, but some of us are comfortable locking in our final answer based on the sample size already provided...

 

[Michael Farkas]

So, your list is based on technical skills. Where do you have Bryan Fogarty...?

 

[The Panther]

To be honest, I would probably make room for McDavid on my own list if I were doing a top-100 (which I'm not). Again, it comes back to being the best/co-best guy in the NHL/world. If you're at that level for three or four years, you're very, very elite.

I would never put anybody on this list after, say, two or probably three seasons (Gretzky aside), but McDavid's been around for five years now. He could be in there somewhere.

Again, it depends if your 'system' runs toward peak/prime or more toward career totality/accomplishments. If it's the latter, you'd leave him off, I get that.

 

[Veritas]

At this point I think I'd comfortably rank McDavid ahead of Stewart and Keon. Maybe a few others.

 

[Michael Farkas]

In case it's not clear, anyone that has watched hockey in the last few years knows that Connor McDavid is just about the best player in the league or close...we know this. This isn't like you're pushing Shane Wright on us or something...we get it. But at the time of list creation/discussion, he was, whatever, 2.5 seasons into his career, that didn't contain enough career value for us to put him over players that had participated for 10, 15, 20 whatever years...

The criteria isn't about best or greatest...but would you have rather have a top-5, hell, even top-3 player in the league for his teenage years or maybe the 4th best player in the league for most of 17...? Logically, in hockey, you want the latter because the star power doesn't carry quite the weight as it does in, say, the NBA...

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

In case it's not clear, anyone that has watched hockey in the last few years knows that Connor McDavid is just about the best player in the league or close...we know this. This isn't like you're pushing Shane Wright on us or something...we get it. But at the time of list creation/discussion, he was, whatever, 2.5 seasons into his career, that didn't contain enough career value for us to put him over players that had participated for 10, 15, 20 whatever years...

The criteria isn't about best or greatest...but would you have rather have a top-5, hell, even top-3 player in the league for his teenage years or maybe the 4th best player in the league for most of 17...? Logically, in hockey, you want the latter because the star power doesn't carry quite the weight as it does in, say, the NBA...

Who says it isn't?

 

[Michael Farkas]

The creators and admins and most of those who participated. It was intentionally left vague, as has been stated for the duration. It's also not the point of my post, thus the gloss over...

 

[wetcoast]

The list is the top 100 players of all-time.

Says nothing about best career. If its implicit to you, fine. But instructions for voting did not specify based on career. It is not by definition the best careers.

It is not a different list.

I understand that you evaluate players on the list differently than I do and I respect that but I have to wonder where you have a guy like Kent Nilsson ranked?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I understand that you evaluate players on the list differently than I do and I respect that but I have to wonder where you have a guy like Kent Nilsson ranked?

Not on my top 120.

Why would he be?

 

[wetcoast]

The poster has to look on Wikipedia to see on who Bryan Fogarty is first.

To be fair his potential and the sad story of his life isn't on the top of hockey stories for most people.

 

[wetcoast]

Not on my top 120.

Why would he be?

My apologies I was thinking about the new poster pumping McDavid tires and had a very large drink when I came home from work on an empty stomach and while walking the dog realized that I had sort of merged both of you into my question.

 

[The Panther]

But at the time of list creation/discussion, he was, whatever, 2.5 seasons into his career...

Ah, I missed that.

Yeah, I wouldn't have him after 2.5 seasons either.

 

[bobholly39]

We should put a date in the OP as to when the list was conducted - maybe even in thread title. Would give a bit of a reference point. Even me as a participant i was trying to remember if we started this after the 2018 playoffs or before, and it took me a while to figure it out.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

My apologies I was thinking about the new poster pumping McDavid tires and had a very large drink when I came home from work on an empty stomach and while walking the dog realized that I had sort of merged both of you into my question.

No problem.

But I am a big McDavid fan.

And large drinks.

 

[buffalowing88]

How does a poster get to be on one of these lists? I've been on the forum for a long time but only in the last 2-3 years really planted myself in the History board. I'd love to join if it's available but entirely understand if not.

 

[quoipourquoi]

How does a poster get to be on one of these lists? I've been on the forum for a long time but only in the last 2-3 years really planted myself in the History board. I'd love to join if it's available but entirely understand if not.

Essentially, you just submit a Round 1 list (which for this project was a ranked list of 120 players), and if it passes through the screening process, you’re in! The screening process isn’t designed to weed out unconventional opinion or anything, but rather to ensure that a list is representative of all positions and eras and to give the person an opportunity to confirm that any omissions of otherwise consensus players are intentional.

No other prerequisite or anything, since it’s primarily designed around sharing knowledge with each other and digging deeper than the surface-level analysis one might get from reading bulletpoint resumes.

 

[plusandminus]

I think the most striking about the top-100 ranking in the OP, is seeing 12 Canadians at the top, and 20 av top-22 being Canadians. If I remember right, earlier (or positional) rankings were even more Canadian dominated.

I also notice Lafleur ahead of Makarov. Is that still the consensus?

Alexei Kasatonov really should have been on the list. I watched basically every international game the Soviets played from the late 1970s, and the difference between Fetisov and Kasatonov wasn't big. Sometimes Kasatonov was the better of the two, and sometimes (more often) Fetisov was.
Here is an example of Kasatonov leading the Soviets in scoring during the 1981 Canada Cup:
Team Soviet Union - Canada Cup 1981 - Player Stats

Mats Sundin also deserves to be on the list. He's 19th alltime in adjusted scoring (28th in unadjusted) and led his team in scoring (and goals and assists) probably through 10+ seasons. Great playoff stats as well.
NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Adjusted Points | Hockey-Reference.com
Most of all, he dominated internationally, and among Swedes Sundin and Forsberg was seen as pretty much equally good. In best-on-best tournaments, Sundin usually was selected to the All Star Team, and in World Championships led the scoring and was elected best forward.

The gap between Hasek (13th) and Roy (7th) looks big considering they on this board seems to be looked upon as pretty much equally good. I think Hasek is quite ahead of Roy, and see Hasek as a top-10 with Roy out of the top-10. I think goalies are hard to rank. There was/is 1 goalie among 12-18 or so skaters on a team. Does that mean that we should place only 6-8 or so goalies top-100..?? Possibly not..? But perhaps having 15(!) goalies top-100 is a bit too many??

It's easy to say that a guy deserves to be on the list, but sometimes harder to say who to drop from the list. Unfortunately, I have little knowledge of the NHL prior to the 1960s. But for example Bill Gadsby looks like a guy that Kasatonov might be able to beat, and perhaps that Dit Clapper and possibly Tim Horton. I think Chara and Kasatonov where fairly comparable and might want to place Chara higher too .
Sundin probably beats some old-timers too. And I might place him ahead of Trottier.
But, unlike the participants I haven't much studied the old-timers.


By the way, here is how players born in the 1950s (oldest ones within paranthesis) or so and later placed according to the OP:

1 Can Gretzky
( 3 Can Orr)
4 Can Lemieux
7 Can Roy
10 Can Bourque
12 Can Crosby
13 Cze Hasek
15 Swe Lidstrom
16 Cze Jagr
18 Can Potvin
21 Can Messier
22 Rus Ovechkin
23 Can Lafleur
25 Sov Fetisov
26 Sov Makarov
(27 Can Esposito)
(29 Can Clarke)
30 Can Brodeur
31 Can Trottier
32 Can Sakic
36 Can Bossy
37 Can Robinson
40 Can Yzerman
41 USA Chelois
(43 Sov Kharlamov)
(46 Can Dryden)
(47 Can Park)
48 Can Coffey
50 Sov Tretiak
51 Swe Forsberg
52 Rus Malkin
59 Can Pronger
63 Can Dionne
64 Can Stevens
67 Can MacInnis
69 Fin Selanne
(70 Sov Firsov)
76 Fin Kurri
80 C/U Br.Hull
84 Swe Salming
85 Can Belfour
(86 Sov Mikhailov)
88 Rus Fedorov
89 Svk Chara
91 Can Thornton
93 USA Kane
95 C/U M.Howe
96 Can Lindros
97 USA Leetch
98 Can St.Louis
(99 Can Keon)

Still a Canadian domination.
(I did this for myself and decided to post it. Mistakes might exist. I wrote "C/U" on Brett Hull and Mark Howe intentionally, as their fathers were Canadian, but just do however you want to do.)