Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time

[wetcoast]

Countless? Maybe not. But there are definitely some. This kind of thing isn't considered often enough. How many goals would a "only shoot" Gretzky or Lemieux have scored in a season?

Getting shots to the net is a skill, though. that shouldn't be discounted.

Reading back on that I was thinking of many elite players all time.

This would be especially true of pre Oilers and many post Oiler teams where coaches dictated the style of play a team would make.

I was also thinking of a basketball coach who coached for maximum offense and taking a shot to score points or baskets as fast as possible, kind of like a different version of the hurry up offense in football.

No doubt getting shots to the net is a skill and goal scoring is an extremely valuable skill but we should never focus too much on only one part of the game and minimize other important areas.

I think that most here would agree with this.

 

[Vilica]

At the risk of re-litigating old votes, and half-inspired by the Ovechkin debate, I was curious about the effects of the original expansions on Bobby Hull. After I finished Hull, I decided to add Beliveau for a comparison. I could probably get Orr, Esposito, Mikita and Lafleur done too, though I don't know if somebody else has compiled this information around here. I just know that hockey-reference doesn't have game logs for this era, and thus no team splits. I realized that the NHL website does have game logs loaded, however it is a bit of an annoyance because when sorting by team, home/away are separated. I powered through that, transferred the numbers into a spreadsheet, and came up with the following table summary. I can provide the full team splits if people want.

Bobby Hull	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	+/-
O6	180	104	85	189	4
Exp+6	158	119	99	218	120
Exp+2	24	11	20	31	9
Total (29-33)	362	234	204	438	133
Jean Beliveau
O6	139	56	74	130	6
Exp+6	110	47	82	129	49
Exp+2	12	5	11	16	10
Total (36-39)	261	108	167	275	65

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

There's lots of fun facts that the splits reveal, but I'll just throw one each for Hull and Beliveau right now. In Hull's 68-69 season, where he went 58+49=107 and +12 in 74 games, against just PHL, LAK, MNS and PIT in 23 games, he went 25+25=50, +34. In Beliveau's case, his actual favorite opponent in this period was Detroit, as he went 20+24=44 in 27 games against them.

I don't know if this is the best place for this, but I've spent a bunch of time on it now, and I'm not going to delete it before posting like some of my other entries.

 

[solidmotion]

No doubt getting shots to the net is a skill and goal scoring is an extremely valuable skill but we should never focus too much on only one part of the game and minimize other important areas.

I think that most here would agree with this.

definitely basically agree but at the same time no reason to underestimate what ovechkin has done. there was that article from earlier in the year where goalies talk about knowing exactly what's coming from ovechkin and still being unable to stop it. think about all the other players to play similar roles in recent years—stamkos, laine, malkin at times, kovalchuk: they were all stoppable, they all go cold, can't convert at the same rate, have to diversify their approach. ovechkin just keeps clicking year after year.

as to exactly how impressive and important that is, i vacillate. certainly wish it didn't come at the cost that it has in terms of other aspects of play. but i think laine is a pretty good control group of sorts, someone who plays the exact same way as latter-day ovechkin but without the same results.

 

[Michael Farkas]

In fairness, this is Laine's first season in the NHL on the Ovechkin scale (who didn't enter until he was 20, and played two no-touch years get started)...Laine already has a 2nd and 7th place goal finish where Ovechkin comparatively had nothing. Laine is 5th in the NHL currently at the break. He led the league in power play goals last year. And has already been to a conference final...

 

[Midnight Judges]

Countless? Maybe not. But there are definitely some. This kind of thing isn't considered often enough. How many goals would a "only shoot" Gretzky or Lemieux have scored in a season?

I don't see how that's relevant seeing as how Ovechkin isn't an "only shoot" player, nor has he ever been.

 

[Michael Farkas]

"Yikes. I rest my case."

 

[Midnight Judges]

"Shoot only" player...with 500 assists.....over 1/2 APG....and four 50 assist seasons. lol

 

[Michael Farkas]

If you think that "shoot only" player means that he has never once passed the puck, then sure, circle gets the square (maybe Midnight Judges really is in the law field...?). But in reality, Ovechkin is definitely a shoot only player...he is not a particularly strong puck distributor relative to other all time greats, particularly through the NZ. That's why he finally won when he had a center who didn't also poop himself in the playoffs when Kuznetsov superseded Nicklas Backstrom. It covered for an Ovechkin weakness and made him more useful.

The left side carry from behind the center line and the gallop into the zone, same move, and fire was snuffed out by advanced scouting early on...and even a fire hydrant like Dan Girardi could stifle it with relative ease...


If assists, instead of watching the games, is going to be the metric on his passing ability, consider this...

Players with 1000 games and who are over a point per game is a list that is 32 players long. Ovechkin is last in assists at 530 and last in assists per game at 0.51.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Ovechkin has over 100 more assists than Crosby has goals.

I guess that makes Crosby a one dimensional "pass only" player - to a much higher degree than Ovie. You know, in reality.

Oh man just think of all the assists Ovechkin would have if he was a pass only player like Crosby. He'd be like the greatest playmaker of all time.

Then again, so could countless other players. Obviously.

 

[Michael Farkas]

It would have been more gentlemanly and sportsmanlike if you said "I give up"...

Again, if you choose to interpret what was said as "Ovechkin has never passed" that's on you and your inability to hold a reasonable conversation. If I said "Hal Gill can't skate" do you imagine him playing in tennis shoes...? Don't get me wrong, I'd want to do anything I could do to distract from this topic right now too if I was on the other side...but this is not a good look.

I won't look, but I'll assume that at 900 games played and point per game, I doubt Crosby is last in goals or goals per game...despite being a pass-first player who has played with inferior linemates...including many linemates who aren't very capable of passing it back to him...

Numbers aside, there is more dimension to his game. Ovechkin is really, really, all-time level good at his one thing...and that's valuable too. No one has Ovechkin outside their top 100...but the top of these lists should be reserved for players who bring more dynamic skill sets to the table in my opinion...

 

[sr edler]

"Shoot only" player...with 500 assists.....over 1/2 APG....and four 50 assist seasons. lol

This is why we talk about peak and post peak Ovi. He last had a season with 50+ assists in 2010–11. That is 8 years ago. Since then he's had three 50 goal seasons where he didn't even break 30 assists. One of those years he had 21 assists and 71 points in 79 games. Even a shoot first addict like P. Bure when he played on the semi-lowly (99–00) to straight out lowly (00–01) Florida Panthers broke 30 assists back to back.

 

[sr edler]

Football (soccer) is the most obvious comparable here. They do not do points and I don't believe it has ever occurred to them to do it.

Why does it matter if one "do points" or not? What happens on the pitch still happens. A playmaker is still highly valuable to a team, often more so than a pure striker in the Pippo Inzaghi mold. Just last season Luka Modric was considered a pretty valuable player. Mesut Özil has been for many years now. Zvonimir Boban was in his heyday. Frank Lampard too. There are many more examples.

Giroux was 4th in Hart voting.

Uh, yes. But was he considered the 4th best player in the league? Those are two different things, and you know that, or at least you should know that.

 

[Sentinel]

No of course not, and amongst those with whom you discuss such aspects of the game who have played it at an advanced, high level..... a given. Assists are more important than goals. That is simply Fact. Truth.

Nothing even remotely resembling a "fact," but OK.

 

[Troubadour]

Why does it matter if one "do points" or not? What happens on the pitch still happens. A playmaker is still highly valuable to a team, often more so than a pure striker in the Pippo Inzaghi mold. Just last season Luka Modric was considered a pretty valuable player. Mesut Özil has been for many years now. Zvonimir Boban was in his heyday. Frank Lampard too. There are many more examples.

Agreed. Truth be told, only seldom was a football striker really considered the best player on the pitch and in the world, that is, before Messi and C Ronaldo. And neither of them is a typical forward anyway.

If we look at Ballon d'Or winners pre-Messaldo, off the top of my head, only Ronaldo, Owen and Shevchenko fit the stereotype of scoring-only guys. And both Owen and Sheva were considered a weak or somewhat flimsy winners.

Whenever a playmaking midfielder had a case , they usually took it from scorers rather convincingly in the last twenty years (Zidane, Figo, Rivaldo, Nedved over Henry, Kaka, etc.)
Thinking that playmaking and assists in football are considered even less important than assists in hockey just because football nerds track no TP stats is way, way off.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Crosby is a 2 time Rocket winner.

Should be 3 as he was on pace for 64 goals in 2011 and that was 41 games so not a small sample size. That would have been as impressive as anything 8 did. Too bad some no name neanderthal had to run 87.

Crosby is one of the most balanced offensive players of all time. He's done it, largely with garbage compared to Ovechkin, who's skated with one of the best playmakers of this era, in Backstrom, at even strength, the bulk of his career.

Sid has also been responsible defensively and more recently garnering significant Selke votes because he's raising his defensive game, much in the progression of a Yzerman.

Things that Ovechkin has never done or had the responsibility of doing.

There is no one who can legitimately pass Ovi off as anything but a 1 way player who is heavily, heavily slanted towards goal scoring.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Balance is penalized in this format (best-in-show, Ricky Bobby stuff). Points are not valuable. Assists are valuable, but only if you lead the league in them or if you get 30 a year or whatever like Ovechkin, that's fine too...the idea that hyper-specialization is better than a five-tool player is a foreign concept to me...but we all have a different lens in which we view the game...

 

[sr edler]

Agreed. Truth be told, only seldom was a football striker really considered the best player on the pitch and in the world, that is, before Messi and C Ronaldo. And neither of them is a typical forward anyway.

If we look at Ballon d'Or winners pre-Messaldo, off the top of my head, only Ronaldo, Owen and Shevchenko fit the stereotype of scoring-only guys. And both Owen and Sheva were considered weak or somewhat flimsy winners.

Whenever a playmaking midfielder had a case , they usually took it from scorers rather convincingly in the last twenty years (Zidane, Figo, Rivaldo, Nedved over Henry, Kaka, etc.)

So thinking that playmaking and assists in football are considered even less important than assists in hockey just because football nerds track no TP stats is way, way off.

I'm puzzled by the "the only thing that matters is goal scorers" crowd. I can’t take it very seriously, to be honest.

[MOD: In-depth soccer talk moved to HOH Off-Topic Thread.]

 

[VanIslander]

If I may be allowed to substitute an NFL example for the most recent soccer parallel:

Is Mahomes the league MVP for leading clearly in both yards gained and touchdowns thrown? Or should Brees get a sort-of lifetime achievement nod for never before having won the MVP award but the old guy has quarterbacked a team whose combination of defense and offense has resulted in the just barely best record.(?)

 

[Midnight Judges]

This is why we talk about peak and post peak Ovi. He last had a season with 50+ assists in 2010–11. That is 8 years ago. Since then he's had three 50 goal seasons where he didn't even break 30 assists. One of those years he had 21 assists and 71 points in 79 games. Even a shoot first addict like P. Bure when he played on the semi-lowly (99–00) to straight out lowly (00–01) Florida Panthers broke 30 assists back to back.

He's also had 38 and 36 assists per season recently and played at a 41 assist pace on the way to a cup. Those are decent totals. Is there any particular reason why you didn't mention those?

And again, Ovechkin's career assists per game is .51. That's right there with John Tavares, and above Benn, Stamkos, Bergeron, Toews, and Seguin. Why is precisely nobody claiming those guys can't make plays?

Saying Ovechkin is one-dimensional or "shoot only" is demonstrably false. It is synonymous with admitting raging bias.

If that is not being concluded by the participants of the project, then something is off.

 

[sr edler]

He's also had 38 and 36 assists per season recently and played at a 41 assist pace on the way to a cup. Those are decent totals. Is there any particular reason why you didn't mention those?

And again, Ovechkin's career assists per game is .51. That's right there with John Tavares, and above Benn, Stamkos, Bergeron, Toews, and Seguin. Why is precisely nobody claiming those guys can't make plays?

Saying Ovechkin is one-dimensional or "shoot only" is demonstrably false. It is synonymous with admitting raging bias.

If that is not being concluded by the participants of the project, then something is off.

I never claimed Ovi was a "shoot only" player, that was probably someone else (if that claim was made). None of Tavares, Benn, Stamkos, Bergeron, Toews and Seguin are known as standout playmakers, by the way, but either two-way guys or 50/50 guys.

Why bring in a word like bias on me? (especially following raging). Why would I be biased against Ovechkin? Explain that to me. Either that or try to raise the bar in some other way, or otherwise I have to say adios to you because I'm not interested in anymore exchanges where participants or non-participants whines about bias this and bias that.

 

[Michael Farkas]

decent totals

Decent, huh? Sounds like he offers a lot haha

Do we have to keep putting quarters in to play this game or...?

 

[Midnight Judges]

I never claimed Ovi was a "shoot only" player, that was probably someone else (if that claim was made). None of Tavares, Benn, Stamkos, Bergeron, Toews and Seguin are known as standout playmakers, by the way, but either two-way guys or 50/50 guys.

Along the discussion, I took issue with anyone calling Ovechkin "shoot only" or "one dimensional." After I made those points you chimed in to disagree, so I thought you were defending those opinions.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Along the discussion, I took issue with anyone calling Ovechkin "shoot only" or "one dimensional." After I made those points you chimed in to disagree, so I thought you were defending those opinions.

Because in a project like the top 100 players of all time, we're not talking about John Tavares, or Benn, or Stamkos, or any of the others you listed. None of those people are anywhere near top 100 material. Nor are they play making studs by any measure.

Ovechkin has led the league in shots every year other than 2012 and 2017.

2006 - Ovi has 425 - 2nd place? 368
2007 - 392/351
2008 - 446/358
2009 - 528/372
2010 - 368/347
2011 - 367/347 (Buff)
2012 - 303 (5th place) - I don't know what the hell happened to him this season.
2013 - 220/190
2014 - 386/313
2015 - 395/304
2016 - 398/353 (Burns)
2017 - 313/320 (Burns)
2018 - 355/335

-3855 shots in seasons where he led the category.

-3270 shots taken in that same time period by 2nd place.

-That's over 15% greater than the next closest player.

-10 seasons in which he led shots on net = 585 extra shots.

-That doesn't even take into account shots attempted which would vault him into even higher position over those below him.

There is no metric that will make Ovi anything other than what he is. A really great goal scorer who, in his early career, could do it off the rush or trigger and now, is much more reliant on players like Backstrom to put the puck in his wheelhouse. He's a shoot first, shoot often guy. And as much as I'd like to say his position as a goal scorer is overrated because he shoots far more than other players (see stats above), the fact is, his shot is lethal, and even if it doesn't go in, generates rebounds, strikes fear into opposing goalies and players. I've got no problem giving him all the credit in the world as a goal scorer. He's consistently elite/great at it.

Ovechkin has been in the top 10 in assists 3 times (6th, 6th, 10th).

Crosby has led the league in goal scoring and assists. And the only reason those finishes aren't better are in large part because of dirty tactics and freak plays that cost him a pair of Hart's and Art Ross trophies. That's not even debatable. It's not like he got suspended (Ovi) or was out of shape and suffering soft tissue injuries. It's really the only reason a debate still exists. If Sid had 4 Hart's and 4 Art Ross's and 4 Lindsay's to go along with everything else, it's a landslide.

Crosby is 2nd in assists among active players (1st in per game)
Crosby is 3rd in goals among active players (4th in per game)
-That's with missing the equivalent of 1.5 years during his prime. Think about that.

Ovechkin is 1st in goals among active players (1st in per game)
Ovechkin is 11th in assists (17th in per game)

Ovechkin has 8 more points than Crosby......in 141 more games.

And this is all with Crosby playing an inherently more important position, being responsible to good as a defensive player (something Ovi has rarely been), good to great in the dot, and playing absolutely with weaker line mates than Ovechkin over the past 10+ years. The only time Crosby skated with anyone as good or better than Backstrom, was with Marian Hossa, for all of 2 months, in 2008 and they tore it up together and briefly with an aging Jarome Iginla a few years later. We're talking a handful of games.

Otherwise it's Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz, Pat Hornqvist, Colby Armstrong, Ryan Malone, etc. Not exactly juggernaut offensive weapons. Other than the stars i mentioned above, which were very brief, his current W, Jake Guentzel is the highest hockey IQ guy Crosby has skated with on a regular basis.

Goal scorers put a lot of pucks in the net that are gimmies, just as folks gathering assists get some easy ones, whether they're secondary types or on the back of an long rush or amazing shot by the goal scorer. I think it was Mike or 70's that said, to really get a good idea on value, you'd have to study every single goal these guys we're in on and assign value.

But based on metrics we do have, advanced or otherwise, Crosby is one of the most balanced offensive players ever. Ovechkin is not.

 

[Doctor No]

-That doesn't even take into account shots attempted which would vault him into even higher position over those below him.

Source for this claim?

 

[ImporterExporter]

Source for this claim?

NHL.com - Stats

2019 - Ovechkin has 145 shots 82 misses
-Burns is next closest with 131 and 66

2018 - 355 shots/171 missed
Burns next at 320/150

2017 - Burns led both categories

2016 - Ovi back in front 398/166
Burns at 355/145

2015 - Ovi 395/202
Karlsson at 292/145

2014 - 386/181
313/106 - P. Sharp

2013 - 220/98
191/81 - E Kane

2011 - 367/159
-347/144 - Buff

2010 - 369/169
-318/141 - J. Carter

2009 - 528/347
2008 - 446/326

No data before that on shots missed.