Top 25 Best Female Hockey Players of All Time

[AlfiesHair]

Hey everyone.

After completing my own personal top 200 hockey players of all time (men) I have decided to try my best at making a preliminary top 50 women's hockey players of all time.

Admittedly my list is FAR from perfect. Way too much reliance on stat/award collecting with little reading (partially due to lack of written sources to be honest) and too little video watching. I also have no idea how to judge the defensive play of these players as there is so little written and way too much video for one man to watch.

That being said, I thought I would post my top 25 of my list here to be torn apart by fans who know women's hockey better than I. After 25 I get less and less confident in my rankings but I would be happy to post it if it would generate more discussion.

Anyways, enough with the rambling, here it goes along with some of my notes

1. Hayley Wickenheiser - 3x MVP (2x Oly. 1x WC), 4x best forward, 9x all star, 13 top 10 points appearances (1st, led three times), always upped her game in the Olympics, longtime captain, HHOF
2. Jenni Hiirikoski - 1x WC MVP, 9x best defender (1st), 7x all star, 4x defense point leader, 5 Finnish MVPs and 6 Finnish best D awards
3. Cammi Granato - 4x tournament leader in points (1st-tied), 9 top 10 points appearances, great NCAA career, longtime captain, HHOF
4. Angela Ruggiero - 6x best defender, 5x defense point leader, amazing NCAA (1x MVP) and amateur/pro career, HHOF
5. Jayna Hefford - 2x best forward, 3x all star, 10 top 10 points appearances (no leads or MVPs though), led domestic league in points 7 times, CWHL MVP trophy was named after her, HHOF
6. Angela James - one of the first great female superstars, apparently a 6x league MVP, power forward, innovator, HHOF
7. Marie-Philip Poulin - 1x WC MVP and 3x CWHL MVP, 8 top 10 points appearances, insanely clutch (3 golden goals)
8. Brianna Decker - 1x WC MVP, 2x PHF MVP, 1x NCAA MVP, 6 top 3 points appearances
9. Riikka Sallinen (Riikka Nieminen) - 3x international point leader, 9 top 10 points appearances (most for non NA player), dominant Finnish career, crazy longevity, Finnish league MVP trophy named after her, HHOF
10. Jennifer Botterill - 2x WC MVP, 2x NCAA MVP, slightly inconsistent international career but VERY impressive overall
11. Hilary Knight - 2x WC MVP, 1x CWHL MVP, 4x tournament leader in points (1st-tied), points machine
12. Florence Schelling - 8 top 3 SV% appearances (1st), 1x Oly. MVP, 2x best goaltender, especially impressive since she plays for Switzerland
13. Noora Raty - 1x WC MVP, 5x best goaltender (1st), a lot of league awards in the Finnish league, CWHL, and NCAA
14. Geraldine Heaney - 2x best defender, 3x defense point leader, led league in points by a defender 9 times, HHOF
15. Danielle Goyette - 5 top 3 points appearances, great longevity but little available domestic stats, HHOF
16. Krissy Wendell-Pohl - 2x WC MVP, 1x NCAA MVP, slightly short career though
17. Natalie Darwitz - 6 top 5 points appearances, 5x all star, great NCAA career, also short career
18. Monique Lamoureux-Morando - fantastic multi-positional player, 4x all star (1x forward, 3x defense), scoring threat for both positions
19. Kim St-Pierre - 3x SV% leader and 3x best goaltender, sort of a lack of domestic play to analyze, HHOF
20. Shannon Szabados - 3x SV% leader and 2x best goaltender, played almost her whole career in men's leagues so she is hard to analyze too
21. Michelle Karvinen - 6 top 10 points appearances (2nd best for a non NA player, led once), extremely dominant in weaker Euro leagues (5x points leader and 8x PPG leader)
22. Gunilla Andersson Stampes - 7 top 5 defensive points appearances (VERY good for someone who plays for Sweden), only a 1x all star and it's pretty hard to find her domestic league records
23. Caroline Ouellette - 9 top 10 points appearances, amazing longevity in domestic leagues as well but smaller peak/prime, reminds me of a slightly better (relatively) Alex Delvecchio
24. Paivi Virta (Paivi Halonen) - first Finnish superstar, very little international play but she dominated her league as a defender (8x defense point leader, 17x in the top 3)
25. Jenny Schmidgall-Potter - 8 top 10 points appearances (led once), 2x all star, very good NCAA and domestic league career


Some notes and criticisms I have for my own list:

I have trouble with pairing goaltenders it seems and I only have 5.5 defenders on this list.

My list seems to treat Euro players with a bit more prestige than most other NA sources I have found online, maybe I am missing something or maybe it's media bias (maybe I'm missing something that others see to discount Hiirikoski's accomplishments for example).

Some players I expected to be on here before doing research are not on here (ex. Kendall Coyne-Schofield #27, Manon Rheaume #30, Cassie Campbell-Pascall #50+. . . I must be missing something about her or maybe her broadcasting career has upped her popularity).

International awards were inconsistently given out in the 90s, so I may be slightly overlooking players from that era due to this.

If I had to tier this list it would go something like: 1, 2-5, 6-9, 10-15, 16-21, 22-25

Please roast my list! I need opinions!

Click to read more...

 

[The Panther]

I'm afraid I can't contribute anything here, as hockey is one of the few things I do that is entirely male-centric.

That said, I did see some women's hockey (Japan team) in the recent Olympics and quite enjoyed it.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Hey everyone.

After completing my own personal top 200 hockey players of all time (men) I have decided to try my best at making a preliminary top 50 women's hockey players of all time.

Admittedly my list is FAR from perfect. Way too much reliance on stat/award collecting with little reading (partially due to lack of written sources to be honest) and too little video watching. I also have no idea how to judge the defensive play of these players as there is so little written and way too much video for one man to watch.

That being said, I thought I would post my top 25 of my list here to be torn apart by fans who know women's hockey better than I. After 25 I get less and less confident in my rankings but I would be happy to post it if it would generate more discussion.

Anyways, enough with the rambling, here it goes along with some of my notes

1. Hayley Wickenheiser - 3x MVP (2x Oly. 1x WC), 4x best forward, 9x all star, 13 top 10 points appearances (1st, led three times), always upped her game in the Olympics, longtime captain, HHOF
2. Jenni Hiirikoski - 1x WC MVP, 9x best defender (1st), 7x all star, 4x defense point leader, 5 Finnish MVPs and 6 Finnish best D awards
3. Cammi Granato - 4x tournament leader in points (1st-tied), 9 top 10 points appearances, great NCAA career, longtime captain, HHOF
4. Angela Ruggiero - 6x best defender, 5x defense point leader, amazing NCAA (1x MVP) and amateur/pro career, HHOF
5. Jayna Hefford - 2x best forward, 3x all star, 10 top 10 points appearances (no leads or MVPs though), led domestic league in points 7 times, CWHL MVP trophy was named after her, HHOF
6. Angela James - one of the first great female superstars, apparently a 6x league MVP, power forward, innovator, HHOF
7. Marie-Philip Poulin - 1x WC MVP and 3x CWHL MVP, 8 top 10 points appearances, insanely clutch (3 golden goals)
8. Brianna Decker - 1x WC MVP, 2x PHF MVP, 1x NCAA MVP, 6 top 3 points appearances
9. Riikka Sallinen (Riikka Nieminen) - 3x international point leader, 9 top 10 points appearances (most for non NA player), dominant Finnish career, crazy longevity, Finnish league MVP trophy named after her, HHOF
10. Jennifer Botterill - 2x WC MVP, 2x NCAA MVP, slightly inconsistent international career but VERY impressive overall
11. Hilary Knight - 2x WC MVP, 1x CWHL MVP, 4x tournament leader in points (1st-tied), points machine
12. Florence Schelling - 8 top 3 SV% appearances (1st), 1x Oly. MVP, 2x best goaltender, especially impressive since she plays for Switzerland
13. Noora Raty - 1x WC MVP, 5x best goaltender (1st), a lot of league awards in the Finnish league, CWHL, and NCAA
14. Geraldine Heaney - 2x best defender, 3x defense point leader, led league in points by a defender 9 times, HHOF
15. Danielle Goyette - 5 top 3 points appearances, great longevity but little available domestic stats, HHOF
16. Krissy Wendell-Pohl - 2x WC MVP, 1x NCAA MVP, slightly short career though
17. Natalie Darwitz - 6 top 5 points appearances, 5x all star, great NCAA career, also short career
18. Monique Lamoureux-Morando - fantastic multi-positional player, 4x all star (1x forward, 3x defense), scoring threat for both positions
19. Kim St-Pierre - 3x SV% leader and 3x best goaltender, sort of a lack of domestic play to analyze, HHOF
20. Shannon Szabados - 3x SV% leader and 2x best goaltender, played almost her whole career in men's leagues so she is hard to analyze too
21. Michelle Karvinen - 6 top 10 points appearances (2nd best for a non NA player, led once), extremely dominant in weaker Euro leagues (5x points leader and 8x PPG leader)
22. Gunilla Andersson Stampes - 7 top 5 defensive points appearances (VERY good for someone who plays for Sweden), only a 1x all star and it's pretty hard to find her domestic league records
23. Caroline Ouellette - 9 top 10 points appearances, amazing longevity in domestic leagues as well but smaller peak/prime, reminds me of a slightly better (relatively) Alex Delvecchio
24. Paivi Virta (Paivi Halonen) - first Finnish superstar, very little international play but she dominated her league as a defender (8x defense point leader, 17x in the top 3)
25. Jenny Schmidgall-Potter - 8 top 10 points appearances (led once), 2x all star, very good NCAA and domestic league career


Some notes and criticisms I have for my own list:

I have trouble with pairing goaltenders it seems and I only have 5.5 defenders on this list.

My list seems to treat Euro players with a bit more prestige than most other NA sources I have found online, maybe I am missing something or maybe it's media bias (maybe I'm missing something that others see to discount Hiirikoski's accomplishments for example).

Some players I expected to be on here before doing research are not on here (ex. Kendall Coyne-Schofield #27, Manon Rheaume #30, Cassie Campbell-Pascall #50+. . . I must be missing something about her or maybe her broadcasting career has upped her popularity).

International awards were inconsistently given out in the 90s, so I may be slightly overlooking players from that era due to this.

If I had to tier this list it would go something like: 1, 2-5, 6-9, 10-15, 16-21, 22-25

Please roast my list! I need opinions!

I think it's absolutely awesome that you've undertaken this ranking, huge kudos to you!

It was briefly discussed this winter whether the HoH should try to attempt a collaborative ranking of the greatest female hockey players of all time. I reckoned there's wide support for the idea, but I think most of us don't have much experience watching the women's game or evaluating stats between leagues and tournaments to confidently rank players.

Myself, I've seen probably at most a dozen Olympic games going back to 2002, and maybe a couple dozen more games of Luleå HF/MSSK in the SDHL. Jenni Hiirikoski is one of my favorite players of any gender of all time, and has been the captain of my Luleå team for the last half decade or so. Pulling a player comparison out of my ass, I'd say she reminds me of Doug Harvey with her vision and the way she controls the pace of the game with the puck on her stick. Luleå has been a trailblazer for women's hockey in Sweden, getting a lot of premier players on the team forming a dynasty which has now won four consecutive Swedish championships. Luleå also won a short tournament against the NWHL champions Metropolitan Riveters called the Champions Cup a few years back, which made us boast having the best women's club team in the world. Hiirikoski's been our most important player throughout these years.

Other teams have followed Luleå's lead and become more competitive which has made the on-ice product better (as it's been a few years where the dominance over 90% of the field made the league pretty one-sided, and frankly not too watchable as a Luleå fan before at least the semifinals). This last championship was pretty awesome, as Luleå has had a watered down roster for much of the season, and went back to the finals against Brynäs as underdogs for the first time in many years. The first unit really took the charge and Hiirikoski played a million minutes. It looked like the experience and the star power on key positions decided the very closely fought series in the deciding game. Hiirikoski's due to become the first female player to have her jersey retired in Luleå, deservedly so.

 

[Doctor No]

Here's a very well considered list of female goaltenders, ranked:

Greatest Goalies Of Whcky History | Giants In The Crease

Looking at the greatest goalies to ever play in women's hockey

creasegiants.wixsite.com

The article is worth a read for the narratives alone - the author really studies the topic. His top ten:

Szabados
Raty
Schelling
St. Pierre
Rheaume
Vetter
Labonte
Kim Martin
Tomcikova
Desbiens

11-25 are in the article which I won't spoil (click the link). He has a clear top four (which happens to match the four in the list above - albeit in a different order).

I believe the list is from 2020 or so, which could shuffle things around a smidge.

 

[heretik27]

I'm not overly familiar with the female side of hockey, but I'm curious, how does Amanda Kessel stack up? I used to hear she was quite good like her brother and now she's getting into hockey management with Pittsburgh.

 

[JackSlater]

Credit for attempting such a thing. It's going to be very, very challenging to compare women due to the state of womens hockey. Their biggest games are international games, where two teams are vastly superior to the others, and there doesn't seem to be any consistent league where all of the best players play. IIHF awards, for men at least, are very iffy and that makes me reluctant to put a whole lot of stock in them. Difficult to compare without seeing many games of these players as well, and I'm not sure how many people would have seen the players outside of Olympics and the odd world championship game.

Here is an article I recall from a few months ago that rated the top 50 women heading into the 2022 Olympics.

Women’s Hockey Player Tiers: Top 50 Olympians from Marie-Philip Poulin to Abby Roque

The top ten was:

Poulin
Decker
Hiirikoski

Jenner
Daoust
Knight

Fillier
Muller
Nieminen
Karvinen

With the gaps representing that the list separated the players into tiers.

 

[sonic92]

I find it hard to really judge the Europeans since we really only have the international tournaments to go off of and almost every one has a Canada-USA gold medal game.

 

[AlfiesHair]

I'm not overly familiar with the female side of hockey, but I'm curious, how does Amanda Kessel stack up? I used to hear she was quite good like her brother and now she's getting into hockey management with Pittsburgh.

Amanda Kessel is a very impressive player and she made my preliminary top 50 at #43. Definitely has her brother's scoring touch. Her 3 top 3 points appearances and NCAA MVP are probably her two most standout achievements but overall inconsistency and lack of available stats in her league play stopped her from being higher on my list.

Another interesting thing I've found is that I am Lamoureux twins>Sedin twins! Both Lamoureuxs made my top 50, which is crazy that we've had two sets of elite hockey twins in the past couple decades.

 

[AlfiesHair]

If anybody is interested, here is my full list. Again, the further down we go the less confident I am. I love the links you guys are posting btw, thanks everyone.

1. Hayley Wickenheiser
2. Jenni Hiirikoski
3. Cammi Granato
4. Angela Ruggiero
5. Jayna Hefford
6. Angela James
7. Marie-Philip Poulin
8. Brianna Decker
9. Riikka Sallinen
10. Jennifer Botterill
11. Hilary Knight
12. Florence Schelling
13. Noora Raty
14. Geraldine Heaney
15. Danielle Goyette
16. Krissy Wendell-Pohl
17. Natalie Darwitz
18. Monique Lamoureux-Morando
19. Kim St-Pierre
20. Shannon Szabados
21. Michelle Karvinen
22. Gunilla Andersson Stampes
23. Caroline Ouellette
24. Paivi Virta
25. Jenny Schmidgall-Potter
26. Karyn Bye-Dietz
27. Kendall Coyne Schofield
28. Meghan Agosta-Marciano
29. Melodie Daoust (will be moving up this list)
30. Manon Rheaume
31. Charline Labonte
32. Julie Chu
33. Hilda Ranscombe (extremely hard to rank her, but I feel she deserves it after the reading I've done)
34. Laura Fortino
35. Kim Martin Hasson
36. Carla MacLeod
37. Alex Cavallini
38. Kirsi Hanninen
39. Sami Jo Small
40. Meaghan Mikkelson
41. Molly Engstrom
42. Therese Brisson
43. Amanda Kessel
44. Jessie Vetter
45. Kelly Wiedeman (Kelly O'Leary)
46. Jocelyne Larocque
47. Caitlin Cahow
48. Maria Rooth
49. Sarah Vaillancourt
50. Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson

Honourable Mentions (alphabetical)
Erin Ambrose
Megan Bozek
Cassie Campbell-Pascall
Ann-Renee Desbiens
Becky Kellar-Duke
Katie King-Crowley
Jennifer Harss
Christine Meier
Alina Muller
Cheryl Pounder
Natalie Spooner
Zuzana Tomcikova

 

[AlfiesHair]

I think it's absolutely awesome that you've undertaken this ranking, huge kudos to you!

It was briefly discussed this winter whether the HoH should try to attempt a collaborative ranking of the greatest female hockey players of all time. I reckoned there's wide support for the idea, but I think most of us don't have much experience watching the women's game or evaluating stats between leagues and tournaments to confidently rank players.

Myself, I've seen probably at most a dozen Olympic games going back to 2002, and maybe a couple dozen more games of Luleå HF/MSSK in the SDHL. Jenni Hiirikoski is one of my favorite players of any gender of all time, and has been the captain of my Luleå team for the last half decade or so. Pulling a player comparison out of my ass, I'd say she reminds me of Doug Harvey with her vision and the way she controls the pace of the game with the puck on her stick. Luleå has been a trailblazer for women's hockey in Sweden, getting a lot of premier players on the team forming a dynasty which has now won four consecutive Swedish championships. Luleå also won a short tournament against the NWHL champions Metropolitan Riveters called the Champions Cup a few years back, which made us boast having the best women's club team in the world. Hiirikoski's been our most important player throughout these years.

Other teams have followed Luleå's lead and become more competitive which has made the on-ice product better (as it's been a few years where the dominance over 90% of the field made the league pretty one-sided, and frankly not too watchable as a Luleå fan before at least the semifinals). This last championship was pretty awesome, as Luleå has had a watered down roster for much of the season, and went back to the finals against Brynäs as underdogs for the first time in many years. The first unit really took the charge and Hiirikoski played a million minutes. It looked like the experience and the star power on key positions decided the very closely fought series in the deciding game. Hiirikoski's due to become the first female player to have her jersey retired in Luleå, deservedly so.

Appreciate the love! I would love to see the HoH try to tackle this, I remember reading the thread you are mentioning and it helped inspired me to start this list. I have spent hundreds of hours reading through discussion here - without posting - so I figured I'd try my shot at something not talked to death about already.

Also, I think the Hiirikoski-Harvey comparison is very spot on from what I've seen and read. The more I see about her the more impressed I get. Her career accomplishments definitely compare to any Top 20 male player, in my estimation.