Who are the very best players in history who were the best at skating? Any poor skaters?

bobholly39

Registered User
Mar 10, 2013
23,377
16,756
Among say, the top ~25 players of all-time or so, who are the ones who are the very best at skating? What about - are there any that are poor skaters? You can expand slightly beyond top 25 players of all-time if you like - but the idea is really to talk about some of the better players all-time, not just looking at great skaters who weren't necessarily all-time great players too.

Would Orr and McDavid be top 2 for skating? How does someone like Crosby or Jagr fit in - both of which I always found to be super solid on their skates. How about Gretzky, Lemieux?

Just curious to get a conversation going, and hear opinions on skating abilities on some of the greatest players ever.

And yes - best skater doesn't necessarily mean just fastest skater, since there are a lot of aspects to it.
 

Mandar

The Real Maven
Sep 27, 2013
4,526
4,762
The Tarheel State
Not sure if Coffey is in the top 25 of all time players....definitely in the top 100....best skater I have seen in my 50 or so years watching the game.

A few others.....Gartner, Bure, LaFleur.....
 
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MadLuke

Registered User
Jan 18, 2011
10,678
6,178
Brett Hull-Robitaille-young Chara are some to come to mind as great player that were held back at least early with their skating ability.

Has for the great player being also good at skating, I imagine that would be quite common, Crosby-Gretzky are exceptional skaters
 

VanIslander

20 years of All-Time Drafts on HfBoards
Sep 4, 2004
36,142
6,836
South Korea
very true. Marcel Dionne wasnt a great skater either.
Sorry, man. But he was a great skater.

Dionne scored a lot of breakaway goals and off of shifty moves at high speed.
.
He scored more goals than any other NHLer over the 10-year span of my kindy year to Grade 9. He retired 2nd in NHL career scoring. In lowly LA. Imagine if he played with anyone nearly as great. He'd be hoisting cups. Certainly if Montreal had drafted him as they should have.
 

Gregor Samsa

Registered User
Sep 5, 2020
4,172
4,751
Certainly not one of the best at the game of hockey but wasn’t Brett Hedican or someone like that a world class skater? Maybe I’m mixing him up with some other goodish 90’s/2000’s dman
 

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