5-10 all-time top 10 NHL greatest...

Sens Rule

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And he was so damn good defensively that him winning a Norris over the likes of Potvin, Bourque, Robinson, Coffey(Who scored 96 and 126 points the years Langway won), and he finished runner up for the Hart to gretzky in 1982. He was a great leader, and true competitor. He won those Norris trophies while being a low scorer for a reason. He will go down as one of the greatest defensive defensemen of all time.

You are severely underating one of the greats.

Langway also had a realtively brief career, and shorter prime than many great D-Men. He only played 994 games and only 10 seasons when he was close to a top player. That lowers his rank among all-time players and D-Man.

Of his D peers for their career all these guys were better:
Robinson
Potvin
Bourque
Coffey
Salming
Howe
Savard
Park
Stevens
Chelios
MacInnis

Langway was closer to Lowe, McCrimmon, Wilson for his career than he was to the above peers at D. Langway was stellar for 4 or 5 years. So stellar as a Defensive D-Man that he won Norris trophies and got Hart votes. But he had a short career and a limited time as a top player.

Bob Gainey for example had a much longer career as a top player and even he is massively overrated overall by many.

Gainey and Langway are not top 100 overall players in Hockey. They were great at their roles but not great enough to be the rated top 100 all time. THey are stretching to be in the top 200.
 

J0e Th0rnton*

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Langway also had a realtively brief career, and shorter prime than many great D-Men. He only played 994 games and only 10 seasons when he was close to a top player. That lowers his rank among all-time players and D-Man.

Of his D peers for their career all these guys were better:

Coffey
Salming
Lowe
Savard
Stevens
MacInnis

Langway was closer to Lowe, McCrimmon, Wilson for his career than he was to the above peers at D. Langway was stellar for 4 or 5 years. So stellar as a Defensive D-Man that he won Norris trophies and got Hart votes. But he had a short career and a limited time as a top player.

Bob Gainey for example had a much longer career as a top player and even he is massively overrated overall by many.

Gainey and Langway are not top 100 overall players in Hockey. They were great at their roles but not great enough to be the rated top 100 all time. THey are stretching to be in the top 200.

Orr played a short as hell career because of his injuries too. I don't see that affecting anyone's opinion of him being the undisputed best.

Seriously. On your list there are 6 guys from my list of top 10 all time, so ill just remove them and work with the guys from 11 and up.
Lowe, was not better than Langway by any means. Savard was not better than Langway. I would call them Equal personally, and so would many people.
Coffey and Langway were opposite players. One guy played power defense, and the other played like he was a forward. Coffey will rank higher than Langway, but they are opposite players.
Salming was obviously better. Salming was the best on that list.

Stevens was pretty much the same kind of player as Langway. I rate them as almost equal, but stevens a little better.
McInnis is better.
Note that on your list(After I edited it to remove the top 10 all time guys), Only coffey has more Norris trophies than Langway. In fact, some of the guys on your list don;t even have norris trophies. Salming is forgivable because he played on a terrible leafs squad against Robinson and Potvin in his prime.

All the great talent against Langway, and he still won 2 in a row. Go Figure:teach:
 

Garl

Registered User
Oct 7, 2006
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Its too hard to say who was more important all time, Goalie, Dman, Forward......

Easier to break it down into categories.

Forwards:
#1 Gretzky
#2 Lemieux
#3 Howe
#4 Kharlamov
#5 Beliveau
#6 Hull
#7 Lafleur
#8 Esposito
#9 Richard
#10 Bossy? Clarke? Messier?

Defense:
#1 Orr
#2 Shore
#3 Harvey
#4 Potvin
#5 Bourque
#6 Robinson
#7 Fetisov
#8 Park
#9 Lidstrom
#10 Kelly/Chelios

Goaltenders:
#1 Roy
#2 Sawchuk
#3 Hasek
#4 Tretiak
#5 Brodeur(May jump higher soon)
#6 Plante
#7 Dryden
#8 Starts to get harder here...


Even not speaking about your "rankings", Tretiak and Kharlamov in NHL are news to me.;)
 

seventieslord

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I have a tendency to not rate players from those Montreal teams as highly since they had so many great teammates to work with. Also, my "logic" about players from before the Howe era is that even though they were dominant for their time, the pool of athletic talent they had to play against simply is no where near today's. So the Eddie Shore's of the world can't rank anywhere near like Bobby Orr. Being the top dog of the 70s in Orr vs. the top guy from the 20s is the equivalent of the talent level of the top basketball player in the US currently vs. the top basketball player in some small central American country. Not only were the populations smaller from which to draw talent but the game on cultural and professional levels were no where near as well.

But that's just my opinion. :)

Also, I have a tendency to value defense very highly since a top nullifying defensive defenseman usually plays more minutes than most star forwards and can disrupt entire offenses by greatly affecting the opponent's top line and possibly even the second line.

And finally, I think players that can lead in the playoffs when their teams have no business being there have to be given special recognition, such as Stastny. Call it the "John Elway" factor.

But, cool lists everyone so far. It's been educational on how people perceive certain players I didn't know that much about, especially the differentiation between the various Montreal players.

- R

I don't think it's any secret that the overall talent level of the NHL (its top players, anyway) is on a continuous increase and always has been. Jean Beliveau might be a 3rd liner today if you transported him here. Shore might be in the minors. Howie Morenz might be a 4th line energy guy. It's quite possible that going by raw talent, the 10 best hockey players of all-time are all playing right now, with maybe Gretzky, Howe, Lemieux, and Orr tossed in. What's the fun in making lists based on that? In 20 years there will probably have been 10 more players better than all of those players, and so on. And also, although this is widely accepted, it can never be truly proven. As such, all you can do to truly and effectively compare players is to look at their accomplishments in their eras and how they dominated in their time. That is how Harvey and Shore make the list. So what if Harvey had some good teammates in montreal? He was still voted the BEST defenseman in the league 7 straight times. So what if Shore played in the golden age? He was the MVP of the league 4 times. See what I'm saying?
 

Rorschach

Who the f*** is Trevor Moore?
Oct 9, 2006
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Langway also had a realtively brief career, and shorter prime than many great D-Men. He only played 994 games and only 10 seasons when he was close to a top player. That lowers his rank among all-time players and D-Man.

Of his D peers for their career all these guys were better:
Robinson
Potvin
Bourque
Coffey
Salming
Howe
Savard
Park
Stevens
Chelios
MacInnis

Langway was closer to Lowe, McCrimmon, Wilson for his career than he was to the above peers at D. Langway was stellar for 4 or 5 years. So stellar as a Defensive D-Man that he won Norris trophies and got Hart votes. But he had a short career and a limited time as a top player.

Bob Gainey for example had a much longer career as a top player and even he is massively overrated overall by many.

Gainey and Langway are not top 100 overall players in Hockey. They were great at their roles but not great enough to be the rated top 100 all time. THey are stretching to be in the top 200.


I would have to disagree with this point bigtime. Any baseball fan knows that Sandy Koufax is one of the very greatest pitchers of all time. Plus no one says that Marcel Dionne is better than Mario Lemieux, who lost many prime years due to cancer and early retirement. Magic Johnson ended his career early and was overtaken in career assists by John Stockton; Magic is considered top 5 to top 10 in basketball and Stockton, a great player, is always at least 10 or more spots behind in any ranking.
Barry Sanders, despite retiring early, is on any football fan's top three running backs of all time and is on many fans' lists as the #1 back. And according to your logic, Bobby Orr, who only had nine full seasons with many of them injury-riddled, must be an inferior defensman compared to Ray Bourque since Bourque played way more good, full years. In fact, Bourque played like 20 full seasons but I challenge you to find someone with a legitimate hockey opinion, including yourself, who ranks Bourque above Orr.

There are just too many obvious examples that contradict the point that the greatest players had to have long careers. Players have a window to play and some have longer windows than others. To get on the all-time greatest lists, a player simply has to dominate their league for several, like 4+, seasons. After four seasons of dominance, it then becomes apparent that the dominance was not a fluke and is actually real greatness. The topic is greatest players, not greatest careers. :D

- R
 

Rorschach

Who the f*** is Trevor Moore?
Oct 9, 2006
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I don't think it's any secret that the overall talent level of the NHL (its top players, anyway) is on a continuous increase and always has been. Jean Beliveau might be a 3rd liner today if you transported him here. Shore might be in the minors. Howie Morenz might be a 4th line energy guy. It's quite possible that going by raw talent, the 10 best hockey players of all-time are all playing right now, with maybe Gretzky, Howe, Lemieux, and Orr tossed in. What's the fun in making lists based on that? In 20 years there will probably have been 10 more players better than all of those players, and so on. And also, although this is widely accepted, it can never be truly proven. As such, all you can do to truly and effectively compare players is to look at their accomplishments in their eras and how they dominated in their time. That is how Harvey and Shore make the list. So what if Harvey had some good teammates in montreal? He was still voted the BEST defenseman in the league 7 straight times. So what if Shore played in the golden age? He was the MVP of the league 4 times. See what I'm saying?

I know many people do rankings by greatest players of their era but I still stick to my own criteria, which is why I started this thread, so that other people could give how they do it. To a certain extent I agree, which is why Sawchuk is so high on my list, but I have seen too many times when an inferior player's value has been grossly distorted by their linemates. For example, as a Kings fan, I remember Jim Hiller playing right wing for Gretz. Gretz made him look like a good player and the Kings got some value for him in a deal with the Red Wings. Then he promply faded away since people realized without Gretz, he was not a viable everyday NHLer. I do acknowledge it's a logical fallacy to think that just because a player has great teammates, they themselves aren't great players too. But, I do wonder how the Canadiens would rank by themselves. For example, take the same players but ignore the fact that they have so many Stanley Cups, a team goal, because they played for Montreal. Do their accomplishments still stack up?

- R
 

alrusso

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Mar 26, 2007
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I would have to disagree with this point bigtime. Any baseball fan knows that Sandy Koufax is one of the very greatest pitchers of all time. Plus no one says that Marcel Dionne is better than Mario Lemieux, who lost many prime years due to cancer and early retirement. Magic Johnson ended his career early and was overtaken in career assists by John Stockton; Magic is considered top 5 to top 10 in basketball and Stockton, a great player, is always at least 10 or more spots behind in any ranking.
Barry Sanders, despite retiring early, is on any football fan's top three running backs of all time and is on many fans' lists as the #1 back. And according to your logic, Bobby Orr, who only had nine full seasons with many of them injury-riddled, must be an inferior defensman compared to Ray Bourque since Bourque played way more good, full years. In fact, Bourque played like 20 full seasons but I challenge you to find someone with a legitimate hockey opinion, including yourself, who ranks Bourque above Orr.

There are just too many obvious examples that contradict the point that the greatest players had to have long careers. Players have a window to play and some have longer windows than others. To get on the all-time greatest lists, a player simply has to dominate their league for several, like 4+, seasons. After four seasons of dominance, it then becomes apparent that the dominance was not a fluke and is actually real greatness. The topic is greatest players, not greatest careers. :D

- R

Well said!
 

Wetcoaster

Guest
four Hart's actually.

For me:

5. Eddie Shore
6. Jean Beliveau
7. Bobby Hull
8. Maurice Richard
9. Doug Harvey
10. Dominic Hasek

IMO 5-9 is much like 1-4. The order can be disputed, but the names, not so much. The 10th spot on the other hand, is WIDE open.

That would be my players as well but in this order and Brodeur tied at 10:

5. Eddie Shore
6. Maurice Richard
7. Bobby Hull
8. Doug Harvey
9. Dominic Hasek
10. Jean Beliveau / Martin Brodeur
 

Wetcoaster

Guest
How do you justify Hasek and Brodeur being ahead of Roy?
Head to head Hasek was much superior. I use Vezinas and Harts as the measuring stick as well as international play.

Similarly with Brodeur he is already ahead of Roy based on his NHL play and internationally there is no comparison.

IMHO Roy is vastly overrated.

I also rate Sawchuk, Hall, Dryden and Plante ahead of Roy.

YMMV.
 

seventieslord

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Head to head Hasek was much superior. I use Vezinas and Harts as the measuring stick as well as international play.

Similarly with Brodeur he is already ahead of Roy based on his NHL play and internationally there is no comparison.

IMHO Roy is vastly overrated.

I also rate Sawchuk, Hall, Dryden and Plante ahead of Roy.

YMMV.

ok, so vezinas and harts are the measuring stick, fine, hasek has Roy beaten there 8-3, but what about cups and smythes? surely those are worth just as much, no? You add those in and the score becomes 10-9 Roy.

But hey, pretend those things are meaningless and use harts and vezinas like you say. Roy has 3 vezinas and was runner up for the hart once. Brodeur has two vezinas, that's all. How is he ahead of Roy based on his NHL play? Your criteria must change to suit your cause.

As for international play, if you want to use 6-game tournaments as the measuring stick for all-time greatness........... be my guest. But remember, Roy was practically perfect in 1998 aside from one shootout goal.
 

VanIslander

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Forwards:
#1 Gretzky
#2 Lemieux
#3 Howe
#4 Kharlamov
#5 Beliveau
While I share the love of Kharlamov, the op is explicitly looking at NHL careers.

The issue of comparing NHL with Soviet greats has been a live one since '72, and harder to gauge.
 

Wetcoaster

Guest
ok, so vezinas and harts are the measuring stick, fine, hasek has Roy beaten there 8-3, but what about cups and smythes? surely those are worth just as much, no? You add those in and the score becomes 10-9 Roy.
No, the Smythes and Cups are more tied to team.. You have to have a good enough team to make the play-offs and win.

Vezinas and Harts are better measure of individual performance. Also Hasek has 2 Pearsons (Outstanding Player in the NHL voted by the players) to none for Roy.
 

VanIslander

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A Conn Smythe is worth more than a Vezina, Norris or a Hart in my books!!!

To be recognized as best performer on a championship team during the real season of the playoffs is something special.

Beating up on the Blackhawks, Kings and Bruins in October and November doesn't mean squat compared to a single postseason game performance (see: P. Datsyuk vs. C. Lemieux).

The 16 wins of a championship team, and 64-106 games they have to play in the playoffs, is worth more than the 40-50 win regular season accomplishment, one for one.
 

Sens Rule

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Sep 22, 2005
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I would have to disagree with this point bigtime. Any baseball fan knows that Sandy Koufax is one of the very greatest pitchers of all time. Plus no one says that Marcel Dionne is better than Mario Lemieux, who lost many prime years due to cancer and early retirement. Magic Johnson ended his career early and was overtaken in career assists by John Stockton; Magic is considered top 5 to top 10 in basketball and Stockton, a great player, is always at least 10 or more spots behind in any ranking.
Barry Sanders, despite retiring early, is on any football fan's top three running backs of all time and is on many fans' lists as the #1 back. And according to your logic, Bobby Orr, who only had nine full seasons with many of them injury-riddled, must be an inferior defensman compared to Ray Bourque since Bourque played way more good, full years. In fact, Bourque played like 20 full seasons but I challenge you to find someone with a legitimate hockey opinion, including yourself, who ranks Bourque above Orr.

There are just too many obvious examples that contradict the point that the greatest players had to have long careers. Players have a window to play and some have longer windows than others. To get on the all-time greatest lists, a player simply has to dominate their league for several, like 4+, seasons. After four seasons of dominance, it then becomes apparent that the dominance was not a fluke and is actually real greatness. The topic is greatest players, not greatest careers. :D

- R

It does matter how long you play. Orr was so incredibly great as was Koufax that it doesn't matter as much. And both those players went out on the top of their games. As did Magic, Sanders and so on.

If you are merely very good and not great - great being perhaps debatably the best player in the world - and then play for several years where you are no longer a top player and have a career that is significantly shorter than other players of your caliber then you are rated lower all-time. Why is this hard to understand? IF MArio or Orr played 20 full seasons like Gretzky di maybe they are rated the best ever over Wayne by the majority of people. If Howe played 15 or 16 seasons instead of 26 NHL years and 6 more WHA seasons he likely is not rated as high as he is and Hull or Beliveau are considered higher by many.

Longevity matters. It isn't the be all and end all of considerations but it is very significant.
 

seventieslord

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a smythe is the KING of all awards! A cup is team based, but the highest respect is given to any player who is even a contributor to a winning team, let alone the conn smythe winner! How can you call a smythe a team award?

As for Pearsons... you're really stretching here. Pearsons and Harts are practically simultaneous. A Pearson is just a hart from a different and equally important perspective. Winning the Pearson when you win the Hart isn't double whammy, it's not twice as good as winning the hart but not winning the pearson, or vice versa.

...and I'm still curious as to how Brodeur, by your criteria, has outperformed Roy in the NHL. Hasek, that can at least be justified. But you've made it quite clear what your measuring stick is, and by that stick, Brodeur is quite below both Hasek and Roy.
 
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seventieslord

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It does matter how long you play. Orr was so incredibly great as was Koufax that it doesn't matter as much. And both those players went out on the top of their games. As did Magic, Sanders and so on.

If you are merely very good and not great - great being perhaps debatably the best player in the world - and then play for several years where you are no longer a top player and have a career that is significantly shorter than other players of your caliber then you are rated lower all-time. Why is this hard to understand? IF MArio or Orr played 20 full seasons like Gretzky di maybe they are rated the best ever over Wayne by the majority of people. If Howe played 15 or 16 seasons instead of 26 NHL years and 6 more WHA seasons he likely is not rated as high as he is and Hull or Beliveau are considered higher by many.

Longevity matters. It isn't the be all and end all of considerations but it is very significant.

Longevity certainly matters, but it's peak that is most important. Andreychuk, Francis, and Robitaille were never top-10 players in the game, but their longevity has caused their stats to look more impressive than other players who were far superior. It fools some... not me.
 

#66

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Orr played a short as hell career because of his injuries too. I don't see that affecting anyone's opinion of him being the undisputed best.

Seriously. On your list there are 6 guys from my list of top 10 all time, so ill just remove them and work with the guys from 11 and up.
Lowe, was not better than Langway by any means. Savard was not better than Langway. I would call them Equal personally, and so would many people.
Coffey and Langway were opposite players. One guy played power defense, and the other played like he was a forward. Coffey will rank higher than Langway, but they are opposite players.
Salming was obviously better. Salming was the best on that list.

Stevens was pretty much the same kind of player as Langway. I rate them as almost equal, but stevens a little better.
McInnis is better.
Note that on your list(After I edited it to remove the top 10 all time guys), Only coffey has more Norris trophies than Langway. In fact, some of the guys on your list don;t even have norris trophies. Salming is forgivable because he played on a terrible leafs squad against Robinson and Potvin in his prime.

All the great talent against Langway, and he still won 2 in a row. Go Figure:teach:
Does anyone else really not agree with this? While I do think that some over-rate Langway, I still think that he was downright awesome at what he did best. Kind of like Coffey. Also people really under-rate Langway's offensive game. He was great at making outlet passes and starting plays up ice. It may not have gotten him on the score sheet but I remember watching him play and a lot of the Caps offense at that time started with plays being broken up by Langway and being turned up ice. IMO they exceled at the transition game and Langway was a big part of that.

I also feel that while Scott Stevens was always very good, he didn't become great until he met Larry Robinson. It was as a Devil that he became a force and an absolute all time great.
 

Wetcoaster

Guest
A Conn Smythe is worth more than a Vezina, Norris or a Hart in my books!!!

To be recognized as best performer on a championship team during the real season of the playoffs is something special.

Beating up on the Blackhawks, Kings and Bruins in October and November doesn't mean squat compared to a single postseason game performance (see: P. Datsyuk vs. C. Lemieux).

The 16 wins of a championship team, and 64-106 games they have to play in the playoffs, is worth more than the 40-50 win regular season accomplishment, one for one.
But you have to have a team to get you there in the first place so I consider it more of team related achievement unlike the Vezina, Hart or Pearson which are more individually focused and do not require team success.
 

J0e Th0rnton*

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Does anyone else really not agree with this? While I do think that some over-rate Langway, I still think that he was downright awesome at what he did best. Kind of like Coffey. Also people really under-rate Langway's offensive game. He was great at making outlet passes and starting plays up ice. It may not have gotten him on the score sheet but I remember watching him play and a lot of the Caps offense at that time started with plays being broken up by Langway and being turned up ice. IMO they exceled at the transition game and Langway was a big part of that.

I also feel that while Scott Stevens was always very good, he didn't become great until he met Larry Robinson. It was as a Devil that he became a force and an absolute all time great.
I don't care if you disagree with me saying Stevens is better, but why don't you disagree first with the guy who claims Langway isn't even top 20 all time for defensemen?
He's the one who I strongly was arguing over because he is shortchanging Langway
 

NOTENOUGHJTCGOALS

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No, the Smythes and Cups are more tied to team.. You have to have a good enough team to make the play-offs and win.

Vezinas and Harts are better measure of individual performance. Also Hasek has 2 Pearsons (Outstanding Player in the NHL voted by the players) to none for Roy.

Then doesnt Roy's resume beat Brodeur's?

And how is international achievements any better than NHL achievements?

A Conn Smythe is a team award while a Gold medal isnt?

I can easily see how someone puts Hasek ahead of Roy, but I dont see how Brodeur beats Roy using the same criteria.
 

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