Best Stickhandlers Ever

[vadim sharifijanov]

i think of it like the difference between quinn hughes and elias pettersson. if you took away his skating, hughes probably doesn't have elite stickhandling. but combined with his elite skating, he is incredible.

pettersson, on the other hand, can deke you out of your jock standing still.

i'd say in this analogy, bure is like hughes, mcdavid is like a much more extreme version version where i feel like his hands only just barely can handle the incredible things his feet are doing, datsyuk is like a rich man's pettersson.

but in that respect, erik karlsson i feel like has incredible dangles even irrespective of his skating, which obviously is also at an all time level.

 

[dekelikekocur]

i think of it like the difference between quinn hughes and elias pettersson. if you took away his skating, hughes probably doesn't have elite stickhandling. but combined with his elite skating, he is incredible.

pettersson, on the other hand, can deke you out of your jock standing still.

i'd say in this analogy, bure is like hughes, mcdavid is like a much more extreme version version where i feel like his hands only just barely can handle the incredible things his feet are doing, datsyuk is like a rich man's pettersson.

but in that respect, erik karlsson i feel like has incredible dangles even irrespective of his skating, which obviously is also at an all time level.

I concur, although stick handling with the speed of some of the mentioned players I think is it's own individual talent. Dats was just obscene with what he could do in tight space, Pettersson is akin to that but I think it's because both players were forced to learn how vs McDavid and Hughes who instead had to learn how to handle the puck at their crazy skating speeds. Both styles branches of the same tree but just vastly different in how that core skill is applied.

 

[Ihmeilja]

i think of it like the difference between quinn hughes and elias pettersson. if you took away his skating, hughes probably doesn't have elite stickhandling. but combined with his elite skating, he is incredible.

pettersson, on the other hand, can deke you out of your jock standing still.

i'd say in this analogy, bure is like hughes, mcdavid is like a much more extreme version version where i feel like his hands only just barely can handle the incredible things his feet are doing, datsyuk is like a rich man's pettersson.

I concur, although stick handling with the speed of some of the mentioned players I think is it's own individual talent. Dats was just obscene with what he could do in tight space, Pettersson is akin to that but I think it's because both players were forced to learn how vs McDavid and Hughes who instead had to learn how to handle the puck at their crazy skating speeds. Both styles branches of the same tree but just vastly different in how that core skill is applied.

Bure was an elite stickhandler. It was not just the speed. Bure and Fedorov were very similar to McDavid in that speed & stickhandling combo.
I just compared McDavid and Kharlamov and damn those are similar. Both can handle the puck really fast in speed. McDavid though tends to slow down and then stickhandle really fast and freeze a guy and then accelerate. Kharlamov could do that fast stickhandling in high speed as well. Kharlamov would also use slow stickhandling maneuvers with that fast stickhandling.

 

[discordant concord]

HM: Kyle Wellwood

 

[Lexus]

Forsberg for me.

(Maybe not the absolute BEST stickhandler in the game but he sure made the stickhandling counted for something).

 

[Dingo]

HM: Kyle Wellwood

Kyle Wellwood was incredibly talented. Short, soft, possibly lazy? Still did some really good things in a league dominated by size, athleticism and aggression.

 

[Boxscore]

Forsberg for me.

(Maybe not the absolute BEST stickhandler in the game but he sure made the stickhandling counted for something).

One of my favorite videos. Forsberg was a wizard. Denis Savard and Alex Kovalev were titans as well. Mario is still the kingpin in my book.

 

[Lundberg18Balderis19]

Excellent thread and some great answers given. I have been watching hockey since 1972 and I will throw out some already-mentioned names as well as a few maybe not-so-obvious players into this mix. Since my main eras and time frames were the 70s and 80s, i'll start there and move up to the 90s and beyond. Granted my knowledge becomes more limited as we head into the 2000s as I have watched much less hockey from the 2000s to the present time. I'll list the players in the decades in which they mostly played their primes, or at least part of their careers (before the age of 30) in. To start with, from the 1970s the more obvious ones both in North America and internationally ar, (at least to me), Gilbert Perreault, Helmut Balderis, Guy Lafleur, Valeri Kharlamov, Pierre Larouche, Kent Nilsson, Alexander Maltsev, Vladimir Martinec, Rick Middleton, Vladimir Vikulov. Some less obvious names are Andre Lacroix, Ivan Boldirev, Marc Tardif, Wayne Dillon, Larry Sacharuk, Ab Demarco Jr., Syl Apps Jr., Dave Debol, Lars Gunnar Lundberg, Peter Sullivan, Doru Tureanu, Martti Jarkko, Tony Currie, Paulin Bordeleau, Merlin Malinowski, Pierre Mondou, Rudi Hiti, Jan Piecko, Cary Farelli, Mieczysław Jaskierski, Bob Bourne, Yoshiaki Kyoya, Evgeny Zimin, Vyacheslav Anisin, Boris Alexandrov, Peter Zini, Ron Greschner, Dennis Sobchuk, Walt McKechnie, Tom Lysiak, Gaston Gingras. The players mentioned were all excellent to all-time great puckhandlers and among the most skilled technicians of their generation and in the case of some, in history.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Here’s a couple of plays from this video below that were typical Datsyuk things that didn’t result in a goal.

The first one at 2:32 has the SJ announcers marveling. A highlight tape of plays like this with him escaping with the puck from the defensive and neutral zones would rival most players offensive zone highlight tapes. Seemingly every game he’d do stuff like this that would just make you shake your head and laugh.

And the other one at 0:58 is especially noteworthy considering who it’s against. He took the puck off Hossa just prior to the start of the clip, to which we then see his puck protection and ability to stick handle to the net while a brilliant back checker in Hossa is all over him.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Kyle Wellwood was incredibly talented. Short, soft, possibly lazy? Still did some really good things in a league dominated by size, athleticism and aggression.

Still remember that poolside picture of him, not the best

 

[VMBM]

Martti Jarkko

Now that's a name you don't see too often here!

Jarkko is a legend of SM-sarja/SM-liiga and for two teams (Tappara, TPS), no less, but he never did that much on the Finnish national team. His international stats aren't awfully bad, though, when compared with other Finnish star players of his era. Still, I guess he just wasn't very high on practising/conditioning, which didn't help his international career.

From my understanding, Jarkko wasn't much of a skater, but indeed had great hands and really could make a defenceman or a goalie look bad.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

For the sake of argument here: Orr as a top all-time stickhandler?

When I think of Orr I think of the overwhelming speed, the offensive vision, hockey sense, defensive ability, the shot. I cant recall a specific case where his stickhandling really blew me away

I dont think its that controversial to claim Beliveau/Perrault > Orr in the category of stickhandling

 

[pbgoalie]

D Savard
P Kane
Makarov

 

[sdf]

I just noticed that in English there is no special word for a hockey stick, you just call it a stick, while in Russian there is a word that directly means sticks used in hockey and golf. It constructed by adding sound from the word "you" to kl-you-shka, so it's klyoushka. It's much more convenient than constantly saying two words "hockey stick", or just stick, which is confusing, because in hockey there is a special type of sticks, and not just any. So this universal Russian word can solve these problems, you can use it

 

[ForsbergForever]

People are sleeping on Robbie Schremp, he may not have been a well-rounded NHL calibre player but he was the definition of having the puck on a string.

 

[authentic]

Here’s a couple of plays from this video below that were typical Datsyuk things that didn’t result in a goal.

The first one at 2:32 has the SJ announcers marveling. A highlight tape of plays like this with him escaping with the puck from the defensive and neutral zones would rival most players offensive zone highlight tapes. Seemingly every game he’d do stuff like this that would just make you shake your head and laugh.

And the other one at 0:58 is especially noteworthy considering who it’s against. He took the puck off Hossa just prior to the start of the clip, to which we then see his puck protection and ability to stick handle to the net while a brilliant back checker in Hossa is all over him.

He's the most underrated player ever and these clips prove it. Not even taking into consideration how good he was without the puck he had the puck on a string like no one else in NHL history. Literally his stickhandling and puck control were the best of all time, not even debatable.

 

[Overrated]

I think Patrick Kane and Datsyuk

Kovalev Lemieux McDavid Bure also

 

[crobro]

Miroslav Frycar scored some crazy goals

 

[Nuckster]

Guys like Lemieux, Jagr, Gretzky have very good stickhandling but their PUCKhandling skills are better, as they use hockey sense and vision to put the puck where it's needed. I don't think any of them could crack the top-5 in terms of stickhandling. Just like Orr used skating and hockey sense to move the PUCK; Bobby's stickwork wasn't as central. Bure used speed, change of pace and direction in his skating and release to put the puck on net; Pavel's stickwork was very good but not central to his success.

Agreed on your views here. Never saw morenz so have no clue.

But on Bure, what his skill was less about stickhandling vs "puck speed". Similar to McDavid, few players can stick handle at top speed, most players slow down. Bure, Coffey, McDavid, could all be at top speed and still make moves.

For me:

1. Datsyuk - still to this day have never seen a more slick player
2. Patrick Kane
3. Crosby - few people are mentioning him, surprisingly but he dances guys all the time in tight quarters
4. Alexei Kovalev
5. Quinn Hughes - maybe its more about his skating and edgework but he can stickhandle out of a phone booth

 

[Staniowski]

Miroslav Frycar scored some crazy goals

Frycer was an exciting player. I saw him play soon after he defected. He scored 4 goals in this wild game:

 

[Overrated]

Agreed on your views here. Never saw morenz so have no clue.

But on Bure, what his skill was less about stickhandling vs "puck speed". Similar to McDavid, few players can stick handle at top speed, most players slow down. Bure, Coffey, McDavid, could all be at top speed and still make moves.

For me:

1. Datsyuk - still to this day have never seen a more slick player
2. Patrick Kane
3. Crosby - few people are mentioning him, surprisingly but he dances guys all the time in tight quarters
4. Alexei Kovalev
5. Quinn Hughes - maybe its more about his skating and edgework but he can stickhandle out of a phone booth

It definitely wasn't just speed

 

[Nuckster]

It definitely wasn't just speed
View attachment 713160

well the point is puck speed, ability to handle the puck at top speed. He wasn't a dangler, like a datsyuk, Rather he was a good to very good stickhandler who didn't have to slow down at top speed to make a move.

Maybe its just semantics but I see those as two separate things.

 

[MOGlLNY]

I just noticed that in English there is no special word for a hockey stick, you just call it a stick, while in Russian there is a word that directly means sticks used in hockey and golf. It constructed by adding sound from the word "you" to kl-you-shka, so it's klyoushka. It's much more convenient than constantly saying two words "hockey stick", or just stick, which is confusing, because in hockey there is a special type of sticks, and not just any. So this universal Russian word can solve these problems, you can use it

This is interesting and thanks for sharing! but rarely does somebody mistake “stick” for something else, because of context.

 

[VanIslander]

Forsberg was impressive but the king of stickhandling in a phone booth was the lacrosse star Joe Nieuwendyk.

 

[VanIslander]

This is not a thread about puckhandling.

There is a difference.