Faster all-time skater

[Big Phil]

Who was faster in your opinion. Now I mean this literally. We all know guys are faster nowadays in general but who was straight up the fastest skater ever.

Yvan Cournoyer - He was definetly the fastest of his generation. Faster than Orr for sure. Look at him in Game 2 of the '72 Summit Series. He takes a pass from Park and blows, by and I mean blows by the Russian defense. He did get the "Roadrunner" for nothing.

Sergei Fedorov - He's always been good all arond but his speed separates him from the rest. Its often forgotten about how fast he can motor.

Pavel Bure - His speed is no secret. There's a goal much like Cournoyer's that is pure speed. It is in Rock Em SOck Em #6, when Bure is in his prime. He just picks up the puck in the Vancouver end and faster than you can say "jiminy cricket" he's beating Lidstrom on the outside and roofing it top corner.

Paul Coffey - Personally Coffey is my pick of guys who could skate faster than anyone else. Put him against Bure in a lap skate and he beats him. He skated so fluidly that you forget he was going so fast until you realized that the other guys on the ice were going so slow. They werent going so slow Coffey was just going too fast! He glidd better than some guys skated really hard. And he skated fast backwards even, so effortlessly. No one could skate as fast as him IMO.

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[HFNHL Canadiens]

Patrick Marleau or Konstantin Koltsov

 

[12# Peter Bondra]

Mike Gartner is up there.

 

[MS]

Depends how you define it.

Bure has to be the fastest skater ever while carrying the puck. Most guys lose 20-30% of their speed when puckhandling in traffic, but Bure actually seemed to get faster. I've never seen anyone close to him in that regard. His acceleration and explosiveness also might be the best ever. But his top-end speed without the puck wasn't as good ... he rarely even won the Canucks' internal skills competition.

Bure is without a doubt the best skater I've ever seen, and I'd rank him as the best skater ever to play the game. But he wasn't the fastest. In terms of pure straight-line speed guys like Fedorov and Gartner would beat him.

 

[Daryl Shilling]

I don't think that anybody really knows who the fastest skater ever was. We can go with some of the fastest we've seen, and read about some of the fastest that other people saw, but we can obviously never know for sure. The best we can do is throw names around.

So yeah, we know that Pitre, Taylor, Morenz, Kilrea, Apps, Hull, Carr, Cournoyer, etc, were amazingly fast. In that category, they literally knocked everybody out that saw them. We have a better idea how fast Gartner, Fedorov and Bure were, but not at all how it compares to the first group.

However, without the aid of radar guns and standardized rink sizes and skate technology, questions like "fastest ever" are fairly dead in the water. A term like "fastest ever" doesn't even clearly define itself. Fastest acceleration, fastest top speed, best combination of them? Each player could well differ in his speed from game to game, as do all of his skills fluctuate.

Some guys look faster or slower than others because of the way they skate. Arms pumping and legs flying can appear faster than the smoothest and most effective skater, even if it isn't actually as fast.

Even aside from that, there's that entire "we don't really know jack about Euro hockey history, so maybe the fastest player ever is a Czech that's been dead for 50 years" thing to deal with.

To give some sort of answer, I'll go with the players listed above as being among the fastest ever... I guess.

Daryl

 

[Chilly Willy*]

Konstantin Koltsov...no one even comes close. The guy has 9 gears, he uses 6 and people freak out.

 

[Bring Back Bucky]

Crossing the blueline with the puck on his stick Glen Anderson was as fast as I've seen..

 

[interminded]

Someone should mention him: Jaromir Jagr.
Around the same category as Pavel Bure... very few after are faster with the puck.

 

[Biscuit Bullet]

Jagr is faster than he gets credit for, especially when he's skating down the left side. On the right side, because he's left handed, he usually slows down to stickhandle, but on his stick side he can move and do that famous curl and drag at full speed. I'd say he's more of a strong skater than really fast. He combines amazing strength with lightning quick hands and the ability to shift and change direction effortlessly. He's the kind of player whose game isn't really defined by his speed.

 

[Luigi Habs]

Oleg Petrov

 

[Towelie*]

Bure had the ability to "turn it on", for short spurts he has got to be one of the fastest ever.

 

[Little Wing]

you guys are going to eat me up on this one,

But, i went to many Av's games and Adam Deadmarsh always looked fast skating up the ice !

I don't know where i come up with these things

 

[Crosbyfan]

Crossing the blueline with the puck on his stick Glen Anderson was as fast as I've seen..

Especially in overtime LOL!

 

[SJeasy]

Patrick Marleau or Konstantin Koltsov

Straight ahead speed, Sturm is faster than Marleau although it is close. I think there are others faster than Marleau at least straight ahead.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Guys like Bure and Kovalchuk seem to get faster with the puck on their sticks. My picks are Afinogenov and Konstantin Koltzov right now in the past prolly Mike Gartner and Dennis Savard

 

[Bring Back Bucky]

No love for Brad Marsh?

 

[txomisc]

Russ Courtnall could get down the ice in a hurry. Mike Modano has lost half a step and is still faster than 95% of nhlers.
Geoff Sanderson doesnt get enough credit for his explosive speed either. David Legwand can really move too. Theres just a bunch of guys that are right there

 

[J-D]

Pavel Bure - His speed is no secret. There's a goal much like Cournoyer's that is pure speed. It is in Rock Em SOck Em #6, when Bure is in his prime. He just picks up the puck in the Vancouver end and faster than you can say "jiminy cricket" he's beating Lidstrom on the outside and roofing it top corner.

What separated Bure from the rest was the fact that he reached top speed in nanoseconds and could even do it with total control of puck.

 

[Little Wing]

the past prolly Mike Gartner and Dennis Savard

Savard, No doubt

 

[No Quarter*]

Hakan Loob from the old Calgary Flames is by far the fastest skater I've ever seen.
Konstantine Koltsov probably comes in 2nd.

 

[justsomeguy]

Fastest skater I've ever seen was Bobby Sheehan. Pure speed and a lot of fun to watch. Loved having a good time as much as he loved playing hockey, which may explain his many changes of address.

While a member of the Montreal Voyageurs of the AHL he raced Cournoyer, end to end from a standing start and beat him by a good five feet. This was after the Vees had finished their practice and a rested Habs squad was coming onto the ice.

In recent years, Oleg Petrov.

 

[hockeyfan125]

What seperated Bure was his ability to deke and do all the moves at top speed, moves that most guys struggle doing at 75 percent speed.

 

[Lowetide]

Someone will mention Keon soon enough, I'll throw him in. I saw Sheehan maybe three or four times iirc, I'd say he was among the fastest ever. First reaction was Cournoyer so I'll go with him. He was a bullet.

If it wasn't him, it was Gartner.

 

[Marcus-74]

Couple of guys who are worth a mention...

Helmut Balderis
- He has the reputation of being the fastest Soviet player of all-time, so it´s safe to say that he was "pretty fast".

Reijo Ruotsalainen
- He skated backwards faster than many others skated forwards!

 

[Habs Icing]

Just plain straight ahead speed with the puck on his stick - Cournoyer and it wouldnt even be close.

I remember Sheehan, he had speed but kept losing the puck.