The 6 Best Americans Ever Are ...

[vancityluongo]

of the options: chelios, brimsek, kane, hull, leetch, modano

without thinking too hard about it, i think i'd bump brimsek for matthews

 

[Dr Salt]

Pat LaFontaine and Auston Matthews should be options

 

[rypper]

Needs more Quinn Hughes.

 

[GRob83]

This poll is really bad. What's the point of having 1 goalie in the voting options?

 

[CanadienShark]

Not there

No shit.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Didn’t vote for Hull, as he was born Canadian, just played for US as couldn’t make the CDN team.

 

[Felidae]

Modano played heads up against Fedorov/Yzerman and Forsberg/Sakic for all of his prime and often came out on top. The top of the west was loaded…weak competition?

Modano was also completely neutered as a points-compiler by playing as the centerpiece of Hitchcock’s franchise.

Howe was slightly before my time - I would tend to agree based on his trophy finishes he’s very underrated…not just among Americans.

But Modano is the best two-way forward America has ever produced.

Yzerman was past his prime in the late 90s, 2000s. Still a great player and one of the top two way forwards, but not the same player that was near the top of the scoring race for a couple of years.

Fedorov was also pretty disappointing as a regular season performer by then, not receiving much votes for any awards besides selke finishes outside the top 5.


I'll give you Forsberg and Sakic. They won their fair share of awards, but both missed a large portion of games during that timeframe, which pretty much eliminated them from serious award contention.

Forsberg played half a season in 1999-00 and completely missed 2001-02.

Sakic played 58 games in 2002, 60 games in 1999.

Still, Modano would only ever finish as high as 6th in hart voting.


Also, I do think the argument that his production was neutered is a bit exaggerated..

In 2002-03, Dallas finished 6th in goals for, the teams best during this timeframe. Modano was 10th in points leaguewide.

In 2001-02, Dallas finished 15th in goals for, Modano was 9th in points.

In 2000-01, Dallas was 10th in goals for, Modano was 14th in points.

In 1999-00, Dallas was 21st in goals for! Funnily enough, this is Modano's highest point finish, he was 8th in scoring.

So despite the fluctuation of his teams goalscoring prowess, Modano's production remained pretty consistent. There isn't much evidence to suggest his production suffered.

 

[Kane One]

No goalies? Richter, Callahan, Quick…

Edit - sorry, no goalies any of us watched?

Second time today you mixed up Callahan and Ryan Miller haha

 

[HolyHagelin]

Second time today you mixed up Callahan and Ryan Miller haha

Yeah the old noggin plays weird tricks since an illness a few years ago

 

[glovesave_35]

Yzerman was past his prime in the late 90s, 2000s. Still a great player and one of the top two way forwards, but not the same player that was near the top of the scoring race for a couple of years.

Fedorov was also pretty disappointing as a regular season performer by then, not receiving much votes for any awards besides selke finishes outside the top 5.


I'll give you Forsberg and Sakic. They won their fair share of awards, but both missed a large portion of games during that timeframe, which pretty much eliminated them from serious award contention.

Forsberg played half a season in 1999-00 and completely missed 2001-02.

Sakic played 58 games in 2002, 60 games in 1999.

Still, Modano would only ever finish as high as 6th in hart voting.


Also, I do think the argument that his production was neutered is a bit exaggerated..

In 2002-03, Dallas finished 6th in goals for, the teams best during this timeframe. Modano was 10th in points leaguewide.

In 2001-02, Dallas finished 15th in goals for, Modano was 9th in points.

In 2000-01, Dallas was 10th in goals for, Modano was 14th in points.

In 1999-00, Dallas was 21st in goals for! Funnily enough, this is Modano's highest point finish, he was 8th in scoring.

So despite the fluctuation of his teams goalscoring prowess, Modano's production remained pretty consistent. There isn't much evidence to suggest his production suffered.

This a lot of stat-work to try and disprove what we saw at the time. Weak competition is absolutely wrong because when it mattered, Dallas was playing against Detroit and Colorado in the playoffs. Those three teams had some of the highest payrolls and stacked teams in the league.

Going head to head over a 7 game series is far more telling about a player's ability than random regular season games.

 

[Run the Gauntlet]

Mark Howe is very underrated here and he'd round off my list which includes Chelios, Kane, Leetch, Brimsek and Hull.

He was Runner up to the Norris 3 times against prime Bourque and Coffey's historic 138 point, 48 goal season. Was also robbed of a norris the year Langway won.


Overall his Norris and Hart finishes are

Norris: 2, 2, 2, 5, 9, 6, 10

Hart: 3, 5, 7

His Hart finalist season BTW, was against an up and coming Lemieux and 215 point Gretzky. The number of defenseman that have been nominated for the Hart is a very small list.


I'd take him over Modano, who had his best years in the late 90s, early 2000s against relatively weak competition, yet failed to come close to being a finalist for any trophy other than his 3rd place selke finish.

Howe over Modano is laughable.
Howe never played a full season in the NHL, his last 7 seasons were pedestrian at best.
Modano was a lot more productive than Howe, up until the last few years he was playing.

 

[M2Beezy]

I would add Matthews. He has a trophy case bigger than a lot of these guys already.

Yep by the time his career is over he will be the best US player ever

 

[Craig Button]

Chris Chelios
Brett Hull
Auston Matthews
Brian Leetch

Pat LaFontaine​

Rod Langway

 

[HockeyWooot]

Phil Kessel.

 

[Felidae]

This a lot of stat-work to try and disprove what we saw at the time. Weak competition is absolutely wrong because when it mattered, Dallas was playing against Detroit and Colorado in the playoffs. Those three teams had some of the highest payrolls and stacked teams in the league.

Going head to head over a 7 game series is far more telling about a player's ability than random regular season games.

Modano deserves credit for his great playoff runs whenever they made it far, and the production of those runs is pretty similar to his regular season performances. But it's debatable whether he was the best player on those teams. You have Zubov on the backend, Belfour in particular with back to back .930sv% runs. The team had a lot of depth and was incredibly well coached.


And disregarding 4 full seasons as "random regular season games" is ridiculous. You still need to make the playoffs in the first place...

the larger sample size is usually more indicative of a player's ability. We're talking hundreds or thousands of games. Good playoff stats are much more reliant on your team playing well and/or making a deep run, for one.


All of this besides the point. When I was talking about quality of competition, it was in reference to the performance of his competitors for individual awards, not the overall strength of the teams he went up against in the playoffs.

 

[Gordon Lightfoot]

Chelios
Kane
Matthews
Lafontaine
Modano
Leetch

 

[glovesave_35]

And disregarding 4 full seasons as "random regular season games" is ridiculous. You still need to make the playoffs in the first place...

You misunderstood my point. Of course, regular season games matter. I was saying that a 7 game series with the Avs is a better way to evaluate Modano's two-way game against Forsberg/Sakic than a "random" game in December.

 

[VaporTrail]

Too tough I can't pick

 

[wetcoast]

Where Matthews at?

Trending but not there yet.

The case for Brett Hull being American is spotty. He was born in Canada and split his time between southern Ontario and Chicago between birth and age 8. From 8 until 18 he lived in Canada (combination of Winnipeg, Quebec, and BC) nearly full time.

From a hockey standpoint, spending 8 to 18 in Canada as a Canadian born person is pretty Canadian.

I didn't pick Hull for this reason.

I took in no order Kane, Chelios, Modano, Leetch, Howe and Brismek.

 

[wetcoast]

Howe over Modano is laughable.
Howe never played a full season in the NHL, his last 7 seasons were pedestrian at best.
Modano was a lot more productive than Howe, up until the last few years he was playing.

I have both on my list but Howe was easily the better player for longer IMO.

 

[Mike C]

Where Matthews at?

Planning his playoff exit strategy?

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

of the options: chelios, brimsek, kane, hull, leetch, modano

without thinking too hard about it, i think i'd bump brimsek for matthews

Exactly my thoughts, with HM to Lafontaine, with Brimsek likely to be replaced by Auston, who will push his way up at or near the top, dude's game screams longevity, which is necessary for these discussions

Others are mentioning goalies as well and as much as I adore the American goaltenders I wouldn't take them over the top 6...juuuust outside maybe