Joe Pelletier's Top 100 Hockey Players of All-Time

[BraveCanadian]

When considering St Louis and his place in history it matters that he spent most of his career in a weak conference and a terrible division. This season's interconference records should cast a shadow over the high point totals from some of the Eastern stars last year. In retrospect there's no way St Louis had as good a season as Patrick Kane, for example.

He also spent a lot of time on skilled top lines that didn't play any defence. Outside of his excellent 2003-04 season he's been a minus player for his career despite playing with all-star linemates. There's a reason Team Canada passed over him in his prime - they wanted all-around players. Cournoyer played a big role for Canada in 1972 as the top RW.

I'd take St. Louis over Kane 10 times out of 10.

While St. Louis has had star line mates on one side of the puck, I think it should be obvious that Tampa's issue is that they have very rarely had good defense or goaltending.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I'm sorry but this list has Canadiana written all over it. The competition between Canada and European countries has been very tight over the last 40 years or so, yet the top 20 is made solely of Canadians (with the exception of Hašek who is 20th, 10 spots below Roy)? I think the hfboard consensus is that Jágr is better than Sakic, Yzerman or Messier, and he certainly is not worse than Lafleur by 18 spots. One could also question Dionne over Ovechkin, Esposito 11 spots over Kharlamov and so on.

It is worth noting that he isn't just making the list based on "who was better"

He said right in the blurb at the top of the list that in fact player ability is the tie breaker:

Although admittedly I'm using a completely unscientific formula, I weigh career achievements (era statistics, awards, championships) and legacy (impact on and off ice, peak dominance) equally high. I rank player ability as the third most important ingredient, as first and foremost as a tie breaker. Hence, I'm not necessarily looking for the better player, as in text book definitions of what a hockey player should be, but for players with the greatest careers and greatest legacies. Therefore the best player is not necessarily the greatest player.

Any top 100 list is going to invite controversy because everyone has their favourite players that they saw more often than others etc.

So take it easy.

Oh, and Canada is still #1, so there.

 

[Rexor]

International tournaments between Canadian junior teams or Canadian teams thrown together with two weeks to mesh, vs. Czechoslovak, Swedish and Russian teams that train together for decades...

I don't give much credit to international tournaments pre-1989.

OK, even if we're going to ignore the (good) point that Sentinel has made, we can focus only on post-1989 hockey when the gates opened and it became easier to compare players. If you were to made a list of the top 20 NHL players since 1989, do you think it would include only one European? No, and I'm not sure there's a reason to believe that the situation would have been much different had someone like Gorbachev come 15 years sooner. Actually, a lot of Russians would tell you that Russian/Soviet hockey has been slowly regressing since late 1980's, that its best years came around 1980.

Canada was dominating the world up until late 1960's. After that, it has been more like two super-powers and a few major powers, something that the list fails to reflect.

It is worth noting that he isn't just making the list based on "who was better"

He said right in the blurb at the top of the list that in fact player ability is the tie breaker:

It seems strange to have player's ability as a mere tie-braker. If one likes Roy better than Hašek, he doesn't eventually need any tie-braker because he simply likes him better, has got better memories of him (which probably leads to his greater "legacy") and it becomes irrelevant whether or not Hašek was actually better at playing hockey. It's his own list, he's got his own criteria and is entitled to his opinion. Fair enough, he just shouldn't expect people to take some of his rankings seriously.

Especially those who don't happen to be Canadian patriots. I really have no desire to offend anyone, but it does look that in many cases there's a mandatory 20 % "greatness" bonus for the virtue of being Canadian (putting Jágr and Hašek aside - Dionne allegedly having a greater career than Ovechkin?). I guess if the list was named "My 100 Favourite Players Of All Time", no one would complain.

 

[Sentinel]

Oh, and Canada is still #1, so there.

Canada is unquestionably #1. Does it also have to be #1 through 100?

Makarov should be in the Top 10, Tretiak and Fetisov in the Top 20. I'm fine with Kharlamov at #24

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Makarov should be in the Top 10, Tretiak and Fetisov in the Top 20. I'm fine with Kharlamov at #24

We all have different lists and preferences. Joe's published his, so it makes it easier to poke holes in it (and let's not forget the fact that none of us is ultimately "correct").

Let's see your list - the full list. You can even have a dedicated thread for it.

 

[tjcurrie]

I think there's about a million different combinations of lists that can be given credibility - this one included - regardless of if you agree with everything or not. To make a top 100 list and have everyone agree is impossible. Heck, people argue enough over a top 5 list.

What's important to me is that anyone making a list like this is open to a margin of error. If you rank a guy say 60th - in all likelihood he could just as easily be the 45th or the 75th best player. If a guy is ranked 90th, it's very possible he's the 70th best, if you ranked him 20th, it's possible he's 15th, and so on. In some instances I think there's as many as 20-25 players who could all be drawn out of a hat and end up in any order. All comes down to your own criteria, your own memory of those you can recall, media you've been exposed to, and just your own opinion and favorites. Especially when comparing players from say the 1980s and beyond to players from say pre-1940s, you're really going by your own memory of a player vs someone else's memory of a totally different player from a totally different era of the sport and there's a huge margin for error there. As long as nothing is completely ridiculous, the right steps were taken, and the maker is open to it nor being definitive (as Joe himself says), you just have to respect it and that's that.

 

[seventieslord]

I never see the “European bias” that others see.
*
While it’s true that comparing European players to Canadian ones became truly easy after 1990 (because most/all of them were in the NHL) I don’t think that makes it infinitely more difficult to compare them before that, and I don’t think anyone is really claiming that, either (it’s a strawman). I think the people who campaign for more European presence on all-time lists want to see a higher proportion of Europeans than is really merited, considering the continent has only produced elite players at significant quantities for about a third of hockey history.
*
One way is from watching and understanding the results of best-on-best competitions over the years. It’s not a common belief that any other country was as deep as Canada, but it’s typically acknowledged for a number of years, that the Soviets’ best “x” players are approximately as good as our best “x” players, give or take a Gretzky and Lemieux, and that number has steadily increased over the years. We can also use this information (and watching more games, of course) to end up with a pretty good idea of how good other nations like the Czechs, Swedes or Finns were in comparison to the Soviets and what their “x” was throughout the last 40 years. Not an exact science of course, but it’s not an extremely hard thing to grasp.
*
We know what percentage of elite, top-200 all-time caliber players were European over the past 20 or so years. Knowing that this number was 0 in the early 1960s and prior, and had risen to a fairly significant number by the mid-1970s, it’s not extremely difficult to extrapolate from 0 to today’s percentage and attempt to fill a “quota” of Europeans from each decade in relation to how many Canadians are on the list.
*
The ATD list tends to reflect the same values as the HOH community as there is a lot of overlap among participants and the “even playing field” standard tends to be used between eras. I took a look at the last ATD top-200 and there are 102 who would be classed “post-expansion” players. 68 are north American and 34 are European, coincidentally exactly 2/3 and 1/3. Basically this board acknowledges that 1/3 of the best 100 players of the last 47 years are European. Isn’t that fair? I realize that right now that ratio is higher but does anyone really think it always was, right from the mid-60s? The result 33% represents an “averaging out” of the fact that this number was perhaps 10% as of 1970, 20% around 1980, 30% around 1990, and around 40-50% in the 20 years since.
*
I think we are right on target. So here is not the best place to complain about bias against Europeans. Of course this says nothing about Joe’s list, and I haven’t gone through it with a fine-toothed comb. What’s his post-expansion European ratio?

 

[Killion]

Well, in 2008 in celebration of their 100th Anniversary, the IIHF did select a 6 Member All Time All Star Team which consisted of;

Tretiak
Salming
Fetisov
Kharlamov
Makarov
Gretzky

North American hockey writers felt it was fair, well done, though they did criticize the IIHF for only selecting 5 Players and wanted to see a more comprehensive & inclusive list. Ive looked, Im sure plenty of others have here & elsewhere as well, and I cant find any All Time Greatest Players List that truly blends pre-1990 Euro & Russian Players with NHL stars.

 

[quoipourquoi]

We all have different lists and preferences. Joe's published his, so it makes it easier to poke holes in it (and let's not forget the fact that none of us is ultimately "correct").

Let's see your list - the full list. You can even have a dedicated thread for it.

...some of ours have 26 goaltenders on them...

 

[Sentinel]

Well, in 2008 in celebration of their 100th Anniversary, the IIHF did select a 6 Member All Time All Star Team which consisted of;

Tretiak
Salming
Fetisov
Kharlamov
Makarov
Gretzky

North American hockey writers felt it was fair, well done, though they did criticize the IIHF for only selecting 5 Players and wanted to see a more comprehensive & inclusive list. Ive looked, Im sure plenty of others have here & elsewhere as well, and I cant find any All Time Greatest Players List that truly blends pre-1990 Euro & Russian Players with NHL stars.

This is why it was always puzzling to me that everybody on this list, excluding 99, is placed so low on people's lists. Tretiak was what: #7 or 8 at the All-Time Goalies List? Below Dryden, whom he regularly outplayed?

You are right, I haven't found any comprehensive Euro or even Russian players' lists. At some point I will compile my own All-Time Greats list, but it will have to be from 1950s on.

 

[quoipourquoi]

This is why it was always puzzling to me that everybody on this list, excluding 99, is placed so low on people's lists. Tretiak was what: #7 or 8 at the All-Time Goalies List? Below Dryden, whom he regularly outplayed?

At some point I will compile my own All-Time Greats list, but it will have to be from 1950s on.

Considering the IIHF team was made from international tournaments in which many NHL players did not compete, it makes sense as to why Lemieux finished 13 votes behind Makarov. Lemieux played, what, 31 games internationally? And how many did Makarov play? Almost 150?

The IIHF Team does not validate taking shots at Joe Pelletier for not having Makarov in his top-10.

 

[DFC]

I always have a problem with Fedorov on lists like this. He's slotted pretty low here, which might be fair, but I don't think there's any way Fedorov should be higher than Datsyuk. Fedorov might be the single most talented player I ever saw play, but he is also one of the most overrated. His A-game might have been the best in the league, but he took a lot, A LOT, of nights off. Except in contract years.

 

[Sentinel]

I always have a problem with Fedorov on lists like this. He's slotted pretty low here, which might be fair, but I don't think there's any way Fedorov should be higher than Datsyuk. Fedorov might be the single most talented player I ever saw play, but he is also one of the most overrated. His A-game might have been the best in the league, but he took a lot, A LOT, of nights off. Except in contract years.

OK, we get it, you don't like Fedorov. He must have cut you off on the Telegraph Rd. or something. But -- gimme a break. Was 1993-94 his contract year? What about 1995-96?

The IIHF Team does not validate taking shots at Joe Pelletier for not having Makarov in his top-10.

Does the fact that he was a 9 time scoring leader in his own league validate it? How about being even against Gretzky's Team Canada in 87 and killing them in 81? If you put Makarov on your list, at least make sure he is in the reasonable spot. I don't see Lemieux out of Top 10 and I don't see Makarov out of Top 10.

 

[quoipourquoi]

OK, we get it, you don't like Fedorov. He must have cut you off on the Telegraph Rd. or something. But -- gimme a break. Was 1993-94 his contract year? What about 1995-96?

We just call it Telegraph.


Equating leaving Makarov out of the top-10 with leaving Lemieux out of the top-10 is bananas.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

 

[Joe Pelletier]

Basically this board acknowledges that 1/3 of the best 100 players of the last 47 years are European.

I think we are right on target. So here is not the best place to complain about bias against Europeans. Of course this says nothing about Joe’s list, and I haven’t gone through it with a fine-toothed comb. What’s his post-expansion European ratio?

I did a real quick look at my list post 1967, considering only players who predominantly played post 67. 30% of my players are European.

I would absolutely love to include more international players. Even though I have extensively researched many of the Europeans who never really had a chance to play in the NHL, I have yet to figure a way of fairly evaluating them in comparison to NHLers of different eras etc any better than I already have.

 

[Killion]

...I have yet to figure a way of fairly evaluating them in comparison to NHLers of different eras etc any better than I already have.

Virtually impossible to do as we simply didnt see them against the best from North America until 1972. International play on the larger ice surface & really a different game. Just not enough information on league play behind the two major powers in the Soviets & the Czechs' to even begin to somehow handicap & thereby compare them to NHL'rs. They had shorter seasons, built & coached to win tornaments, more sprinters than long distance runners as was the case with North American pro's. Different on so many levels.

 

[Sentinel]

Equating leaving Makarov out of the top-10 with leaving Lemieux out of the top-10 is bananas.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

And you're saying this based on..? Can you name another player who lead his league in points nine times, was named to the six-man IIHF Centennial Team, was equal to the challenge against every North American team he ever faced, had the highest shooting percentage in a totally different league past his prime, and scored more goals than anybody his age and over? Even in the creativity department the man was every bit as creative as Lemieux (I'm not exaggerating, watch his highlights). Let me give you a hint: it wasn't Mike Bossy (as much as I love Bossy).

I did a real quick look at my list post 1967, considering only players who predominantly played post 67. 30% of my players are European.

I have more of a problem with your placing of the European players rather than sheer number (1 Euro out of Top 20 is ridiculous), but some of your omissions are simply staggering. Seriously, man, how in the WORLD could you omit Firsov (named "The Best Hockey Player Never Played in NHL" by The Hockey News), Bobrov (#4 on that list), Yakushev (#7, the best clutch player in Soviet history), and Petrov (five time scoring leader in the Soviet league)? All of them were better than Dionne and Robitaille!

 

[Fantomas]

I think Firsov and Mikhailov deserve to be on the list, but still a great list.

 

[Fantomas]

- One name I regret not including is that of Igor Larionov.

Joe

Strange, because I can think of at least several Russians who were better.

Of course, Joe probably values the contextual aspects of Larionov's career. The time and the place and Larionov's role as ambassador of Russia's game.

On a related note, maybe the most underrated player of all-time has to be Vladimir Petrov.

 

[Killion]

I have more of a problem with your placing of the European players rather than sheer number ..

Lets see yer List Sentinel. Lets go with Top 10 All Time so as not to have to spend too much time & effort. Should be easy. Who you got there? Could go Top 5 Goalies, Top 5 Centers, Top 5 Wingers & Top 5 Defenceman even. North America & Europe/Russia. And if its really interesting, we could even start a new thread on it.

 

[Fantomas]

Canada is unquestionably #1. Does it also have to be #1 through 100?

Makarov should be in the Top 10, Tretiak and Fetisov in the Top 20. I'm fine with Kharlamov at #24

I think Makarov has a case to be rated alongside Trottier and the rest. Outstanding in the 80s.

Not totally sold about the other two to be slotted so high. Tretiak was a little overrated in the 70s, but was worth his weight in gold in the 80s (wish he hadn't retired in '84, while in his peak).

What hurts the reputations of guys like Fetisov, Makarov, Krutov, etc are their relative struggles when crossing to play in the NHL (Makarov made the smoothest transition). They faced such a difficult and almost impossible task to fit in and live up to expectations, all the while being treated poorly and with little understanding by NHL coaches who knew next to nothing about their styles.

Thank goodness for Scotty Bowman.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

And you're saying this based on..? Can you name another player who lead his league in points nine times, was named to the six-man IIHF Centennial Team, was equal to the challenge against every North American team he ever faced, had the highest shooting percentage in a totally different league past his prime, and scored more goals than anybody his age and over? Even in the creativity department the man was every bit as creative as Lemieux (I'm not exaggerating, watch his highlights). Let me give you a hint: it wasn't Mike Bossy (as much as I love Bossy).


I have more of a problem with your placing of the European players rather than sheer number (1 Euro out of Top 20 is ridiculous), but some of your omissions are simply staggering. Seriously, man, how in the WORLD could you omit Firsov (named "The Best Hockey Player Never Played in NHL" by The Hockey News), Bobrov (#4 on that list), Yakushev (#7, the best clutch player in Soviet history), and Petrov (five time scoring leader in the Soviet league)? All of them were better than Dionne and Robitaille!

Until you were corrected about a month ago, you didn't know what position Yakushev played. So maybe you should tone it down a little bit when it comes to lecturing others about their lists.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I have more of a problem with your placing of the European players rather than sheer number (1 Euro out of Top 20 is ridiculous), but some of your omissions are simply staggering. Seriously, man, how in the WORLD could you omit Firsov (named "The Best Hockey Player Never Played in NHL" by The Hockey News), Bobrov (#4 on that list), Yakushev (#7, the best clutch player in Soviet history), and Petrov (five time scoring leader in the Soviet league)? All of them were better than Dionne and Robitaille!

For someone who said that they didn't have time to put together their own list, you're sure spending a lot of time critiquing.

Let's see your list. Lack of time appears to be a surmountable obstacle.

 

[Sentinel]

Until you were corrected about a month ago, you didn't know what position Yakushev played. So maybe you should tone it down a little bit when it comes to lecturing others about their lists.

I know what position Yakushev played. It was a brainfart, and posters here make mistakes too. I thought I acknowledged it. If I didn't, I apologize.

It actually takes a lot of time and research to put together a real list. Much more than a post blurb. I don't think I'm ready to do this, also in part because my knowledge of 50s and earlier are not as profound as from some other posters. But I stand by my statements. One quick look at Firsov's and Petrov's resume should tell you that they belong on this list, and are above some people who are on it. I also value three aspects more than most people: face-to-face meetings, winning record (usually dismissed as "Cup-counting"), and artistry / uniqueness.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

It actually takes a lot of time and research to put together a real list. Much more than a post blurb. I don't think I'm ready to do this, also in part because my knowledge of 50s and earlier are not as profound as from some other posters. But I stand by my statements. One quick look at Firsov's and Petrov's resume should tell you that they belong on this list, and are above some people who are on it. I also value three aspects more than most people: face-to-face meetings, winning record (usually dismissed as "Cup-counting"), and artistry / uniqueness.

How long does it take to authoritatively dismiss other posters' lists?

You're free to disagree with others' lists. It's also a lot easier to do so when you don't have a list of your own to defend.