Not sure if this is too late, but I'll post it anyway (if nothing else, it documents why I changed my mind since my initial list).
I'm starting to come around to the viewpoint that Forsberg > Schmidt. I ranked Schmidt around ten spots higher in my initial list, but now that I'm doing a deeper dive, I'm wondering why.
Schmidt had one dominant scoring title victory (Forsberg had an Art Ross, but it was by a small margin over Naslund and Thornton) - but aside from that, Forsberg looks better when comparing any other pairing of seasons (ie 2nd best vs 2nd best, etc). Forsberg probably had tougher competition during this period as well.
It's true that Schmidt missed time due to injuries, but that doesn't help him much in this comparison - he was only in the top ten in points per game five times. Forsberg accomplished that eight times in a span of ten seasons (the exceptions were 2000, which was a disappointment, and 2002, when he didn't play at all, but led the playoffs in scoring).
Schmidt's playoff resume is a mixed bag but generally favourable, but Forsberg's is clearly better. I'd also consider Forsberg at least as good defensively (am I wrong on this point?)
So the two arguments for Schmidt would be having a much better Hart trophy voting record, and giving him credit for time served during WWII.
The Hart trophy argument is a valid one, I think. Forsberg's Hart trophy voting record has always been much weaker than you'd expect for a player of his calibre (before you say it's due to injuries, he registered zero or a trivial number of votes in five of the six seasons where he missed no more than ten games). Still, Forsberg's Hart trophy voting record underrates him (the same is true of Roy and Sakic - all victims of vote-splitting due to the definition being "most valuable"). But Schmidt is the top candidate this round based on this metric and I think it takes a lot of re-imagining to envision Forsberg surpassing him here.
I'm less convinced about the WWII argument. I agree, in principle, that we should give credit to players who missed time due to serving in the military. But last week I contrasted Schmidt with Apps, who was very consistent before and after the war. Schmidt missed time both seasons leading up his service (and was only hovering around the lower end of the top ten in per-game scoring), and was only in the top ten in scoring (or PPG) in one of the first five seasons after he came back. Simply put, Schmidt was inconsistent and I'm not really sure what he would have done if he had three more prime years. Maybe he has another season like 1940 or 1951 - but who's to say he wouldn't have a disappointing year like 1941, or 1946, or 1949? The point is, I'm not convinced on how much ground he would make up relative to Forsberg.