Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time

The following is the final list of the top hockey players of all-time as determined by 32 voting members of the History of Hockey community.

Report any errors to @quoipourquoi

Rank	Player	Position	Born	Nation	Birth City
1	Wayne Gretzky	C	1961	Canada	Brantford, Ontario
2	Gordie Howe	RW	1928	Canada	Floral, Saskatchewan
3	Bobby Orr	D	1948	Canada	Parry Sound, Ontario
4	Mario Lemieux	C	1965	Canada	Montreal, Quebec
5	Bobby Hull	LW	1939	Canada	Point Anne, Ontario
6	Jean Beliveau	C	1931	Canada	Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
7	Patrick Roy	G	1965	Canada	Quebec City, Quebec
8	Doug Harvey	D	1924	Canada	Montreal, Quebec
9	Maurice Richard	RW	1921	Canada	Montreal, Quebec
10	Ray Bourque	D	1960	Canada	Saint-Laurent, Quebec
11	Howie Morenz	C	1902	Canada	Mitchell, Ontario
12	Sidney Crosby	C	1987	Canada	Halifax, Nova Scotia
13	Dominik Hasek	G	1965	Czech Republic	Pardubice, Czechoslovakia
14	Eddie Shore	D	1902	Canada	Fort Qu'Appelle, Northwest Territories
15	Nicklas Lidstrom	D	1970	Sweden	Krylbo, Sweden
16	Jaromir Jagr	RW	1972	Czech Republic	Kladno, Czechoslovakia
17	Red Kelly	D / C	1927	Canada	Simcoe, Ontario
18	Denis Potvin	D	1953	Canada	Vanier, Ontario
19	Jacques Plante	G	1929	Canada	Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, Quebec
20	Frank Nighbor	C	1893	Canada	Pembroke, Ontario
21	Mark Messier	LW / C	1961	Canada	Edmonton, Alberta
22	Alex Ovechkin	LW	1985	Russia	Moscow, Soviet Union
23	Guy Lafleur	RW	1951	Canada	Thurso, Quebec
24	Stan Mikita	C	1940	Canada	Sokolce, Slovak Republic
25	Viacheslav Fetisov	D	1958	Russia	Moscow, Soviet Union
26	Sergei Makarov	RW	1958	Russia	Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union
27	Phil Esposito	C	1942	Canada	Sault Ste Marie, Ontario
28	Glenn Hall	G	1931	Canada	Humboldt, Saskatchewan
29	Bobby Clarke	C	1949	Canada	Flin Flon, Manitoba
30	Martin Brodeur	G	1972	Canada	Montreal, Quebec
31	Bryan Trottier	C	1956	Canada	Val Marie, Saskatchewan
32	Joe Sakic	C	1969	Canada	Burnaby, British Columbia
33	Cyclone Taylor	D / R	1884	Canada	Tara, Ontario
34	Bill Cook	RW	1895	Canada	Brantford, Ontario
35	Terry Sawchuk	G	1929	Canada	Winnipeg, Manitoba
36	Mike Bossy	RW	1957	Canada	Montreal, Quebec
37	Larry Robinson	D	1951	Canada	Winchester, Ontario
38	Ted Lindsay	LW	1925	Canada	Renfrew, Ontario
39	Newsy Lalonde	C	1887	Canada	Cornwall, Ontario
40	Steve Yzerman	C	1965	Canada	Cranbrook, British Columbia

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Discussion Threads


Preliminary Discussion Threads


Round 1 Process


Individual Voting Records

 

Glad this is open for business. It'll be interesting to track the big risers and fallers since this list was last done 10 years ago.

 

Quebec bias

 

Hasek 13th and Roy 16th here.

 

And Plante 12th

 

Thanks for this, will be nice to follow as our list develops over the next few weeks.

 

We all know 6 of the top 10 are Quebecers, eh?

 

No...because we don't know who the 10th player is yet.

Is this meant as a complaint? There is a very good reason why Montreal as a city would have significant representation, considering that is where the sport itself developed.

 

Playing for just Montreal

Regular Season 76 goals in 890 games = 0.09 goals/game
Playoffs: 8 goals in 123 games = 0.06 goals/game

You didn't give a stat, the drop off isn't super significant. It's not like he was a big time goal scorer.

 

The picture of Roy is clearly after he had just given up a goal in the Stanley Cup Final...that seems like good enough grounds to move him below Harvey so I can sleep a little better at night...

- Thank You

 

Probably my favorite hockey photo. I don’t envy any mind readers in the moments following a GA when a goaltender is mentally composing a list of all ten skaters on the ice and what they can do with themselves. Add in plastic rats and that might be the angriest a person can get without going off the deep end and just decimating bystanders with the paddle.

 

LOL u mad about that?

It's normal to have a lot of Quebecers considering the Montreal Canadiens is the greatest and most historical team ever. And some of the greatest players of all time (The Rocket, Mario, Roy, Lafleur, Bourque, Brodeur and more and more) are Quebecers.

 

Funny because I've seen Roy before Hasek on other lists.

 

Indeed it's a great hockey photo of Roy but his best and most iconic one is the wink.

 

Curious: does anybody have a "Perfecta" on board so far, either from their Original List or their Vote? [I.e.: all nine in the current order?] I have a "boxed" nine-fecta (i.e.: these are my first nine... but I don't have 'em in THAT order).

I will lose my "X-fecta" next round when Crosby gets in.

 

You know who he winked at though?

 

Tomas Sandstrom, right?

 

Of course, Tomas Sandstrom.

*Mike Farkas beat me to it.

 

Congrats? ... this is not about guessing and cheering voting to match prior lists. Too many closed ears. Hope you didn't vote Crosby first this round just to have the list be the same as your original list.

Info on the threads changed my mind and votes about Howe and Roy (up) and Richard (down).

I had Cyclone Taylor on my original list. When he becomes eligible for discussion we'll see if I change my mind on his relative greatness.

 

Oh, Hell NO. Nobody has to worry about that happening.

I already said that I know my streak's coming to an end...

 

Let me say I’m a keen observer of this list because for years I maintained a spreadsheet which attempted to calibrate a top-1000 list, purely for my own amusement, using an amalgamation of every possible subjective & objective criteria out there, and it neared 2000 in the end.

It began with Stan Fischler’s Top-100 Players book, and it’s several revisions; continued with THN’s Top-100 of the Century list; brought in others such as a 1973 Superstars book listing ‘Hockey’s Greatest Players’, offset by the recent ‘Top 60 since 1967’ book; and eventually included all trophies, awards, records, retired numbers, all-star & HHOF selections, and anything else I could possibly throw into the mix - all weighed as I thought most appropriate. (10pts for topping a 100 list, 0.1pts for #100; 8pts for a Hart Trophy, 4pts as runner-up; 5pts for a Smythe Trophy, 2pts for a retro; 5pts for a HHOF induction; 2pts for a 1st-team all-star, 1pt for a 2nd; 5pts for a Stanley Cup, 4pts for a 2nd, 3pts for a 3rd; etc, etc, etc)

I used books such as Total Hockey and Ultimate Hockey, the latter including retro-Trophy winners back to 1887; lists & stats from being on SIHR’s email group for years, including All-Star selections/games from pre-consolidation days (PCHA, etc) as well as the list of retro-Smythe trophies. I gave some international consideration (medals & IIHF HOF), plus some WHA acknowledgments. I even included things such as Jim Gregory’s ‘all-time all-star team’, Morenz’s player-of-the-half-century awarding, any TSN all-time lists, and even points, games played, and other stats bringing it to the 1000th decimal point.

Bottom line, here’s the way the points fell around 2010:

1. Wayne Gretzky (766.222)
2. Gordie Howe (491.811)
3. Bobby Orr (452.531)
4. Mario Lemieux (444.451)
5. Bobby Hull (363.936)
6. Rocket Richard (358.418)
7. Jean Beliveau (306.432)
8. Patrick Roy (292.636)
9. Doug Harvey (280.616)

Note that, apart from Richard at 6th instead of 9th, the list is so far completely identical to your current list.

Also, Shore was 16th (256.977) beating Morenz by a hair at 17th (256.739). And Non-NHLers Tretiak @ 70, Cyclone Taylor @ 72, Frank McGee @ 98, Kharlamov @ 106, Russell Bowie @ 114, Moose Johnson @ 118, and Danny Bain @ 139.

(Recent players such as Jagr, Hasek, Brodeur, Lidstrom, Forsberg, Selanne, Ovechkin, Niedermayer, Pronger, Fedorov, Crosby, & Kariya are limited to spots #24 to #127 due to my abandonment of the project. But the lists are sure to deviate after #9 since Sawchuk, Esposito, Lafleur, Coffey, Hall & Bossy made my top 20, while Potvin was #22, and Mikita #28.)

 

That's creepy - I literally just queued up that Roy photo for my #TeamTenMonday contest coming up.

 

@DNA do you want to send me the top-120 and join the project next round?

 

When did we agree that someone could join after it has started???????????????????????????????????????

We had a deadline to submit lists. We met the deadline.

If this is a kingdom and you are the dictator: just give him my spot. No need for fairness.

 

It would be unprecedented to have someone join this late...

I'm not sure if that means it would be wrong... but there are good reasons to be against it