Seriously. It is not even close.
It was written less than three years ago, but maybe the time has come to rethink The Greatest 100 Hockey Players Of All Time.
My Top 100 list openly admits it is my personal selections, complete with whatever biases I have. I tried to be very open about those biases. The result has been a list been widely received as a solid list with surprisingly few disagreements.
As you may recall, the biggest debate I had was defining what it takes to be "the greatest."
I fully believe there is a potentially huge difference between the best player and the greatest player. The best player is defined by ability and attribute. Whereas the greatest player is more about accomplishments and legacy.
Hence, when someone tells me Bobby Orr or Mario Lemieux as the best player to ever play the game, I will not argue.
But when it comes to the greatest player - as in who had the greatest career - I firmly believe it is Wayne Gretzky.
But the time has come to revisit the entire Top 100 list. Specifically:
- Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. A lot has changed since 2013, with Crosby stagnating or possibly sliding, and Ovechkin rising. This is the biggest debate at this time, with it likely being the final debate until their careers conclude.
- The possible inclusion of the likes of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Evgeni Malkin and Steven Stamkos.
- Revisiting the status of veterans like Jaromir Jagr, Jarome Iginla, Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist.
- Revisiting the legacies of recently retired players like Nicklas Lidstrom, Mats Sundin, Phil Housley and Martin Brodeur.
At this stage I would like to encourage anyone and everyone to share their thoughts with me, either here in the comments section, or via social media:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/hockeylegends
2 comments:
Scott Niedermayer should be higher on this list. His talent is underappreciated and he was an unbelieveable skater. His shot was his only weaker aspect of his game, he even had more snarl than he's given credit for. And no one in modern hockey can match his winning acumen at every level
Your list is nothing more then the best NHL players ever + a few Soviets but there were many great players not only from Soviet Union, but also Czechoslovakia and other European countries during the Iron Curtain who were equal to NHL stars of the era.
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