Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

The Ranking Of Steve Yzerman The Player

02/02/2023 at 2:24pm EST

Most of you know The Athletic is counting down the 99 top NHL players of the modern era.

On January 20th, they selected Steve Yzerman at #15. Since then...

At #14 is Guy Lafleur, 13 Joe Sakic, 12 Mike Bossy, 11 Patrick Roy, 10 Ray Bourque, 9 Phil Esposito, 8 Nick Lidstrom, 7 Dominik Hasek, 6 Alex Ovechkin and at 5 is Jaromir Jagr.

They have already announced Gretzky is #1 and so only 2, 3 and 4 remain and names like Howe, Orr and Lemieux have yet to be ranked. I am not sure about Howe after reading this...

Our thorniest and most complicated choices involved players who straddled the two ends of the spectrum. Some slipped through the cracks because their greatest impacts came prior to 1967. Some, who will eventually qualify, didn’t make the list because they are still in the early stages of their careers.

My question is the ranking of Yzerman. I would have put him ahead of Lafleur and Sakic but I know that is a judgement call.

How do you feel about it. Clicking the link will take you to the player page and remember The Athletic is subscription only.

RWHockey13

I think the view or opinion of whether one agrees with such rankings is not as important as the fact that there have been a number of great players in this sport that we have gotten to see and enjoy. Thus, cheers.

dca

Howe wont be on the list. This is a modern era only ranking.


Orrs entire career didnt count.


post-1967 expansion NHL history and beyond only.


That needs to be made very clear because you wont find Gordie Howe on our list. Is it sacrilege to have a best-players-of-all-time list without Mr. Hockey? Maybe, but Howe only played 369 NHL games from 1967-68 onward and spent six seasons in the WHA. So hes out. You also wont find Bobby Hull or Maurice Richard or Howie Morenz.

There were other qualifications like 400 career games (excludes Cale Maker) too.


rumbear

Thank you dca. So, its a BS list made up by some Waynes World alumni? Stevie at 15, meh, so Gordie, Orr, Hull and ?? would bump him to low

20's

Mr. Fnytelhatt

Rumbear15 hours ago

Thankyou dca. So, its a BS list made up by some Waynes World alumni? Stevieat 15, meh, so Gordie, Orr, Hull and ?? would bump him to low 20's.


Pfft! IMHO they got Hašek right though! Best ever, an actual, absolute singulartity. The Pavarotti of goaltenders. Minus the Pavarotti drawbacks.

murph1jj

They specifically say in the article that Howe is not included.

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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