Top 34 Players in NHL History

In the NHL, every team’s ultimate goal is to win the Stanley Cup. The ultimate honor bestowed upon an individual player is the Hart Trophy, awarded annually to the league’s most valuable player. Considering the names that grace the trophy (Gretzky, Howe, Shore, etc.), even being nominated is a significant honour. It requires an entire season of diligence, competitiveness and skill. Every eligible Hart Trophy winner in the past fifty years has been elected to the Hall of Fame.

I have obtained the voting results for the Hart Trophy for almost every year from 1924 (when Dr. David A. Hart donated it to the NHL) to the present (2008). I have created an admittedly simple metric to evaluate which players have fared the best in Hart voting. The player with the most Hart votes each year receives five points; the player with the second highest vote total receives four points, etc., all the way down to the player with the fifth-most Hart votes, who receives one point. (For example, Mark Messier won two Hart trophies and was also a runner-up, so he earns 14 points). This system rewards both dominance and longevity: one needs to be a top five player to obtain points, but it is cumulative over the course of one's career.

Without any further ado, here are the results:


This is so interesting, I don’t even know where to start.

Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe top this list; no other players have ever combined dominance and longevity as well as The Great One and Mr. Hockey. They were both elite players in the NHL for two decades. Gretzky was a bit more dominant (nine Hart trophies in ten years) while Howe had stunning consistency & longevity (he holds the all-time record with 15 Hart-calibre seasons). I’d be pretty happy with either on my team.

The incomparable Eddie Shore sits in fifth place. He won the Hart Trophy four times and was a finalist eight times in eleven seasons from 1928 to 1938. The great Boston Bruins defenseman dominated his era with an unparalleled combination of offensive skill, defensive prowess and physical aggression. Shore led defensemen in scoring five times and was runner-up twice; his accurate passing and thrilling end-to-end rushes made him the best offensive defenseman until Red Kelly. He was an incredibly tough, durable skater who played around 50 minutes per game and took great pride in checking, fighting, hooking and slashing opponents into submission. In my opinion, only Bobby Orr was greater than Eddie Shore among defensemen.

Speaking of Mr. Orr, the great Bruin sits in 7th place. That’s pretty good, considering he only played nine full seasons. Plus, I think he was robbed at least a couple of times: Orr definitely deserved the Hart in 1975 (he scored more points than MVP Bobby Clarke and was better defensively). Orr’s injuries will forever prevent him from placing too high on any lists that emphasize longevity; however, for a single game, I’d take a healthy Orr over any other player in history.

Syl Apps, arguably the most underrated star in NHL history, ranks 15th. He’s my pick for the greatest Toronto Maple Leaf of all time. The clean, intelligent playmaking center never was named MVP, but was a finalist for five consecutive years. He was also frustratingly close to winning multipe Art Ross trophies, finishing runner-up three times in five years. Furthermore, Apps was a stunning playoff performer, finishing in the top five in postseason scoring on four different occasions.

Can everybody please stop saying that Martin Brodeur is the greatest goalie of all time? He’s not even the best goalie of his generation. Hasek had far more Hart votes, and won more Vezina trophies. Between 1994 (when they both became starting goalies) and 2008 (when Hasek retired), the Dominator had an enormous advantage in save percentage (92.4% vs 91.4%) and, stunningly, had a better goals-against average (2.16 vs 2.20) despite spending most of his prime on a clearly inferior team. Although Brodeur won one more Stanley Cup, keep in mind that he played behind two Hall of Fame defensemen (Stevens & Niedermayer) for most of his career; Hasek was stuck behind Zhitnik and Wolley.

I could write an essay on each of these players and their place on this list, so let’s just skip ahead to some more general themes.

The list is clearly biased in favour of forwards, who occupy 74% of the spots on the chart. It’s possible that forwards are the most valuable position in hockey, but this has never been proven. (In fact, I would argue that goalies are the single most important player on any team, but I’ll save that for another post). For whatever reason, forwards seem to consistently receive more serious Hart trophy consideration than defensemen and goalies.

It’s also interesting to note that there’s only one left-winger on this list: Bobby Hull. There have been a lot of great left-wingers throughout the years (Lindsay, Mahovlich, Joliat, etc.), but, for whatever reason, they just haven’t received MVP recognition very often.

With the exception of Roy Worters, the only three goalies to consistently earn MVP consideration played during the past two decades (Hasek, Brodeur, Roy). I was especially surprised to see that none of the four elite goaies of the Original Six era (Plante, Hall, Sawchuk, Bower) earned a spot here. Did award voters not focus on goalies during the fifties and sixties?

It's also worth emphasizing that the Hart trophy only takes regular season performance into account; thus Dionne and Roy are ranked as equals despite having vastly different playoff resumes.

(Two quick points regarding data quality. First, I am missing data for a few players: fifth place in 1948, 4th and 5th in 1933, 3rd through 5th in 1932, and 3rd through 5th in 1924. I doubt that this will materially affect the results. Second, ideally I would have liked to incorporate the percentage of total possible votes a player receives, so that somebody who dominates the Hart voting does better than somebody who wins it by one point. Unfortunately, I do not have enough data for this.)

Hopefully you’ve found this interesting and informative. Now you have no excuse not to pick up a good history book and learn about Shore, Morenz and Apps.

On Bullshit

A few days ago, I was browsing the philosophy section at my local bookstore. I found a small volume entitled “On Bullshit”. Intrigued, I briefly flipped through it and discovered that the author was Dr. Harry G. Frankfurt, a Princeton philosophy professor. I bought it immediately.

I’ll admit I purchased the book primarily due to the fact that it was a scholarly, philosophical essay about a rather unconventional topic. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the slight volume's insightful arguments. Frankfurt begins by examining the role of bullshit in our society:

“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry.”

Frankfurt, who writes clear, articulate prose and has a subtle wit, states his intentions in the second paragraph: “I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.” Later, he wryly adds, “So far as I am aware, very little work has been done on this subject”. As the book progresses, Frankfurt examines several conceptions of bullshit from numerous sources. He carefully considers the strengths and weaknesses of various definitions of bullshit, ranging from the works of renowned philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to contemporary novelist Eric Ambler to the Oxford English Dicitonary. Frankfurt’s straightforward, analytical writing style is the ideal method for concisely analyzing bullshit.

Ultimately, Frankfurt concludes that the most salient feature of bullshit is its lack of respect for the truth. Bullshitters say whatever they want, as long as it suits their purposes, regardless of whether it is true or false. It's important to note that bullshitting is distinctly different from lying. Liars recognize that truth exists, respect its authority, but try to steer people away from it. Conversely, bullshitters have no respect for the truth and will say things, true or false, caring only about how it will benefit them. Frankfurt says that truth-tellers and liars are playing on the opposite sides of the same game (respecting the truth); bullshitters ignore the rules of the game altogether. In a classic example of his subtle, dry wit, Frankfurt echoes Friedrich Nietzsche and says, “bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are”.

Bullshit is so prevalent, says Frankfurt, because our democratic society encourages people to have an opinion on everything, regardless of whether they are qualified to discuss it. As an example, certain members of the religious right feel that they are qualified to discuss evolution. This results in topics like creationism, which are, according to Frankfurt’s definition, pure bullshit.

This line of thinking is quite similar to the final sentence in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical epic “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” I strongly agree with this philosophy: one shouldn't speak when one doesn't have anything relevant to say. Of course having a general knowledge of a wide range of fields is important, but why attempt to bullshit one's way through a completely foreign topic? In the end, it will most likely backfire and make the speaker look both ignorant and dishonest.

Some have criticized the brevity of this book (a mere 67 pages). However, its length is a definite asset. Frankfurt’s analysis is concise but thorough, and I can’t think of anything more that he could have added. Adding length for the sake of length, as Frankfurt would say, is bullshit.

I’m glad that Frankfurt avoided talking extensively about the applications of his theory. First, his analysis is clear, so it’s easy for readers to determine its applications on their own. Any additional time spent on applications would have been wasteful. Second, I have no interest in hearing what Frankfurt thinks about politics; I doubt he is an expert on that topic. Talking about specific applications of his theory would be an exercise in bullshit. (However, the political implications of this book are quite fascinating. Leftists will surely use the book to argue that advertising and the media are bullshit, for fairly obvious reasons. However, right-wingers will find this book useful as well: Frankfurt attacks relativism towards the end, when he discusses the nature of objective truths).

I highly recommend “On Bullshit”. It’s a concise, eloquent and thorough examination of an important topic. It does an excellent job examining the subject and doesn’t waste a single word on anything unnecessary. In other words, “On Bullshit” contains no bullshit.