I think it is Howe-Kelly-Sawchuk. At the time of their peaks.... the early 50's... The Wings won Cups 4 of 6 years... Finished first in the regular season each year. Howe was at his peak posting almost Gretzky or Mario like dominance over other forwards. Sawchuk was at his peak... getting all of his 1st All-star nods. Kelly was at his peak... and considered to be the best defenceman in the NHL before and over Harvey. Harvey overtook him in the mid 50's and clearly had a higher peak but Kelly outshone him in the early 50's. So you have the best player and forward in the NHL, the best defenceman in the NHL and the best goalie in the NHL... all at the same time. And massive regular season and playoff team success as well.
Next you have Beliveau-Harvey-Plante... in the later 50's Hab dynasty. With great team success and Harvey and Plante the best D and G. Beliveau was the best some years and among the best every year... But early 50's Howe has a peak that is only surpassed by Gretzky on a consecutive year basis for multiple years.
Third I have Gretzky-Coffey-Fuhr. Fuhr is the weak link. But still a HHOFer. Peak Gretzky just dwarfs all other forwards. Coffey at his peak was basically the 2nd best offensive player in the world. Since we are talking peak... Fuhr is futher weakened by the fact that he really got his credit later in Coffey's Oiler's run and after. I think Fuhr's peak in recognition and play comes just after Coffey left the Oilers. Still a HHOF goalie and the sheer dominance of Gretzky lifts the pair so high.. and Coffey being one of the best if not the 2nd best offensive force in the world at the same time.
4th I have Lafleur-Robinson and Dryden. The sheer winningness of Dryden over his career at Lafleur's peak is absurd. The most winning performance of a team and a goalie ever. While Lafleur was the clear best forward in the NHL for 4 or 5 seasons. Robinson was the best of a dominating defence group and while he was 2nd at this time IMO to Denis Potvin... his performance was so winning and so dominant... like his plus minus... I often wonder how the 80's Oliers at their best could have lost so many regular season games. They were that good. No team ever just won every single game they could win like the Dryden led 1970\s Habs dynasty. They won EVERY game! I think a lot of that credit goes to Bowman... but it was just an absurdly winning team. It is one thing to be the best team in the NHL. It is another to actually win almost every single game. Honestly the regular season record of the Lafleur-Robinson-Dryden Habs more impresses me then the Playoff one. They simply won almost 90% of the time for years and years... it is absurd. Dryden had a ridiculously good team in front of him. He also had such a short career that he can't be considered the best ever.... but maybe he is? Or close. He just won... Every game.. every time... in big games and small. It is hard to win all the time... even with the best team. Dryden was a part of a team that won pretty much all the time. Not just in clutch times like the Islanders and Oilers... but in every game. Says a lot about Lafleur, Robinson and Dryden... to elevate their play and the teams in even meaningless regular season matchups.
Fifth.. I have the unmentioned selection of Trottier-Potvin and Smith. Potvin was basically his entire career the best dewfenceman in the NHL. He was surpassed in his first couple of years by Orr. And after 1980 by others perhaps in a regular season.. but basically he was the best defenceman in the world after Orr retired until Bourque and Coffey hit their stride. Trottier was a force of nature and got the Hart before Gretzky and much credit afterwards. The Islanders were a good team... but they were not the 50's or 70's Habs... They were top heavy. They got some good and smart role player's but the team is not deep in other HHOF talent. Trottier and Potvin were dominant...and Bossy on the Wing. Smith might not have been the best goalie of his time. He was however extremely clutch. A HHOF goalie... he was clutch. The Islanders were a good team with good coaching and good performance... but they also won 4 Cups in a row in a very tough era... with a great team... but the weakest dynasty team every. Smith ranks so much higher as a playoff goalie then a regular season one. And it is not luck... how many series did the Islanders win in a row before Smith lost one? Smith is not Sawchuk or Plante or Dryden or Hasek or Roy... but he won... again and again.
Can someone please explain to me why +71 is apparently less impressive because they got scored on lots? Some of you realize the point of the game is to outscore? The +/- numbers those Oilers put up is astonishing, nobody cares how many GA there was.
I think it's overstated how dominant Harvery was both ways just looking at the stats.
From what I've heard he was from a different universe defensively. Offensively, I think he benefits from being one of few defensemen producing in an era that didn't have offensive defensemen.
And it's not like offensive defenseman didn't exist before Harvery's era: Eddie Shore, Ebbie Goodfellow, King Clancy, Art Ross. It certainly wasn't widely accepted and practiced like it is today, but I don't think the concept was as foreign pre-Orr as it's made out to be.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that Harvey's value hinged on being the first offensive defenseman, or an unprecedentedly dominant offensive defenseman, but it doesn't. His value was based on being an absolutely exceptional player at both ends of the ice who dictated the pace of the game like nobody before him.
Judging him on offense alone is akin to judging Robinson on offense alone (why is he exempt from your standard?). It was a big part of his value but far from the only part.
The difference, of course, is that Harvey was for a time the best offensive defenseman in the league in addition to being the best defensive defenseman, and Robinson wasn't.
Modern trios don't stand a chance against all of history. I wouldn't even use Crosby-Letang-Fleury as the top one. If we're going with primes, Jagr-Pronger-Bryzgalov is easily better.
I think they have to have played their prime together. Jagr-Pronger-Bryzgalov is great, but last year (the only year they played [even somewhat]) together was not their best years.
Can someone please explain to me why +71 is apparently less impressive because they got scored on lots? Some of you realize the point of the game is to outscore? The +/- numbers those Oilers put up is astonishing, nobody cares how many GA there was.
machinehead said in post 28 that they were not great both ways, which is true. amazing ralph responded in post 29 that that argument does not hold up b/c their +/- were high.
no one said it was less impressive. if anything, it is more impressive that they could be among the worst defensively in the entire league, get scored on constantly, and still have very high +/-.
only spectacular ES and SH scoring could produce those numbers. gretzky is probably the only player in history who could do it.
Joe Sakic - 32nd on the 70 best players of all time list
Steve Yzerman - 36th on the 70 best players of all time list
Raymond Bourque - 10th on the 70 best players of all time list and 3rd on the 60 best defenseman of all time list
Nicklas Lidstrom - 17th on the 70 best players of all time list and 5th on the 60 best defenseman of all time list
Patrick Roy - 14th on the 70 best players of all time list and 1st on top goaltenders list
Dominik Hasek - 12th on the 70 best players of all time list and 2nd on top goaltenders list
Next time do your homework before accusing someone of baseless bias.
I repeat anyone selecting the 90's Red Wings trio over the one with Howe in it is out to lunch and he or she shouldn't be taken seriously under any circumstance.
Based upon a few old guys and their polls on the HFboards? Ok hockey historian, your word is gospel. Also it seems there is no distinction if this poll is regarding the players in their primes or when they played together either.
Based upon a few old guys and their polls on the HFboards?
Based on the collective opinion of dozens of hockey historians who have spent their entire lives observing and analyzing the game of hockey very thoroughly.
There has never been and probably never will be as deadly of a forward d-man combination as Orr and Espo.
If you never got the chance to see them play - go to hockeydb and check out what they did to the rest of the league in the early 70's. 70-71 in particular.
And then add in one of the best goalies of his generation.
Those two dismantled the league like no one but Gretzky.
Espo's 76 goals - next closest non Bruin was 44 (dismantled the previous record
Orr's 102 assists - next closest non Bruin was 52!
Espo 152 pts. Orr 139 pts. - next closest non Bruin was 96 pts.
Orr's +124!
-Arguably the best goalie of all time
-top 5 defenseman of all time
-top 20 forward of all time
With Hasek and Lidstrom in the back, any team is a Cup contender every year
Too bad they didn't have overlapping primes. 2002 is the best overall year but that's still not one of Yzerman (late 80s early 90s) or Hasek's (late 90s with Sabres) peak years.
Hasek was not playing at a top 2 goalie of all time level (in perennial debate with Roy of course) in Detroit, and Yzerman wouldn't be a top 20 forward of all time if you only count his level of play when Hasek was around.
Should be the Edmonton trio, simply because Wayne was transcendent, Coffey was damn good, and Fuhr was above average and played well when it mattered.
I suppose the detroit older trio is an honorable mention? Howe's peak wasn't as high as Gretzky and that's the only thing that separates the two in my opinion.
Howe-Kelly-Sawchuk and Beliveau-Harvey-Plante are the best 2. The goaltenders are about equal, but Howe's edge on Beliveau is larger than Harvey's edge on Kelly.
If youre talking about Career wise, both Sakic and Yzerman are good candidates for top 10... But if we're basing it off of top 10 at their Peak.... Those guys get bumped off by guys like Lindros, Crosby, Foppa and Malkin
Yzerman won the Pearson (89)and was the late season Hart and Pearson favorite until injury (88) during Lemieux and Gretzky's peaks.
None of the other five come close to what Yzerman did those two seasons, and Yzerman played at a similar level in following seasons but due to Bryan Murray's usage of Yzerman, Fedorov, and Carson he saw significantly less "prime" ice time than a 1C normally would, and was used in much more of a defensive role - a task he had first assumed under Jacques Demers.
Orr , phil and cheevers. greatest defensemen ever to play the game some people even put him as the greatest player ever, esposito was the best forward of that time and cheevers was a wall in the net .
