These lists have been tackled by plenty of others over the years, but I wanted to put my own stamp on one. I’ve had the benefit of watching most of these players firsthand, and for the few I haven’t, I dug in with some deep dives to round out the picture.
Which brings me to number 7. I never had the chance to see Howie Morenz play, of course, but we share a hometown and his legacy is woven into the fabric of the place. I found myself torn between hometown pride and my lifelong allegiance to the Boston Bruins, and in the end, I couldn’t separate the two — which is why I’ve got Number 7 split between Phil Esposito and Howie Morenz.
The number 00 was worn twice in NHL history, once by John Davidson and them by Martin Biron. The number 0 was also worn twice, once by Neil Sheehy and once by Paul Bibeault.
1. Terry Sawchuk
2. Doug Harvey
3. Pierre Pilote
4. Bobby Orr
5. Nicklas Lidstrom
6. Toe Blake
7. Phil Esposito/Howie Morenz
8. Alex Ovechkin
9. Gordie Howe
10. Guy Lafleur
11. Mark Messier
12. Jarome Iginla
13. Pavel Datsyuk
14. Dave Keon
15. Milt Schmidt
16. Marcel Dionne
17. Jari Kirri
18. Denis Savard
19. Steve Yzerman
20. Luc Robitaille
21. Stan Mikita
22. Mike Bossy
23. Bob Gainey
24. Chris Chelios
25. Joe Nieuwendyk
26. Peter Stastny
27. Scott Niedermayer
28. Steve Larmer
29. Ken Dryden
30. Martin Brodeur
31. Grant Fuhr
32. Claude Lemieux
33. Patrick Roy
34. Miika Kirusoff
35. Tony Esposito
36. Jussi Jokinen
37. Patrice Bergeron
38. Pavel Demitra
39. Dominik Hasek
40. Henrik Zetterberg
41. Jason Allison
42. David Backes
43. Martin Biron
44. Chris Pronger
45. Sami Vatanen
46. David Krejci
47. Torey Krug
48. Daniel Briere
49. Brian Savage
50. Corey Crawford
51. Brian Campbell
52. Adam Foote
53. Jeff Skinner
54. Adam McQuaid
55. Larry Murphy
56. Sergei Zubov
57. David Perron
58. Kris Letang
59. Roman Josi
60. Jose Theodore
61. Rick Nash
62. Carl Hagelin
63. Brad Marchand
64. Mikael Granlund
65. Erik Karlsson
66. Mario Lemieux
67. Max Pacioretty
68. Jaromir Jagr
69.Andre Desjardins
70. Braden Holtby
71. Evgeni Malkin
72. Sergei Bobrovsky
73. Michael Ryde
74. John Carlson
75. Hal Gill
76. PK Subban
77. Ray Bourque
78. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare
79. Andrei Markov
80. Nik Antropov
81. Marian Hossa
82. Martin Straka
83. Ales Hemsky
84. Mikhail Grabovski
85. Petr Klima
86. Nikita Kucherov
87. Sidney Crosby
88. Eric Lindros
89. Alexander Mogilny
90. Ryan O’Reilly
91. Sergei Federov
92. Rick Tocchet
93. Doug Gilmour
94. Ryan Smith
95. Matt Duchene
96. Tomas Holmstrom
97. Connor McDavid
98. Mikhail Sergachev
99. Wayne Gretzky
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