A smart, savvy player that always seemed to be in the right place at the right time to make the biggest player when the Rangers needed it most. Copyright 2020 YB Media, LLC. He also scored at least 17 goals three other times, including a 19-goal season in only 77 games. How much should offense be weighed in the discussion? He won four Stanley Cups in the 1990s as a member of back-to-back champions in Pittsburgh (1991 and 1992) and Detroit (1997-98). | He scored at least 10 goals in 20 of his 21 seasons in the NHL (he scored seven at the age of 40 in his last year in the NHL, when he was still playing more than 26 minutes per night) and won seven Norris Trophies. He was a top-five defender during his time and a top-25 defender all time. Is it just about keeping the puck out of your own net? Paul Coffey put up numbers as a defender that really only The captain of the 1980s New York Islanders dynasty, Denis Potvin was an offensive force, topping the 20-goal mark nine different times in his career, including three 30-goal seasons. He spent the bulk of his career paired on teams with the likes of Scott Stevens and Perhaps the most feared open ice hitter to ever play in the NHL, Scott Stevens was more than just a physical presence on the blue line. He won four Stanley Cups as a member of the One of the greatest offensive blue liners ever, Housley is currently fourth among all defenders in total points and has seven 20-goal seasons to his name. Potvin is one of the most dominant offensive blue liners ever. A mainstay at the top of the Norris Trophy voting throughout the 1960s, Pierre Pilote either won the award or was a runner-up every season from 1961 through 1967. Like Ray Bourque, Rob Blake was an all-time great for another franchise (in this case, the Leetch was an all-time great Ranger, one of the greatest American-born players ever, and a favorite in New York for being a key cog on the 1994 team that ended the Rangers' decades long Stanley Cup drought. The reality is that being an elite, all-time great defensemen in the NHL is about equal amounts of offensive and defensive dominance while also factoring in that the game has changed drastically from one decade to the next in how it is played. The Blues were one of the best teams in the league throughout his tenure there, only to lose every year because their goaltending was never good enough. The only bad thing Boston fans can say about his career is that he never had a chance to lift the Stanley Cup as a member of the Bruins. Top 10 NHL Defensemen of All Time . While every one of the defensemen on this list were spectacular hockey players, and Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque in particular may be others first choice for greatest defencemen of all time, Nicklas Lidstrom gets the nod here due to the level of competition he faced, and … No player changed the way hockey is played more than Orr did, no defender dominated the game the way Orr did, and there is a strong argument to be made that he might even be the best player of all time because of those previous two statements.
0 of 11. Zubov was an elite defender and offensive force during one of the NHL's worst-ever offensive eras. At the start of his career when he was a member of the New York Rangers, he was constantly in the shadow of The name Chris Chelios is synonymous with durability. Scotty Stevens is probably the best NHL defensemen never to win the position's top award (tied for 13th all-time with a plus/minus rating of plus-393). One of his big contributions to the sport was "The Murphy Dump," a play in which Murphy would clear the defensive zone by lofting the puck high in the air and having it settle at the far end of the ice before reaching the red line, negating what would otherwise be an icing call. He was never the greatest offensive player from the blue line, but there have not been many players in the history of the league who were better than Rod Langway defensively, having earned himself the nickname "the secretary of defense" during his time with the One of the slickest, smoothest skating defenders to ever play in the NHL, Scott Niedermayer was the complete package on defense with his combination of offensive brilliance and defensive dominance.