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The Hockey 100: The Definitive Ranking of Ice Hockey's Greatest Players by The Athletic's Journalists
Not yet published
Expected 27 Oct 26The fastest, fiercest, and most unforgettable legends—a definitive ranking of the 100 greatest modern-day players ever to lace up skates, from the best sports writers on the planet
Hockey is a sport like no other. It requires its players to master the grace of a figure skater, absorb the punishment of a linebacker, and trade the bare-knuckled blows of an MMA fighter, all while chasing a frozen, rock-hard puck that can fly across the ice at over ninety miles an hour.
A game this singular breeds an equally eccentric cast of characters. Now, the world-class journalists at The Athletic, led by Sean McIndoe and Dan Robson, settle the sport’s most irresistible debate by counting down the 100 greatest players in modern history—each expertly reported on and vividly profiled. Highlights
Legendary goaltender Dominik Hasek, known as “The Dominator,” was immortalized for having a “Slinky for a spine”Serge Savard somehow still managed to skate off with seven Stanley Cups despite breaking the same leg twiceGuy Lafleur's off-the-ice exploits included recording a bizarre disco albumThe unforgettable lives and careers of modern titans like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Alex Ovechkin
Here, hockey’s headliners are ranked and their stories told through deep research and one-on-one interviews as only The Athletic can.
Written with a deep love of the game and sure to spark gloves-off debates, The Hockey 100 is the ultimate celebration of the game and its players for millions of hockey fans worldwide.
Hockey is a sport like no other. It requires its players to master the grace of a figure skater, absorb the punishment of a linebacker, and trade the bare-knuckled blows of an MMA fighter, all while chasing a frozen, rock-hard puck that can fly across the ice at over ninety miles an hour.
A game this singular breeds an equally eccentric cast of characters. Now, the world-class journalists at The Athletic, led by Sean McIndoe and Dan Robson, settle the sport’s most irresistible debate by counting down the 100 greatest players in modern history—each expertly reported on and vividly profiled. Highlights
Legendary goaltender Dominik Hasek, known as “The Dominator,” was immortalized for having a “Slinky for a spine”Serge Savard somehow still managed to skate off with seven Stanley Cups despite breaking the same leg twiceGuy Lafleur's off-the-ice exploits included recording a bizarre disco albumThe unforgettable lives and careers of modern titans like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Alex Ovechkin
Here, hockey’s headliners are ranked and their stories told through deep research and one-on-one interviews as only The Athletic can.
Written with a deep love of the game and sure to spark gloves-off debates, The Hockey 100 is the ultimate celebration of the game and its players for millions of hockey fans worldwide.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication October 27, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Since hockey has some unique traditions like playoff beards and an octopus thrown out on the ice at Detroit, it is only fitting that some of the greatest players in the game have some unique stories as well. This book, listing the 100 greatest players since the NHL expanded from six teams to 12 in 1967, has some of those stories. These have been collected from various writers for The Athletic and compiled by Sean McIndoe and Dan Robson. These are stories that every hockey fan should read.
Since this is a subjective list of those 100 players, there will be omissions or arguments about where certain players should be ranked. While those are always good for sports bar arguments or even friendly (?) discourse around the couch while a game is on the television, these rankings are grounded in well-reasoned arguments.
One great example of this is the story of Marcel Dionne, ranked #15 on this list. The writer of this story points out that when people rattle off great players in the history of the NHL, Dionne is overlooked because he was never on a team that won the Stanley Cup. I wanted to stand up and cheer this author – it’s an argument I always make about any great player in a team sport. I have always felt that degrading a player because his team didn’t win a championship is unfair. The player doesn’t make personnel decisions – that’s up to the coaching staff and the front office.
The other aspect of this book that I really like is that many of the stories of these players don’t always revolve around their statistics and accomplishments. Of course, each player’s feats are included, but they aren’t always THE story.
Here are two examples: The first is about Bryan Trottier, who was a key player on the New York Islanders teams that won four consecutive Stanley Cups, has been very active in making the voice of Canadian Indigenous people heard. The second is about Alexander Mogilny, a Russian player who came to the NHL before the USSR allowed its players to play in North America. Mogilny had to make his arrangements in Sweden and even there, the team executives working on the deal felt the Soviet Union might be following them and tracing their calls. This story was even more intriguing than the well-known story of The Russian Five from the Detroit Red Wings. Some of those players made this list as well.
Some hockey fans will not only be disappointed with the book because of player rankings, but it will also leave out greats from the Original Six era like Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau and Gordie Howe (he’s left out because even though he played after 1967, his best years were prior to that). Even without them, it does make for great reading for hockey fans and pays homage to the great players of the last 60 years.
I wish to thank William Morrow for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this book are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
Since this is a subjective list of those 100 players, there will be omissions or arguments about where certain players should be ranked. While those are always good for sports bar arguments or even friendly (?) discourse around the couch while a game is on the television, these rankings are grounded in well-reasoned arguments.
One great example of this is the story of Marcel Dionne, ranked #15 on this list. The writer of this story points out that when people rattle off great players in the history of the NHL, Dionne is overlooked because he was never on a team that won the Stanley Cup. I wanted to stand up and cheer this author – it’s an argument I always make about any great player in a team sport. I have always felt that degrading a player because his team didn’t win a championship is unfair. The player doesn’t make personnel decisions – that’s up to the coaching staff and the front office.
The other aspect of this book that I really like is that many of the stories of these players don’t always revolve around their statistics and accomplishments. Of course, each player’s feats are included, but they aren’t always THE story.
Here are two examples: The first is about Bryan Trottier, who was a key player on the New York Islanders teams that won four consecutive Stanley Cups, has been very active in making the voice of Canadian Indigenous people heard. The second is about Alexander Mogilny, a Russian player who came to the NHL before the USSR allowed its players to play in North America. Mogilny had to make his arrangements in Sweden and even there, the team executives working on the deal felt the Soviet Union might be following them and tracing their calls. This story was even more intriguing than the well-known story of The Russian Five from the Detroit Red Wings. Some of those players made this list as well.
Some hockey fans will not only be disappointed with the book because of player rankings, but it will also leave out greats from the Original Six era like Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau and Gordie Howe (he’s left out because even though he played after 1967, his best years were prior to that). Even without them, it does make for great reading for hockey fans and pays homage to the great players of the last 60 years.
I wish to thank William Morrow for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this book are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
There’s a lot to like here... it's more like 4.5 out of 5 stars. Ranking the top 100 hockey players since 1967 will ruffle feathers, but getting into any arguments regarding the order is probably some of the point. To be clear, you’re not going to see any chapters on Gordie Howe, Doug Harvey, Jean Beliveau, or Eddie Shore. But the choice to only rank post-expansion NHL players was ultimately the right one, as the decision allowed the authors to find more peers and contemporaries to help tell these 100 stories.
The next note to highlight is that these stories are written by various members of The Athletic’s NHL writing staff. This is important to mention because it leads to the only negative critiques for the book: Not all writers are created equal.
The issue I had with the writing was two-fold. First, as stated before, not all writers are created equal. Some writing was as good as it gets, others were a little insipid/unimaginative. The human stories help these formers players come to life, whether it’s their formative years, playing careers, or even post-career lives.
Some writers understood the assignment and knocked it out of the park. Better than any reasonable reader could have expected. There are some chapters that are some of the most inspired hockey writing out there. Writers like Eric Duhatschek, Michael Russo, and Sean McIndoe are at their very best in multiple sections throughout the book. In fact, Russo’s has a chapter that was everything anyone could have ever asked for in a hockey book. No spoilers.
However, there are a handful of chapters that fall flat. Sometimes, the writers didn’t have a strong angle to tell the story. Other times, there would be a few pages of statistics that stuck out like a sore thumb among the surrounding engaging stories. No one really needs to know player’s Wins Above Replacement for a 5-year stretch where their Expected Goals was the highest in the league. Either tell the stories or be a stats book—and no one wants a list of stats from a spreadsheet masquerading as a book.
Which leads us to the crux of the issue: it’s difficult to have multiple writers coming together to write a complete, coherent book that has any semblance of flow. If you compare it to The Baseball 100 with one writer (Joe Posnanski), it comes across as 100 separate articles instead of a single book.
Regardless of the minor missteps, this book is easy to recommend to any sports fan—hockey fan or not. The good parts of the book routinely crossover to great. I have no doubt I’ll revisit this book repeatedly in the future.
The next note to highlight is that these stories are written by various members of The Athletic’s NHL writing staff. This is important to mention because it leads to the only negative critiques for the book: Not all writers are created equal.
The issue I had with the writing was two-fold. First, as stated before, not all writers are created equal. Some writing was as good as it gets, others were a little insipid/unimaginative. The human stories help these formers players come to life, whether it’s their formative years, playing careers, or even post-career lives.
Some writers understood the assignment and knocked it out of the park. Better than any reasonable reader could have expected. There are some chapters that are some of the most inspired hockey writing out there. Writers like Eric Duhatschek, Michael Russo, and Sean McIndoe are at their very best in multiple sections throughout the book. In fact, Russo’s has a chapter that was everything anyone could have ever asked for in a hockey book. No spoilers.
However, there are a handful of chapters that fall flat. Sometimes, the writers didn’t have a strong angle to tell the story. Other times, there would be a few pages of statistics that stuck out like a sore thumb among the surrounding engaging stories. No one really needs to know player’s Wins Above Replacement for a 5-year stretch where their Expected Goals was the highest in the league. Either tell the stories or be a stats book—and no one wants a list of stats from a spreadsheet masquerading as a book.
Which leads us to the crux of the issue: it’s difficult to have multiple writers coming together to write a complete, coherent book that has any semblance of flow. If you compare it to The Baseball 100 with one writer (Joe Posnanski), it comes across as 100 separate articles instead of a single book.
Regardless of the minor missteps, this book is easy to recommend to any sports fan—hockey fan or not. The good parts of the book routinely crossover to great. I have no doubt I’ll revisit this book repeatedly in the future.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As someone who has always followed the Penguins but never really been a hockey fan, this was an incredible overview of the history of the league and it's stars over the years. I absolutely loved reading about the many Penguins on this list, but I also learned and connected with several players I had never heard of. One Penguin who I had heard of but never really knew much about was Brian Trottier (28). I learned a lot about his love of music and his advocacy for indigenous communities that I never would have known without this book. I enjoyed piecing together the storylines of the league, as the players were in order of greatness, not chronological order. For example, I read about the league-shaking Rangers-Bruins trade in 1975 in Jean Ratelle's (75) chapter, but then understood it better when I read about Brad Park (57) and Phil Esposito (10), and really felt the magnitude of the trade. A lot of my favorite chapters were about the European and Russian players, who generally had more circuitous routes to the NHL. Reading about the players who defected from the Soviet Union like Alexander Mogilny (91) and Sergei Federov (33) were especially eye opening. But I think my favorite non-Penguin (Malkin, 26, was probably my favorite overall) chapter was either Teemu Selänne (23) or Dominik Hasek (8). I loved reading about Selänne's game breaking speed, and Hasek's unorthodox but dominant playstyle and mentality.
My only critique is that while many of the chapters were incredible and gave me insight into the player and the league at the time, there were also many chapters that felt like a list of teams and statistics. I understand that in a collection like this there will unavoidably be some repetition, but as someone who isn't a diehard hockey fan there were times where the players started to blur together.
Overall, a great overview of the NHL and it's many eras as told through the lens of its greatest players. Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advanced copy
My only critique is that while many of the chapters were incredible and gave me insight into the player and the league at the time, there were also many chapters that felt like a list of teams and statistics. I understand that in a collection like this there will unavoidably be some repetition, but as someone who isn't a diehard hockey fan there were times where the players started to blur together.
Overall, a great overview of the NHL and it's many eras as told through the lens of its greatest players. Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advanced copy
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As an avid hockey fan, I can’t escape the stories of how wonderful the players are, both on and off the ice, and how they contribute to their communities. While those stories are great, the ones included in this collection give you another glimpse at the private lives of the top 100 players that don’t necessarily have to do with their public persona. I enjoyed the unique look at the men they are off the ice. Highly recommended for hockey fans who want a different perspective and/or those who love feel good stories.
Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the review copy.
Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the review copy.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was awesome. Hockey is one of the sports I don't know a ton of history on and this book covered a lot of ground on that front. I liked that the players were from all decades post-expansion as it helped explain and demonstrate some of the evolution of the game through the different eras of more defensive/offensive playstyles and so forth. I also liked that there was such a variety of players and that all aspects of the game were analyzed and appreciated in the rankings. Biased of course but love that Malkin was ranked so highly, playing with Sidney Crosby for 20 years I feel like he's always been overlooked in comparison to Sid and also to other Russian Ovechkin and it was good to see Geno get the recognition he deserves in this. The stories were interesting and easy to read which is no surprise since the Athletic's hockey newsletter is written by some of the same journalists and is always extremely informative and easily digestible. Overall, would highly recommend this to any sports fan.
Thank you to William Morrow and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion
Thank you to William Morrow and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews