Mario Lemieux
Dominik Hasek
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Mario Lemieux leads 1 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Mario Lemieux at #3 and Dominik Hasek at #10.
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The case for Mario Lemieux
At six-foot-four with impossible hands, Mario Lemieux may be the most talented player who ever lived, a scorer who could deke through an entire team or overpower it. Le Magnifique won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins and captured the Art Ross six times, all while battling adversity that would have ended most careers: chronic back injuries, and a 1993 diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma. He returned from his final radiation treatment to play that same night, then won the scoring title. His 1.88 points per game is the highest of any player with a substantial career, trailing only Gretzky. In 1988-89 he scored 199 points; in one 1988 game he tallied goals five different ways, at even strength, on the power play, shorthanded, on a penalty shot and into an empty net. He retired in 1997, returned in 2000 as a player-owner having literally saved the franchise from bankruptcy, and played until 2006. Had health permitted a full career, the debate for number one might look very different.
The case for Dominik Hasek
No goaltender ever stopped the puck quite like The Dominator. Unorthodox to the point of chaos, flopping, sprawling, smothering pucks with his back, his mask, anything, Dominik Hasek was mesmerizingly effective, and his .922 career save percentage remains elite decades on. He won a record six Vezina Trophies as the league's best goaltender and, astonishingly for a netminder, two Hart Trophies as overall MVP in 1997 and 1998, the only goalie to win it twice in the modern era. In 1998 he backstopped the Czech Republic to a stunning Olympic gold in Nagano, shutting out Canada in a shootout and blanking Russia in the final, a performance that made him a national hero. He won two Stanley Cups with Detroit late in his career, in 2002 and 2008. Hasek's flexibility and competitiveness let him steal games single-handedly, and at his mid-1990s peak with the Buffalo Sabres he was arguably the most valuable player in the sport regardless of position. He reinvented what elite goaltending could look like.