Wayne Gretzky
Jean Beliveau
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Wayne Gretzky leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Wayne Gretzky at #1 and Jean Beliveau at #8.
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The case for Wayne Gretzky
No athlete has dominated a major sport the way The Great One dominated hockey. Gretzky holds more than 60 NHL records, many likely permanent: 2,857 career points, 894 goals and an untouchable 1,963 assists, a total that alone would still lead the all-time scoring list without a single goal. He scored 92 goals in 1981-82 and a staggering 215 points in 1985-86, and posted a 51-game point streak that no one has approached. He won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, nine Hart Trophies as MVP (eight of them consecutive), and ten Art Ross Trophies as scoring champion. His 1988 trade to Los Angeles is often credited with transforming hockey into a genuinely national sport in the United States. Not the fastest skater or the hardest shooter, Gretzky saw the ice a beat ahead of everyone, operating from behind the net, his office, to orchestrate the most prolific offence the sport has known. He is the definitive GOAT, and the gap to second place is the widest in hockey.
The case for Jean Beliveau
Regal, powerful and impossibly graceful, Jean Beliveau captained the Montreal Canadiens through the most successful era any franchise has known. He won ten Stanley Cups as a player, more than anyone in history except his teammate Henri Richard, and lifted seven more as a club executive, putting his name on the Cup a record 17 times. Le Gros Bill scored 507 goals and 1,219 points, won two Hart Trophies and the inaugural Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1965, and did it all with a dignity that made him one of hockey's most respected figures long after retirement. A big centre at a time when the position was being redefined, he combined a scorer's touch with a playmaker's vision and a leader's presence. Beliveau declined an offer to become Governor General of Canada, so revered was he. On the ice, his elegant stride and commanding two-way game set the template for the complete franchise centre that every organization has sought ever since.