All Time 1st Team NHL All Star team USA only
1970s
Posts: 3,093 ✭✭✭✭✭
Only American players. It's hard to do this list only because we all know how awesome Team 1996-7 was.
Do you take a John LeClaire over a Joey Mullen because of how awesome John was in international play ?
Anyway, here are my teams.............
Forwards - Brett Hull, Mike Modano, John LeClaire
Defensemen - Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch
Goalie - Jonathan Quick
2nd team
Forwards - Kane, Mullen, Lafontaine
Defensemen - Derian Hatcher, Brian Rafalski
Goalie - Beezer
There are so many others that I left out, and are very deserving because of better all time achievements
then some of the guys listed. I took Hatcher because he was the American version of Larry Robinson, and
when we beat Canada he was an absolute beast. My 2nd team though could be considered weak, but I'm happy with my first team.
Comments
Neal Broten?
Quickie. Hell, yeah...
Pat LaFontaine for sure is a first teamer. He was a lot better than Modano or LeClair.
Maybe Mike Richter for goalie on the second team.
LaFontaine scored the winner in the 4th OT of game 7 against the Caps in one of the greatest games ever. That sounds good to me
I get it, though, if you want a big body in that spot.
he kind of petered out from concussion stuff didn't he? He was a big deal coming out of junior
I just know LaBrett was much better than LeSchmidt.
But that's really the only knowledge I have of hockey.
Put up 148 points in 92/93 and then was wrecked by concussions, yeah. Hall of Famer and great, great player.
Without looking I know every player I mention will end up being a Canadian player so I’m not even going to try
Modano was REALLY good. One of the best skaters I have ever seen. LaFontaine might have been a better "pure" scorer though.
I often wondered what Modano would have done had he not played in such a "clutch and grab" era of hockey. When he got room he made a lot of great rushes up the ice. Kind of reminded me of what Orr used to do.
Most of the time there was a guy hanging all over him.
We should talk about kolin capernick in this hockey thread or maybe the wrestling thread. Whatever we do we should not confine kolin to the actual thread about him that would be wrong
Modano started before the clutch and grab era and put up solid, but not especially great, numbers during those years. Had 50 goals one year but never topped 93 points. Great player. Just not on Pat's level.
Rafalski was a terrific player. He was really, really good with Detroit.
that's primarily because he had some Swede wearing #5 cleaning up his messes. Same for Kronwall. Amazing how much of a fire-drill Kronwall became the second Nik hung up the Bauer Vapors. There used to be a website that isolated on-ice save% for players before the proprietor was hired by the Oilers and it went dark....but I remember the last season of Rafalski's career the on-ice SV% when Lidstrom was paired with him was something like .952% and when Rafalski was paired with anyone else it was under .910. There's some partial team dependency there, but still, that's pretty telling. Brad Stuart cleaned up a lot of the messes Rafalski and Kronwall left during that era too. Stuart didn't have much in the way of puck skills, but he did a lot of the heavy lifting on the second pair on that late Lidstrom era's blueline. The lasting image of Rafalski's career for me will always be him allowing Crosby to get behind him on the side wall and then blowing the wrister by Ryan Miller to tank the US against the Seal Clubbers in the Gold Medal game in the 2010 Olympics. That was completely on him. Though he did play well offensively in that series, he was shaky as hell in his own end throughout those Olympics. Rafalski had a couple HOFers buoying him up in NJ too. Rod Langway would be there before Rafalski. And since you know David Poille would get the gig of selecting players for the team, he and the crew always take the safe picks...see Phil Kessel being left off the last Olympic team. If Rafalski were around now, there's no way he'd make an US Olympic team. Not even sure he'd be an alternate given what the US currently has.
Instead of All-time, the more interesting question would be who would make the team now. So many good to great young American players have arrived since the last Olympic team.
C- Matthews/Eichel/Trocheck/Larkin
LW - Gaudreau/Parise/Pacioretty/JVR/Guentzel/Anders Lee/DeBrincat/Kyle Connor
RW - Kane/Blake Wheeler/Pavelski/Kessel/Atkinson/Palmieri/Boeser/Clayton Keller
D - Suter/John Carlson/Seth Jones/Werenski/Trouba/Byfuglien/GhostBear/McDonagh
G - Bishop/Quick/John Gibson/Hellebuyck
and could you imagine if Ryan Kesler wasn't completely worn down and held together by Barbie Band-Aids, the US could have conceivably run out a 4th line of Kesler/Matthew Tkachuk and Dustin Brown and if the game was actually called by the rules, they'd draw about 47 penalties per game.
Rafalski definitely got help from #5, of course. His play definitely went off a cliff but he played well for a couple years.
It's amazing how bad the defense core for Detroit has been since Nick retired. Their current group has... uh... I'm not sure any NHL-level players now that Jensen is gone. Maybe Mike Green. Maybe. They're all soft as pillows and combine that with terrible effort and a complete lack of correct positioning.
that's what happens when Ken Holland could not longer exploit the bias the other GMs had against Swedes and Russians. He exploited that while Lou Lamoriello exploited their bias against Czechs, Americans, and players coming out of college instead of the Juniors who all the Canadian born GMs slobbered over. Then the American GMs
like Ray Shero, Stan Bowman and Dean Lombardi showed up with analytic teams and pinned their ears back. There was nothing more funny than 3 years ago when all the Canadian teams went on stat-dork talent spending sprees while releasing PR reports about it. When does anyone release a media report on hiring some stat-dork in any other sport?
but yeah, Jensen was the Wings only blueliner that you could consider a legit top 4 d-man for sure. Green is fine as a 3rd pair d-man who could QB your second unit power play. Unfortunately for him/the Wings, you don't really have a first unit PP from the back end. And you don't really want to be paying that kind of guy $5m+ a year either. Toss in $5m a year for DeKeyser (for 3 MORE YEARS!), $4m+ for Ericsson, $5m+ for Nielsen (for 3 MORE YEARS!), Justin Activator at like a $4.5m hit for the next eternity...$3m for Helm. That's unreal to see that much cap space devoted to 3rd liners or 3rd pair d-men. But hey, at least Holland didn't toss money at Brendan Smith because he was the worst d-man in the league...if not the worst overall player. Man was he useless.
Jeremy Roenick??
Good grief, Abdelkader. Had two weeks of hot scoring and landed a ridiculous contract because of it. He should be sending 3/4 of it to Russia to Pavel since that's who actually earned it for him. At least Blashill gives him the amount of ice time - almost none - that his play has earned. Remember when he was "the next captain"? Now he's a guy in site they'd love to trade but can't.
I don't mind the Helm contract too much. He can play all over and has just enough offense to be valuable.
Don't get me started on that Nielsen contract. Could not believe it when they signed him at all, let alone for the numbers he got. 6 years and $31m to a guy who's never topped 25 goals or even reached 60 points. And he's been awful. Slow, soft, lazy, you name it.
Stevie Y, come home and take over! We need you!
I'm guessing if Activator wasn't from Muskegon and MSU, he probably doesn't get that contract. The Wings have lost out on a lot of local guys over the last decade so there's probably something to that. Like they needed someone in that Drew Miller role or something. I know Yzerman still has his family based in Detroit, so unless there's some tale of medical woe or illness or something in that family, there's no way he'd leave that stacked Tampa team if there wasn't something in the pipeline. It would be different if the Ligntning had cashed in a Cup in 2015, but they didn't, and I can't imagine he'd walk away from that situation without a ring if there isn't an agreement that Holland is getting booted upstairs into an advisory role and #19 is getting full control over that mess even as soon as next season. If he does, you probably better also nope he's dragging some scouts from that Tampa outfit. Those guys are just as responsible as #19 for that roster...Kucherov - 58th overall in 2011, Brayden Point was a 3rd rounder. That's 2/3 of an elite first line which wasn't drafted in the 1st round. That doesn't happen these days. Though he does deserve shame for passing on Seth Jones for Drouin. Still can't believe he did that.
1st team
C - LaFontaine
LW - Parise
RW - Brett Hull
D - Chelios/Leetch
G - Quick
2nd team
C - Modano
LW - Tkachuk
RW - Kane
D - Housley/Langway
G - Richter
3rd team
C - Roenick
LW - LeClair
RW - Pavelski/Kessel (toss up)
D - Gary Suter / Ryan Suter
G - Ryan Miller
Derian Hatcher wouldn't be able to keep up in the modern game. And to be clear, if we're talking about talent alone, Matthews, Eichel, Gaudreau, Wheeler, Seth Jones etc would be above half of these guys.
I was a big North Star fan and watched a LOT of hockey back then Modano had more talent than just about anyone when it came to skating,passing and shooting. He might not have been the toughest guy on the team though.
Many times I saw him pick up the puck in his own zone and if no one tackled him, he would often skate through the other team like a man amongst boys. He got grabbed a lot.
More of a pass first guy as well, they usually don't get mentioned in the all-time great discussions.
Not a hair out of place on kerry fraser.
This is true, Modano did not play a physical game. Mario COULD play physical and in fact take over games when he wanted to.
Case in point in the finals against the North Stars. Pittsburgh was the superior team and when Minnesota tried to make it a series in game 5, Mario just dominated the game. He was amazing!
I'm talking about talent over the span of one's career. Not what someone did in any given small sample size in a different era. No one in their right mind could possibly think Hatcher was a better d-man than Chelios or Leetch over the span of their respective careers. Chelios and Leetch would largely be the same players today that they were back then...save for Chelios being unable to use the old 'can opener' approach to standing up guys at the blueline which is now illegal...or driving a forearm into Larry Murphy's forehead which should never be outlawed on principle. But their respective skill and careers would translate to any era.
Guys like Hatcher or Scott Stevens would be a shell of themselves if they had to play by actual rules/today's rules where you can't just tackle a guy skating into the O-zone, or laying a hit on a skater 5 minutes after the puck has arrived (or worse). So what would Hatcher be today?....a moderately better version of Braydon Coburn? A pylon like Adam McQuaid? No thanks. Skating the puck out of your own end instead of having to haphazardly flip it up the boards to a forward in traffic and hope it isn't turned over in the neutral zone is a part of playing defense. That's why the Karlssons and Subbans get paid what they do. Chelios, Leetch Langway and Housley are actual HOFers for a reason...and Ryan Suter may have a chance. Hatcher rightfully isn't.
Every time I see your avatar it reminds me of when Milbury tried to fight Marty McSorely .
I like the Housley/Langway D pair.
A skilled, skate out of the zone and join the rush guy with a lockdown, stay at home, corner battler man.
"If I say something in the woods and my wife isn't there to hear it.....am I still wrong?"
My Washington Quarter Registry set...in progress
Modano is a guy who seemed like he had all the talent in the world but, at the end of the day, it just didn't translate into production. Not that he didn't produce but that he didn't produce at the level you'd expect given his talent. 3 times in the top 10 in scoring for example (8th, 9th, 10th). Two seasons of 90 points.
Again, I think he was a terrific player. Just not a guy I'm picking when I pick my American starting five.
I wouldn't put him in the top 5, he was too much finesse. He was tall, but not very thick.
Fantastic skater and shooter though.
Modano would be an even bigger star if he played today. There are only a select few players of his era through today who have the ability to shoot the puck with velocity and accuracy while skating with speed. Sakic was probably the best at it in his era and Modano would be #2 for me. Matthews is the best at it today....maybe Kessel or Crosby second. But most guys have to slow down or even stop, collect themselves, get balanced and then kind of drag the puck in and shoot. By that time either the puck is poked off the stick or they're being checked, and if they are able to get it off, it’s almost telegraphed because the goalie has already cut down that angle and he knows it’s coming and where it's being directed. As much skill as Patrick Kane has, how many goals do you see him score dashing in towards the cage? Not many unless it's a breakaway or some sort of breakdown in coverage. His shot of choice is to cycle along the high boards, slow down and and then drift in, deek someone out of a shooting lane and then fire to the corner.
That's why the top goal scorers today are largely the Ovechkin/Stamkos drift off toward the circles and fire one-timers like Iginla circa 2006 when he no longer cared about being a power forward and was happy to fire off slappers from anywhere near the boards. It's the best way to beat the way goalies are taught to cut down angles and play percentage goaltending. And if the top goal scorers aren't that, then they're the Crosby/Pavelski shot tippers/deflectors, or the JVR/Wayne Simmonds/Anders Lee types who just crash the net and look for rebounds and loose pucks. So it's not a stretch to put Modano as the USA's top line center. He was an example of a guy who at his size would be a better player today than he was when you could decapitate people and Don Cherry could make a buck off of it selling VHS tapes to Canadians when they weren't driving drunk through a Tim Horton's drive-thru in an American pickup truck while listing to Bob Cole or the Tragically Hip on the radio.
So for those of us saying LaFontaine was better or would be better today, a lot of that is just assumption/projection. Just because some smaller guys like Kane, Gaudreau and Marty St Louis can flourish today, that doesn't mean every smaller player with skill does (see Marc Savard's concussion history)....or a former #9 overall pick like Mikael Granlund who took 3.5 years to get to a 20 goal season. Checking/defense is tighter these days....way more forwards playing defense now than what LaFontaine in his prime saw. Goaltending is galatically better and deeper today. Modano played all of his prime in the dead puck/low scoring era. LaFontaine's prime was in an era where wingers peeled off at their own blueline and basically said, ok defensemen and goalie, you got this.
Let's also not forget two major factors in Modano's career numbers.
During his entire career in Dallas, it was a historically defensive-minded team. Look at the coaches he played for. Bob Gainey (arguably the best defensive forward ever...the Selke was basically created for him). Ken 'Boyardee' Hitchcock. Rick Wilson, Dave Tippett, Lindy Ruff. Sure there's no Jacques Martin, or Jacques Lemaire extreme trap-coached teams, but all of these guys are faux-trap, gum up the works, roll out a 1-3-1 setup, keep everything to the outside then lay back and wait for mistakes, non-aggressive offensive minded attacking coaches. You don't exactly flourish offensively in that environment.
there wasn't exactly a ton of dynamic offensive talent on the wing from those Stars teams to help him out either. There was Brett Hull for 3 years, and one of those years he was terrible only scoring 24 goals if memory serves. Langenbrunner was pretty good for a stretch...Brendan Morrow was there, I guess. But those aren't the kind of scorers who are going to help set up a center. You had Hull waiting for the pucks at the circle so he could fire off one-timers, or Morrow crashing the net looking for rebounds. Those Stars teams, especially the Dallas version, were built like a modern team...from the back end (Zubov, Sydor, pick a Hatcher brother) and up the middle. They had Joe Nieuwendyk as a second line center so I'm sure Modano was only getting one of their top wingers at a time and the other was off on Niewendyk's line. Then they had Carbonneau and Lehtonen on the lockdown checking line.
so put Modano on a Bruce Boudreau coached team today and I think you'd see a top 5-8 or so overall scorer if he had at least one good winger on his line.
it should also remind you how awful NBC/NBCSN's studio show is. Milbury the useless babbling classic idiot and consistent "back when I played"...and of course a he's a white guy from New England so he spends roughly 16 hours a day trying to show or tell everyone how tough he is.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one who appreciated Mike. When he got the puck in open ice it was a thing of beauty. He WAS a little "soft", but he had a thin almost fragile frame.
You also mentioned Granlund. INCREDIBLE passer! A little on the small side, but the guy does things that surprised me all the time, and I have been watching hockey since the late 1960's. If Mikael gets on a line with a guy who can consistently score goals, watch out, he will get 80+ helpers a season.
HATED to see him get traded because the players he constantly set up couldn't finish.
You have been watching a different Milbury
Have I told you lately that I love you?
ya about that .....................
Both the Granlund and Niederreiter trades were questionable to terrible. I get that the Wild were stagnating because the forward group has underachieved, but that's because they haven't had a legit first line center, and Parise (when healthy), is probably the only true finisher. Granlund is like Diet Martin St Louis but better defensively. They're the type of play-making winger who fit on a line better with a center who plays more like a winger..ie Stamkos or Eric Staal. The non-pass first type of center. I just think the Wild expected Granlund to be something he wasn't...a center for starters, and to be a 30 goal a year guy, and he's just not that type of player.