FanHouse NHL Top 50

FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Washington's Alexander Ovechkin are his top two. See who he has as his No. 1 player.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 4 is Detroit Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk.

The Detroit player development system strikes again. When discussing the best players in the league the names Ovechkin, Crosby and Malkin are usually the ones that get mentioned. I consider Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk to be part of that group, and there's not much of a gap between him at No. 4 and the No. 3 player on my list.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 5 is Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla.

After selecting Jarome Iginla with the 11th overall pick in the 1995 Entry Draft, the Dallas Stars sent him to Calgary in December, 1995, in a deal that brought holdout Joe Nieuwendyk to Texas. In the long run, it's safe to say that it worked out quite well for both teams as Nieuwendyk helped Dallas win its first Stanley Cup (he also won the Conn Smythe Trophy), while Calgary ended up with its future captain and the top power forward in the NHL.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 7 is Detroit Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom.

At 39, I still have Lidstrom as the best defenseman in the NHL, and in my opinion, the debate shouldn't be where does he rank among the current defensemen, but where does he rank all-time? Everybody is fighting for second behind Bobby Orr, but who is next? Lidstrom? Ray Bourque? Somebody else?

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 8 is Detroit Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg.

The Detroit Red Wings have been one of the most successful teams in sports the past two decades, qualifying for the playoffs an incredible 18 years in a row, winning six conference titles and four Stanley Cups.

One of the primary reasons for their consistent success is a player development system that is second to none in the NHL. I remember watching the Stanley Cup teams of the late-90's, and even the 2001-02 team, and foolishly thinking that once they lost players like Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan and The Russian Five (my goodness, those teams were stacked) they would eventually fall back to the pack and have, at the very least, a couple of down years. Not even close.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 9 is San Jose Sharks forward Joe Thornton.

Justified or not, Joe Thornton has become the poster child for postseason futility in the NHL, leading to the creation of TradeJoeThornton.com (be careful what you wish for).

In his 11-year career with Boston and San Jose, Thornton has yet to play beyond the second round of the playoffs, while his production hasn't quite matched his lofty regular season totals. Despite his perceived postseason struggles, he stills cracks my top-10 as one of the elite players in the NHL.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 10 is New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.

There were 21 goalies selected in the 2000 NHL draft before the New York Rangers picked Henrik Lundqvist with the No. 205 pick. None of them, including Rick Dipietro, the No. 1 pick that year, have had more success than the now-27-year-old Swedish product, as he's blossomed into one of the elite goaltenders in the NHL.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 11 is New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur.

After missing nearly four months of the 2008-09 season with torn triceps, Martin Brodeur returned to the lineup in spectacular fashion, recording shutouts in two of his first three starts. Business as usual for the NHL's all-time wins leader, and one of the greatest players to ever play the position.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 12 is Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara.

Mike Milbury's tenure with the New York Islanders was so infamously bad that even when he managed to do something brilliant, like select Zdeno Chara in the second-round of one of the worst drafts in recent memory, he still managed to find a way to screw it all up.

Following the 2000-01 season, Milbury traded his fourth-year defenseman (Chara), along with Bill Muckalt and the No. 2 overall pick (Jason Spezza) to the Ottawa Senators for Alexei Yashin, and then signed him to a 10-year contract extension. The Islanders are currently paying Yashin to not play for them, while Chara is the reigning Norris Trophy winner as the top defenseman in the NHL. Amazingly, that may not even be the worst trade of the Milbury era (we'll get to that in the coming days, don't worry).

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 13 is Atlanta Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk.

In their nine-year existence, the Atlanta Thrashers have qualified for the postseason just one time, failing to win even one playoff game. The one consistent bright spot for seven of those years has been the electrifying talents of forward Ilya Kovalchuk. He's entering the final year of his contract, and negotiations are underway according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. If they can work out an agreement, it would be the biggest, and most important move in what has already been an impressive offseason that has seen the club trade for defenseman Pavel Kubina to bolster their defense, and also add forward Nik Antropov, a move Kovalchuk had a role in.

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