This NHL power rankings article looks at the best defensemen.
In this new series I’ve started, I will be going over the top three NHL defensemen of all-time. I mentioned in that piece how the goaltending position can be extremely lonely due to never getting credit for the teams success, only the failures.
To some extent, the same can be said about defensemen. It is usually the goal scoring forwards the fans really like, and sometimes a good defensive player isn’t as easy for a fan to notice.
Though they do not score as many goals as forwards for the most part, it is still an extremely important position. There are offensive defensemen who are great puck movers and play a big role on their teams power play. Then there are defensive defensemen, who often don’t receive the same spotlight, but are just as important, often being matched up against the opposition’s top forwards and playing big minutes on the penalty kill.
Every once in a while, you get a defencemen who can do both, and they are always extremely special. With that said, here are the three greatest to ever play the position.
3. Paul Coffey
Many other lists out there ranking the best defensemen have Paul Coffey outside of the top five, with the reasoning being he wasn’t a great defensive defenseman. While that notion is true, it doesn’t matter a whole lot considering whenever he was on the ice the puck was going in the opposing teams net.
He was one of the most important members of the 80’s Edmonton Oilers, and won three Stanley Cups with them (1984, 1985, 1987) before being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Other than Bobby Orr, you’d be hard pressed to name a better defenceman who was more offensively gifted than Paul Coffey. His outstanding 138 point 1985-86 season was just one point shy of Orr’s record 139 point season he put up in 1970-71.
During Coffey’s 138 point season, he also scored a current NHL record 48 goals, nine of which were shorthanded. He had one other 40 goal season in 1983-84, and to this day is the only defenceman to score over 40 goals twice in his career.
Besides Orr and Coffey, the highest point total ever by a defenceman is Al MacInnis with 103. Coffey had five seasons alone where he put up 103 or more points. Coffey always seemed to rise to the occasion in the playoffs too, which is very evident from his 1984-85 playoff stat line where he posted a ridiculous 12 goals and 37 points in just 18 games.
While Coffey sometimes gets overlooked in terms of greatest defencemen ever, fans of the teams he played for, especially the Edmonton Oilers, can tell you just how special he was. Sure, he played with two of the league’s greatest players ever in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, but he helped them nearly as much as they helped him. He is one of the best to ever play the position.