Top 20 NHL Defensemen: What Does Bowen Byram Need To Crack The List?
The Chicago Blackhawks have a good player in Bowen Byram, but just how good can he be?
Video Transcript
I want to wrap up today talking about the CHL.
The CHL, they finished announcing their list of the top 50 players of the last 50 years to play in their league.
Probably to the surprise of no one, Mario Lemieux topping the list there at number one.
So the top five in total are Lemieux, number two, Sidney Crosby, number three, Wayne Gretzky, number four, Connor McDavid, and number five, Mike Bossy.
So a few guys may have heard of him.
I don't know.
But, I mean, Mike, when you look at this list, how impressive is it that both Crosby and McDavid are the only active NHLers in the top five, considering they played in the CHL 20 to 30 years after some of the other guys on this list?
I mean, and it's impressive in the fact that the, you know, the, the CHL was a much tougher league going forward than it was back then.
But I look at the individual achievements of somebody like Mario Lemieux, who as an 18-year-old won a Memorial Cup and scored 282 points and 133 goals.
Now that, I don't care how weak the queue is, that's impressive.
But, you know, Wayne Gretzky had one year in the Ontario Hockey League with Sault Ste.
Marie, and he sc- as a 16-year-old scored 182 points.
I, I mean, the, I, I just don't know how And then he went to the WHA as a 17-year-old.
So I don't know how they could have ranked I, I understand they ranked Lemieux higher because he had almost, you know, 100 points more, but he did it as an 18-year-old, and we know the, the physicality that Mario Lemieux, the advantage he had as a big player.
The fact that Gretzky did it as a 16-year-old, and Gretzky was not a big, heavy player, he was just incredibly skilled.
I, I think Gretzky should've been number one and not Lemieux.
