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Top 100 Defensemen of All-Time
In our 2020 Collectors' Edition, The Hockey News counts down the Top 100 Defensemen of All-Time and tells the tale of each legendary player on the list.
76. Mark Giordano
BORN: Oct. 3, 1983, Toronto, Ont. NHL CAREER: 2006-present TEAMS: Cgy STATS: GP 893 G 134 A 349 P 483 PIM 745 ALL-STAR: 1 (First-1) TROPHIES: 1 (Norris-1) IT WAS MORE ABOUT purpose and less about perturbance the day Mark Giordano decided to spend his fourth year as a pro in Russia with Moscow Dynamo. Giordano was 23 in that summer of 2007 and had just broken through as an NHL defenseman with 48 games for Calgary in 2006-07 – or so he thought. The Flames had Dion Phaneuf, Robyn Regehr, Cory Sarich, Rhett Warrener and David Hale in the fold. Then they traded for Adrian Aucoin that summer and signed Anders Eriksson and Jim Vandermeer. Suddenly Giordano fell to No. 9 on the blueline depth chart, and the one-way contract he was hoping for never came. So…
36. Mark Howe
BORN: May 28, 1955, Detroit, Mich. NHL CAREER: 1973-1995 TEAMS: Har, Phi, Det STATS: GP 929 G 197 A 545 P 742 PIM 455 ALL-STAR: 3 (First-3) HHOF: 2011 YOU MAY NOT HAVE heard of him, but Bill Dineen is one of those hockey lifers, a guy whose tentacles have spread far and wide and one who has touched the lives and careers of many great NHL players. And it was Dineen who first had the idea to use Mark Howe, until then a high-scoring left winger, on defense for the Houston Aeros of the WHA. There’s little doubt Howe would have forged an outstanding career as a forward by the time he moved to the NHL along with the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80, but it was on defense that he became a Hall of Famer and…
24. Serge Savard
BORN: Jan. 22, 1946, Montreal, Que. NHL CAREER: 1967-83 TEAMS: Mtl, Wpg STATS: GP 1,040 G 106 A 333 P 439 PIM 592 ALL-STAR: 1 (Second-1) TROPHIES: 1 (Smythe-1) STANLEY CUPS: 8 HHOF: 1986 HAD THE MONTREAL Canadiens listened to a misguided midget coach or stuck to their plan, Serge Savard probably would have had his Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Red Wings. At 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds at 15, Savard moved from his home team in Amos, Que., to a midget team in Montreal. Cliff Fletcher, who ran the Habs’ youth program, received a terse message from Savard’s new coach. “Send this big, clumsy galoot back to Amos,” the coach said. “He can’t play.” Savard showed up in Montreal the next season, get this, only because the Canadiens neglected to tell him they were no longer interested…
42. Butch Bouchard
BORN: Sept. 4, 1919, Montreal, Que. NHL CAREER: 1941-1956 TEAMS: Mtl STATS: GP 785 G 49 A 144 P 193 PIM 863 ALL-STAR: 4 (First-3, Second-1) STANLEY CUPS: 4 HHOF: 1966 THE ALLITERATION might have worked well, but the Montreal Canadiens didn’t refer to Emile Bouchard as ‘Butch’ just because of the way it sounded. Bouchard was a physical specimen long before NHL players began to look as though they were photoshopped. As a point of comparison, Bouchard was a less snarly version of Scott Stevens. Bouchard came by his physique honestly. Decades before players conditioned in the off-season, Bouchard would work out by lifting railroad ties with steel plates at either end. When he attended his first tryout with the Canadiens in 1940 at 19, he traveled to the team’s training facility in St-Hyacinthe, Que., from his…
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