Ten members of the Chicago Blackhawks were named to the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players list on Friday night. The names were announced as part of the All-Star celebration in Los Angeles, where Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Duncan Keith were among those in attendance to receive their honors.
Here they are, the #Blackhawks in attendance for tonight’s #NHL100 celebration! pic.twitter.com/RpBHIU4Qgo
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) January 28, 2017
Kane, Toews, and Keith were among just six active players to make the list. The others were Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, and Alex Ovechkin, meaning that big names like Evgeni Malkin, Jarome Iginla, Marian Hossa, and Joe Thornton were left off.
That’s a big reason that the Hawks were so well-represented, although they had players from several eras. Here’s the complete list of Blackhawks on the Top 100:
- Jonathan Toews
- Patrick Kane
- Duncan Keith
- Stan Mikita
- Bobby Hull
- Max Bentley
- Denis Savard
- Chris Chelios
- Tony Esposito
- Glenn Hall/
The younger guys are arguably the most surprising on this list, although you could make a fair case that Denis Savard isn’t quite deserving. He put up good numbers in the 1980s, but offenses were scoring goals at incredible rates back then.
And when you see that longtime Blackhawks defenseman Pierre Pilote, one of the best to play the position, was left off the list, it’s fair to wonder if they should’ve been swapped. Pilote was easily the biggest snub among Chicago players, even more so than Hossa.
Still, 10 Blackhawks on the list is pretty incredible, even if a few of them don’t necessarily deserve to be there. We’ll take it.
Bentley and Hall were among the first 33 players who played predominantly during the NHL’s first half-century, from 1917-1966, that were named Jan. 1 at the Centennial Classic in Toronto.
The remaining 67, who played from 1967-present, were announced Friday. Players were announced alphabetically by decade for TV without ranking them, so while we can argue about who should’ve been on the list, the league opted not to actually give an order. Who knows, maybe Toews is No. 1!