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Bobby Orr
Born
Defenceman, Boston Bruins and Chicago, 1966 to 1979. Orr won eight consecutive Norris Trophies as the best defenceman and is still the only defenceman to lead the league in scoring, which he did twice. His end-to-end rushes showed that a defender could start and finish attacks, and his speed meant he could recover in time to do his defensive job.
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Bobby Clarke
Born
Centre, Philadelphia Flyers, 1969 to 1984. Clarke captained the Flyers to Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975 and won the Hart Trophy three times, while also winning faceoffs, killing penalties and later taking the Selke Trophy in 1983. He played his whole career with type 1 diabetes, and his relentless forechecking set the tone for one of the era's toughest teams.
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Bob Gainey
Left wing, Montreal Canadiens, 1973 to 1989. Gainey won the first four Selke Trophies, created in 1978 for the best defensive forward, and five Stanley Cups. The Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov reportedly called him the most technically complete player in the world, and his Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1979 showed that his checking never came at the cost of influence on the scoresheet.
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Ray Bourque
Defenceman, Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche, 1979 to 2001. Bourque won five Norris Trophies and retired as the highest-scoring defenceman in NHL history, yet his value came as much from positioning and long, calm shifts against opponents' best lines. He finally won the Stanley Cup in his last game, with Colorado in 2001, after 22 seasons.
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Guy Carbonneau
Centre, Montreal Canadiens, St Louis and Dallas Stars, 1980 to 2000. Carbonneau won three Selke Trophies and three Stanley Cups with two clubs, built on faceoff skill and shadowing the opposition's best centre. He had been a prolific scorer in junior hockey and chose the checking role in the NHL, which makes him a model for players asked to change their game for the team.
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Steve Yzerman
Centre, Detroit Red Wings, 1983 to 2006. Yzerman scored 155 points in 1988–89, then under Scotty Bowman rebuilt his game around defence, winning the Selke Trophy in 2000. That change turned Detroit into a champion: he captained them to three Stanley Cups and won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2002, playing through a serious knee injury.
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Sergei Fedorov
Centre, Detroit Red Wings and others, 1990 to 2009. In 1993–94 Fedorov won both the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player and the Selke Trophy as its best defensive forward, scoring 56 goals in the same season. His skating let him cover ground no checker could match, and Detroit sometimes used him on defence, a measure of how complete his game was.
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Nicklas Lidström
Defenceman, Detroit Red Wings, 1991 to 2012. Lidström won seven Norris Trophies and four Stanley Cups and was the first European to captain a Cup winner, in 2008. He rarely threw big hits, relying instead on positioning and stick work that took away passing lanes, while still running the power play. Teammates nicknamed him "The Perfect Human" for how few mistakes he made.
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Jere Lehtinen
Right wing, Dallas Stars, 1995 to 2010. Lehtinen won three Selke Trophies, unusual for a winger since the award tends to go to centres, and the Stanley Cup in 1999. He scored steadily without seeking attention, and Finland relied on him through several Olympic medal runs, which makes him the definitive example of a quiet player whose value shows on the shot chart rather than the highlights.
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Hayley Wickenheiser
Born
Forward, Canada, 1994 to 2017. Wickenheiser won four Olympic gold medals and was named the tournament's most valuable player twice, as a physical centre who played in every situation, from penalty killing to the power play. She also played professionally in a men's league in Finland in 2003, and later became a doctor and an NHL executive.
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Pavel Datsyuk
Centre, Detroit Red Wings, 2001 to 2016, then the KHL. Datsyuk won three straight Selke Trophies from 2008 and two Stanley Cups, and was famous for lifting opponents' sticks to steal the puck cleanly. His dekes made the highlight reels, but coaches prized how often he took the puck back, which made his attacking skill and his defence the same thing.
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Patrice Bergeron
Centre, Boston Bruins, 2003 to 2023. Bergeron won the Selke Trophy a record six times, the last in his final season, and the Stanley Cup in 2011. He was one of the best faceoff players of his era and anchored a line that controlled possession against opponents' top units while still scoring, which is why he is often called the model modern two-way centre.
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Anže Kopitar
Born
Centre, Los Angeles Kings. Kopitar, the first Slovenian in the NHL, led the Kings' scoring for most of his career and won two Selke Trophies, in 2016 and 2018. His size and puck protection let Los Angeles hold possession in the opponent's end; he was their top centre in the Stanley Cup wins of 2012 and 2014 and later became captain.
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Jonathan Toews
Born
Centre, Chicago Blackhawks and later Winnipeg. Toews captained Chicago to three Stanley Cups between 2010 and 2015, won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2010 and the Selke Trophy in 2013. His faceoff work and defensive reliability made him the player Chicago sent out to protect a lead, while he still scored the goals that won series.
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Marie-Philip Poulin
Born
Forward, Canada and Montréal Victoire. Poulin, known as "Captain Clutch", scored the winning goals in the Olympic finals of 2010 and 2014 and twice in the 2022 final, and captains the national team. She is also one of the strongest defensive forwards in the women's game, trusted on faceoffs and penalty kills, which is why her big goals come in matches she has already been controlling.
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Aleksander Barkov
Born
Centre, Florida Panthers. Barkov has won the Selke Trophy three times, in 2021, 2024 and 2025, and captained Florida to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025. He scores at a point-a-game rate while shutting down opposing top lines, and his clean stick work also earned him the Lady Byng Trophy, so he defends well without spending time in the penalty box.
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Cale Makar
Born
Defenceman, Colorado Avalanche. Makar's skating draws comparisons with Orr: he joins the rush and scores at a rate few defencemen have reached, and his edge work lets him close down attackers in his own zone before they can shoot. He has won the Norris Trophy more than once, and in 2022 he took both the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy.
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