Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Not to mention “franchise,” which originally meant a player so impactful on and off the ice that he could turn a franchise’s fortunes around (ie Lemieux, Sakic, Yzerman, Brodeur) and today means the best player at his position on a team.
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Though the term generational really started with Crosby, I think it was retroactively assigned to a few players. Over the last 45 years, I would say the players perceived to be “generational” when they were about to enter the NHL were Gretzky, Lemieux, Lindros, Crosby, McDavid and Bedard. That list, IMO fits the hype and skill associated with those players before entering the league. Also, the timing of each one entering the NHL is pretty evenly spread out to assign each one to a generation with the exception of maybe Lemieux and Gretzky. Outside of those two, these “generational” players come into the league around once every 10 years. All of those players dominated the NHL in some way for some some period of time as well… obviously Lindros ran into serious injuries that derailed his career but for a time, he was perceived as one of if not the best player in the game.
That’s not to say there weren’t other players along the way that were close to the same hype as those players before entering the league (I feel like Ovechkin could be on this list).