Who's the best player you've ever watched?

[Rick M.]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Makarov! If he played his entire career in the NHL he would have over 2000 points.

His KLM linemate, Igor Larionov, had a great career in Detroit, after leaving Russia.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Was fortunate to see a lot of good players, for a guy that never had season tickets. So many that I didn't appreciate it at the time. The ones I do remember

Montreal Canadiens in the late 80's (where I grew up if you were French you picked for the Nordiques and if you were English you picked for Montreal).
Flames - Fleury (multiple times as a Flame), Iginla, Gaudreau, Kiprusoff
Gretzky (on the Rangers)
Gilmour/Sundin
Modano
Brett Hull
Kovalev
Messier
Leetch

The one that left the biggest impact on me, was Theoren Fleury in his prime.

[heep223]

A bit unconventional but I have a few memories of Ryan Getzlaf in his prime just being on a whole other level. Like just dictating the entire play while he was on the ice. I had never seen vision like that live in the NHL before.

[Samonadreau]

Crosby

Saw him play against the Oilers. He had 2 goals including the OT winner where he dangled all 4 Oilers to score.

He could dominate across all 200 ft.

[FlamesAddiction]

The greatest individual display I ever witnessed in person was Teemu Selanne scoring 4 goals against Edmonton in his rookie year. I went to a few Jets games that year and Selanne was just unstoppable every time.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Rick M.

His KLM linemate, Igor Larionov, had a great career in Detroit, after leaving Russia.

He had a great career but he never really stood out by the time he hit the NHL.

Same with Krutov. I guess starting off with the Canucks killed them.

That 7 point game Makarov had against the Oilers is probably the best single game performance by a Flame ever. Well other than some Kipper games.

[Shazam]

Gretzky.

Crosby was also great. He destroyed the Flames that night. He did whatever he wanted, no one could stop him, not for lack of trying. The crowd would gasp at points.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Flames - saw them get shutout everytime I watched in Calgary, and in Los Angeles in 2016,so I will defer to the November 1 1997 game in Denver. It was a tie game thanks to the heroics of one Tyler Moss who.made 37 saves on 40 shots. I kept waiting for Sandy McCarthy to avenge a hit from earlier in the season by Adam Deadmarsh on young Erik Andersson that basically ended his career. Moss had pulled the team.out of a hellacious slump to start that season and was coming off wins against Phoenix and Pittsburgh. The Flames ended that night at 3-8-3 with Moss backstopping them to 5 points in the 3 game stretch. Didn't last long. Also asked my wife to marry me that night and saw the Broncos and John Elway beat Seattle in old Mile High Stadium the following day. Great weekend


Non-Flames: Wayne Gretzky. Saw him play in the LA Forum several times in the early 90s. He was great every game of course.

[TheSquatch]

Lots of great players mentioned and each dominant in some way.

The answer is probably Crosby, but my memories also contain unstoppable Jagr moments and "I was watching and I didn't even see what he did" moments with Pavel Datsyuk, he just always seemed to have more magic in him than anyone else on the ice, both with the puck and without. His takeaway numbers were always ridiculous too.

[Dajazz]

Gretzky & Jagr are the obvious ones, what a treat to have seen them live in the NHL (as Sweden at university in DC, roomie worked for Capitals front office so managed to watch pretty much every home game). Missed Lemieux with a year (this was 98/99).

Yzerman and Lidstrom. The former was declining, but Lidas was coming in to his own.

I saw Adam Oates and Petr Bondra a lot.

[Incogneto]

Barry Sanders

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by IGGYFORMVP

Easy one for me. I seen Kipper in his second or third flames game and he absolutely stood on his head. I mean the Flames should have lost by 5 goals easily and Kipper was all over the place.

At the time we had been burned by so many goalies I thought it was a fluky one off game. Boy was I happy to be wrong.

He was spectacular in 2003 - 2004.

38 games played
24 wins
10 losses
4 ties
1.70 GAA !!
.933 SV%
4 shut outs.

That year was special.

It's an affront he lost 10 games that year frankly. Hardest carry by a goalie we'll probably ever see

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

So, I saw Gretzky a couple of times live when he was with the Kings, and was still great. In the games I saw him he played well, but they weren't games he dominated. In terms of games I went to where a player was in the "holy crap, this is his world and everyone else is living in it", it has to be late 2000's Pavel Datsyuk.

[flamesfever]

Bobby Orr. He always seemed like he was playing in a league of his own...above everyone else on the ice.

[MrMike]

I’d have to go with Peter Forsberg.

The man would just tear the Flames to shreds. In my own list he’s a top ten of all time talent.

[undercoverbrother]

Selanne - I was at the game he broke the rookie scoring record. Even that early in his career I said to myself "this kid might be good"

Burnaby Joe - Dude was smooth and read the game so well. Saw him a few times, but got to go to his last game at the Dome.

[Psytic]

Honestly hate to say it but McDavid. I saw a game against the Caps and he was skating around their whole team even OV Harlem Globe Trotters style. I could hear people gasping in the crowd and saying "holy ####" when he turned jets on at one point and went end to end through their whole team and narrowly missed top corner. A real one man army compared to everyone else on his team. Bure for the same reasons to.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Psytic

Honestly hate to say it but McDavid. I saw a game against the Caps and he was skating around their whole team even OV Harlem Globe Trotters style. I could hear people gasping in the crowd and saying "holy ####" when he turned jets on at one point and went end to end through their whole team and narrowly missed top corner. A real one man army compared to everyone else on his team. Bure for the same reasons to.

[Calgary14]

Ovechkin. I saw him play at the dome and in the middle of the second period I went to grab a couple beers, by the time I got back to my seat Ovechkin had scored twice. I think the Caps won that game 7-1

[savardandjokinen]

Nathan Mackinnon in 2019 playoffs