S75 is here! Time to celebrate with gathering the top 75 SHL players of all time!

You might ask yourself, who is the greatest SHL player of all time? How do we look at STHS players vs FHM players? How do you look at awards vs peaks vs longevity. How do you deal with point inflation in the FHM era, etc, etc. A lot of questions to be asked, and a lot of players considered. I can’t be the only one to vote on the top 75 players.

So with me, I have asked Joe K, JayWhy, Leafs4Ever, RomanesEuntDomus, Rich, Tomen, WannabeFinn, and Kez to help me compile the top 75 players of all time. All these people have been a part of the SHL for years and years now, can understand the nuances of the different times, and have seen a lot of the people presented in the top 75 be dominant in the league. So how did we come to this specific top 75?


Methodology: The initial voting/main voting comes in the form of voting players into different tiers. I had them give me their top 5 players, (1,2,3,4,5). Then different tiers. Top 10(6-10), Tier 2(11-25), Tier 3(26-35), Tier 4(36-50), Tier 5(51-66), Tier 6(66-80), Tier 7(81-100). Grouping players into different tiers helped us with grouping players into different tiers without the worry of splitting hairs between players at that time. I asked for the top 5, as I wanted people to actually put who they thought were the SHL Goats. And then the tiers after.

After that, it was to get the rankings of each player by the tiers they were in. The points are following
1: 50
2: 45
3: 40
4: 35
5: 30
Top 10: 25
Tier 2: 20
Tier 3: 15
Tier 4: 10
Tier 5: 6
Tier 6: 3
Tier 7: 1


Then, adding up through all users who voted in the top 75, gives us the total points that the user has received. After that, we are able to get the top 75 shl players of all time.

Except there are ties, and anyone who wants to make a case if anyone falls out of the top 75, or anyone who wants to move people up or down. Make the case.

When is it coming out?

Then after all of that, we have a top 75, and some honorable mentions.The list will start on 2/1/24. Have 2 articles a day until 3/1/24. Then after that it will be 1 article a day until we get to the #1. 

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Getting even a top 100 to vote on, and then whittling it down into a top 75, and then discussing the top 75 was super hard. A lot of questions get involved.
How do you deal with the early season award winners / all stars. As there were less people + people played favorites.
Or how do you deal with the double shifting in the S30’s.
How do you compare people from the S20’s to people in FHM even?
How do you compare the S50’s great lake division dominance to modern day FHM?
Or comparing the inflated scoring of FHM8 to FHM6.
Or anyone in STHS to people in FHM. Especially with the scoring inflation that happened.
What does each member of the voting committee value?

Which is why I felt like it was important to have a lot of people voting, as well as people who were in the league for a very long time. So that they knew the different nuances of the league. And spread out enough where personal bias or preferences didn't overpower the voting.

I think it's easy to say that there are plenty of people who could make the case of being in the top 75 shl players of all time. The voting process was very tough. I myself kept on going back and forth. Making sure I rated defenseman and goalies as much as forwards. The SHL is very much a forward centric league, so trying to make sure to give defenseman and goalies their flowers too is important.

There were 139 individual people who received at least one vote in the 7 tiers. I'm sure there will be controversy, like any good list. A lot of the articles will try to give a good history of the player without making it a lot to read. Trying to aim at around 500-700 words but some are pushing into 1k +. I am also trying to put some story behind it, good quotes about the players from users/gms/players who have played with them. Trying to write 75 articles about players will get repetitive. I am trying to do the best to get the sense of why the player was great and deserved to be in the top 75. Thank you for reading


The format will be

#75: [Player Name]

In the article I will try for at least 500 words per player. If not more. Drawing quotes from users who played with them, or anything extra. Then at the end there will be a player card at the end showing a brief snapshot of the players career. With their career stats, award won / nominated for. Their position, and the points they got from the tiers voting. It would look something like this

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I will be updating this post every day with the articles. So you can either check in the media articles or here for the list each time

Google Doc with all writeups

Spreadsheet


Honorable Mentions: Link

#75: Olof Karsikko

#74: Brian Morley

#73: Monkey D. Luffy

#72: Scott Stevens

#71: Chico Salmon

#70: Mikhail Lokitonov

#69: Riley Raycroft

#68 Jonathan Lundberg

#67 Ryuuji Minamino

#66 Strom Chamberlain

#65 Robert Phelps

#64 Wyatt Wollker

#63 Sarmad Khan

#62 Max Manning

#61 Sergei Karpotsov

#60 Ben Dover

#59 Martijn Westbroek

#58 Ivo Willems

#57 Kata Vilde

#56 Bojo Biscuit

#55 Roberto Martucci

#54 Jay McDonald

#53 Dick Clapper

#52 Luke Atmey

#51 Adam Kylrad

#50 Mats Marner

#49 Elias Armia

#48 Tommy Tuck

#47 Chris York

#46 Evil AllBran

#45 Steve Harrington

#44 Ivan Lacksamus

#43 Flacko Lagerfield

#42 Alexis Metzler

#41 Tor Tuck

#40 Elizabeth Doyle

#39 Kain Webb

#38 Mat Smith

#37 Mike Izzy

#36 Vidrik Onoprienko

#35 Mike Honcho

#34 Willie Weber

#33 Konstantin Selich

#32 Rex Kirkby

#31 David Winter

#30 Ryan Jesster

#29 Jason Due

#28 Chris McZehrl

#27 Harry Carpet

#26 Ludwig Koch Schroder

#25 Terrance Nova

#24 Lauris Prikulis

#23 Tony Pepperoni

#22 Lord Pretty Flacko

#21 Bubba Nuck

#20 John McBride

#19 Michael McFadden

#18 Andreas Kvalheim

#17 Esa Anrikkanen

#16 Theo Morgan

#15 Jakub Aittokallio

#14 Carter O'Callahan

#13 Joe Kurczewski

#12 Darian Scherbluk

#11 Kristian Eriksson

#10 VLAD McZehrl

#9 Taylor McDavid

#8 Randy Randleman

#7 Chris Partlow

#6 Joe Mckeil

#5 Theo Kane

#4 Aaron Wilson

#3 Ron Mexico

#2 Alonzo Garbanzo

#1 Jason Visser

Round table: who is the goat?

Round table: retrospectives

Closing Thoughts