Of the players on the list, 39 are
centremen, 21 are
defencemen, 15 are
goaltenders, 15 are right
wingers and 10 are left wingers. There are 21 players who started their NHL career in the decade of the 1980s, and 22 who last played in the NHL during the decade of the 2000s, the most by decade for each category. The player on the list with the shortest NHL career is goaltender
Bill Durnan, who played for seven seasonswinning the
Vezina Trophy and selected to the
NHL First All-Star team in six of his seasons. The two players on the list with the longest NHL career, at 26 seasons each, are right winger
Gordie Howe and defenceman
Chris Chelios. At the time of the list's publication, six players on it were still active in the NHL (
Jaromir Jagr,
Duncan Keith,
Alexander Ovechkin,
Sidney Crosby,
Jonathan Toews and
Patrick Kane). ==Reaction==