Top 50 small men in NHL history (No. 31-40)
Welcome to the second instalment of a comprehensive list of the best diminutive players all-time, taking into account the eras in which they played
One time I was speaking with Theo Fleury and he made the bold proclamation: “I’m one of the greatest small men to ever play the game.” That got me thinking, just how good was Fleury compared to other small men? So I thought I would come up with a comprehensive list of the top 50 small men to ever play in the NHL. I enlisted a panel consisting of hockey historians Eric Zweig and Bob Duff, former USA Today hockey writer Kevin Allen, TSN senior managing editor Steve Dryden, former hockey card executive Ken Whitmell and myself, who ranked our top 50 small players in order. I also got some valuable input from Scotty Bowman.
But this list is unlike any other one you’re going to see ranking small players. That’s because it was assembled taking into account the height and weight of the average NHL player during the era in which the player played. In order to be eligible for this list, at some point in his career the player’s height and weight according to nhl.com (and I realize those can vary by source, but the NHL is the most reliable) had to be at least two inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter than that of the average NHL player.
That’s why you’ll find 5-foot-10, 177-pound Patrick Kane on this list, but not 5-foot-9, 165-pound Howie Morenz. In reality, Morenz wasn’t much more diminutive than the average NHL player in the 1930s, although he’s considered a small player. In fact, you’re not going to find Marcel Dionne on this list because, even though he was just 5-foot-9, he weighed in at 190 pounds, which was actually almost six pounds heavier than the average player when he broke into the NHL in 1971-72. For the same reasons you won’t find Frank Brimsek, Pat Verbeek or Bob Baun, who highlight most small-men lists, on this one.
Today I highlight Nos. 31-40. I’ll release the list 10 names at a time over the coming weeks. Enjoy. Here’s the link to Nos. 41-50.
40. Brendan Gallagher
5-foot-9, 184 pounds
Brendan Gallagher is the kind of player who makes scouts at all levels of hockey occasionally wake up in a cold sweat. He’s no walk in the park for his opponents either, but talent evaluators who dismissed him because of his size did so at their own peril.
In the 2007 Western Hockey League draft, 194 players were selected before Gallagher was taken by the Vancouver Giants, despite the fact that his father, Ian, was the Giants’ strength and conditioning coach. Three years later, 146 players were selected before him in the 2020 NHL draft. If you revisit those two drafts, he’s a top-10 pick in the WHL and likely a top-15 pick in the NHL.
So it should come as no surprise that Gallagher is a patron saint for small players who have gone ignored. In his prime, he was one of those rare wingers who could drive a line, not with his talent, but his determination and his willingness to go to the dirtiest and greasiest areas of the ice. The result is two 30-goal seasons and two additional 20-goal seasons, but also a career that has been derailed in recent years by injuries.
39. Viktor Arvidsson
5-foot-10, 185 pounds
Pop quiz: Prior to this season, who held the Nashville Predators’ franchise record for most goals in a season? If you guessed Viktor Arvidsson, go to the head of the class and collect your gold star. Until this season, when Filip Forsberg and Matt Duchene had career years, Arvidsson’s 34 goals in the 2018-19 season was the high-water mark for the franchise.
Early the next season, Arvidsson absorbed two dirty, vicious and dangerous crosschecks from St. Louis Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo and he spent most of the next two seasons in a funk before being dealt to the Los Angeles Kings for draft picks. But he was very much back to his old self in Los Angeles this season, registering the fourth 20-goal season of his career.
With 94 goals in the three seasons from 2016-17 through ’18-19, Arvidsson was 19th in goal scoring during that time span and no player on the Predators scored more goals, despite averaging only 17:54 in ice time per game. Arvidsson did not hide his displeasure at being traded from Nashville, nor did teammates Forsberg or Ryan Johansen, who took to social media to voice their disapproval.
38. Cam Atkinson
5-foot-8, 176 pounds
Shortly after Bobby Brink signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, the team was out for dinner and had Atkinson and Brink stand back-to-back to see who is taller. Atkinson came in just a shade taller than his new teammate, something that doesn’t happen very often. Atkinson has spoken many times during his career about how doubters “fuelled my fire” to not only play in the NHL, but thrive.
When Atkinson was dealt to the Flyers over the summer, he left the Columbus Blue Jackets second all-time in games played, goals and points to Rick Nash. His 16 shorthanded goals and six hat tricks are the franchise high-water marks. Like Martin St-Louis, who mentored Atkinson early in his career, Atkinson has very explosive speed and an excellent touch around the net. Despite playing for a moribund Flyers’ team, Atkinson hit the 20-goal mark this season for the seventh time in his NHL career. He has been a streaky player throughout his career, but he doesn’t shy away from going to areas of the ice where life can be difficult.
37. Adam Fox
5-foot-11, 183 pounds
Fox might not seem like a small player, but he actually is by today’s standards, particularly when it comes to defensemen. And if he continues the upward trajectory he’s put himself on early in his career, he’ll move up this list significantly before he retires. The 2020-21 Norris Trophy winner has excellent playmaking and vision, and his ability to make the first pass is elite. New York-born and Harvard educated, Fox put some pressure on himself early in his career when he first refused to sign with the Calgary Flames after they drafted him in 2016, then with the Carolina Hurricanes after they traded for him in 2018.
He’s not the most physical player, but his quick stick makes him difficult to beat in the defensive zone. Fox is certainly more typical of the new-age NHL defenseman, which is why he has been able to make his size a non-factor. A favorite of the analytics community, Fox has a long career ahead of him as an assist machine.
36. Johnny Gagnon
5-foot-5, 140 pounds
You’re not going to find Howie Morenz on this list because, at 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds, he actually wasn’t that much smaller than the average NHL player of his time. And he was a behemoth compared to his linemates Aurel Joliat (who will make an appearance higher on this list) and Gagnon. Legend has it that Gagnon and Joliat would weigh each other almost daily to see who held the bragging rights of being the lighter man.
Nicknamed ‘Black Cat’ for his speed and thick thatch of black hair, Gagnon was one of the smallest and lightest players in the NHL at the time. But that didn’t stop him from being a productive player for the Montreal Canadiens. He hit double digits in goals each of his first three seasons, all of them playing with Morenz and Joliat. Morenz was dealt to the Chicago Black Hawks after the 1933-34 season and Gagnon was traded to the Boston Bruins midway through the next season, but returned to Montreal in 1935-36. The next season he scored 20 goals and led the Canadiens offensively without Morenz, who died that season.
35. Tony Tanti
5-foot-9, 180 pounds
You know a guy is good when he breaks a scoring record that was held by Wayne Gretzky. And not only did Tanti break The Great One’s rookie goal scoring record in the Ontario Hockey League, he shattered it by scoring 81 goals for the Oshawa Generals in 1980-81, which was 11 more than Gretzky scored as a rookie with the Soo Greyhounds.
And Tanti didn’t stop his scoring ways once he got to the NHL, with three 40-goal seasons and two additional seasons in which he scored 39, all for the Vancouver Canucks. In fact, at one time, Tanti held the franchise record for goals in a season with 45 and led the Canucks in goals for five straight seasons. His 10 career hat tricks are tied for the most in team history with Markus Naslund. Though Tanti is best-known as a Canuck, he was actually drafted 12th overall by the Black Hawks in 1981, after his rookie OHL season. He played just three games over two seasons with Chicago before being dealt to Vancouver for Curt Fraser.
34. Edgar Laprade
5-foot-8, 160 pounds
Laprade didn’t play in the NHL until he was 26 years old, but that wasn’t for lack of the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens trying to sign him. The Rangers had actually been trying to get Laprade on a contract in the late 1930s, but he stayed home to play senior hockey in what is now Thunder Bay before joining the Canadian Forces in World War II.
But Laprade turned out to definitely be worth the wait, winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in 1945-46.
Nicknamed ‘Beaver,’ both because of his size and his relentless work ethic, Laprade was a tireless skater who played both ends of the ice, with an emphasis on his own end. Even though he won the Lady Byng Trophy only once, he went three full seasons with the Rangers without a single penalty minute and three other times had only two. The Rangers weren’t exactly a juggernaut in the late 1940s and early ’50s, so Laprade played for a team that made the playoffs only twice in his 10-year career.
33. Dick Duff
5-foot-9, 166 pounds
Shortly after Dick Duff first came to the Montreal Canadiens in the middle of the 1964-65 season, he had a chance encounter with coach Toe Blake in the streets of Montreal while out for a walk. Blake politely asked him how things were going, then snapped at Duff that they’d better start going a lot better or his stay in Montreal would be a brief one.
Duff played the rest of that season in Montreal and five more, winning four Stanley Cups in the process. That went nicely with the two he won with the Toronto Maple Leafs. In a span of five years from 1961-62 through 1965-66, Duff won the Cup four times, with two different teams. Duff also had a penchant for big goals, scoring late in the third period of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final in 1962, which gave the Maple Leafs their first Cup in 11 years. He took pride in the fact that from 1960 through 1969, he was the NHL’s fifth-highest playoff scorer behind Jean Beliveau, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Gordie Howe.
32. Brian Gionta
5-foot-7, 178 pounds
During the 1999-2000 season, while in Boston covering a Toronto Maple Leafs road game, I went to Boston College to do a piece on future Maple Leaf Jeff Farkas, who was having an outstanding senior season. In the team’s weight room was a record of which player had squatted and bench pressed the most weight that season. On a team that included future NHLers such as Mike Mottau, Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi, Brian Gionta’s name was at the top of both lists.
Gionta came agonizingly close to scoring 50 goals when he had 48 for the New Jersey Devils in 2005-06, the second of seven straight seasons in which he would score at least 20.
His leadership capabilities were on full display later in his career, when he went on to captain both the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres. He was brilliant for the Canadiens in their surprising run to the Eastern Conference final in 2010, finishing with nine goals and 15 points in 19 games, second to fellow small man Mike Cammalleri.
31. Doug Jarvis
5-foot-9, 170 pounds
Before there was Keith Yandle and Phil Kessel, there was Doug Jarvis. Until both players broke his consecutive games played record this season, Jarvis was the NHL’s Ironman for 35 years. A checking center who won the Selke Trophy in 1983-84, Jarvis set the Ironman record as a small man who did an awful lot of heavy lifting for 964 straight games.
Jarvis entered the league in time for the 1975-76 season, which coincided with one of the greatest dynasties in NHL history. He won the Stanley Cup in each of his first four years with the Montreal Canadiens and while he hit the 20-goal mark just once during his career, Jarvis carved a niche as one of the best shutdown forwards of his generation. Jarvis was actually drafted in the second round by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1975, but they traded his rights to Montreal for Greg Hubick, which was the kind of thing the Leafs were notorious for doing in the 1970s.