Hockey Number 28

Our mission to preserve the history of pro hockey through the sweater uniform numbers players wear is to objectively come up with a list of the greatest players at each number based on their career performance. This look is based on facts and statistics gathered as of 1/1/2022.

So far the following players have worn the Uniform Number of 28 on their sweaters and have been enshrined into the Hockey hall of Fame:

• Bill McCreary
• Mark Recchi

There are not any NHL hockey franchises that have retired the number 28 as of yet.

I am not going to lie, hockey is a tough sport to identify who the top players in history are. The modern statistics using Fenway and Corsi percentages are great but they only apply to players since 2008. The challenge is how do you group players from all positions on the ice throughout NHL and WHL history all together to find the best at a certain number? I am not sure there is any one way to do so correctly but here is our stab at it for this number using stats like; goals, assists, points, plus/minus, saves and bonus points for years wearing the sweater number and Hall of Fame. We also had to give Defensive line players a little boost based on their plus/minus stats. It is not perfect but here is our statistical call on the top 15 greatest NHL/WHL players wearing the number 28.

1. Mark Recchi
2. Steve Larmer
3. Ken Hodge
4. Claude Giroux
5. Steve Duchesne
6. Tomas Sandström
7. Pierre Larouche
8. Mel Bridgman
9. Eric Desjardins
10. Martin Straka
11. Brian Rafalski
12. Rick Vaive
13. Craig Conroy
14. John Anderson
15. Alexander Semin

Here is a look at our stats, years played with the uniform number and calculations on the top 25 number 28 pro hockey players:

Special thanks to the banner photo above from an unknown photographer and contributor to the public domain of Wikimedia Commons. The Pic is of Une rondelle de hockey Voir aussi PaletWoww at French Wikipedia.

Of course we also could not have done the above stat research without the assistance of Hockey-Reference.com and Stathead.com resources.

We would love to get your feedback! Please send what you are thinking to PigskinDispatch@gmail.com