Over the past six weeks, The Athletic’s hockey reporters polled players around the league to get answers to our most pressing NHL questions. When all was said and done, we spoke to nearly 200 players — 198, to be exact, split almost exactly 50/50 among players on Eastern and Western Conference teams (100 to 98; sorry about the East Coast bias).



Before we get to the answers, note these results are not entirely scientific. Every player was granted anonymity but many still declined to answer some of the questions, were indifferent, offered a simple “no comment” or, in one case, a “fuck off with that question.”



Nevertheless, the results are very revealing. They show that Sidney Crosby is still seen as the best player in the game, Carey Price remains the gold-standard in goal and players like to party in Vegas.



Let’s get to the results.



1. Who is the best all-around player in the NHL today?



We thought the...