WHo was the best penalty killer in NHL history?

Answer 1

No one person can kill penalties. The better question is which team had the best pk unit. I would say the Montreal Canadiens of the late 70s. Their main pk unit had a forward line of Doug Jarvis, Bob Gainey, and Jacques Lemaire, with Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard on defense. They killed between 81%-88% of their penalties between 1976 thru 1979, when the league average was usually in the mid to high 70s%.

To expound on this, the first fellow makes a good point. There are, however, some players who stand out as penalty killers. He named two great ones in Jarvis and Gainey... In the 1980s, the best was another Montreal Canadien, Guy Carbonneau, a fine skater with great vision on the ice, an expert at reading the play and taking up as much of the passing lanes as possible... In the last 10 years, John Madden has been one of the best, as well as Jere Lihtenen... There are other aspects to being a penalty killer, some penalty killers are tremendous offensive threats... The mere presence on the ice of Bobby Orr or Mario Lemieux, to name two of the best examples, put the opposition on the defensive automatically. When a player is so dangerous that he causes the team with the man advantage to play conservatively, it can't be underestimated. The team with the power play will make hurried, nervous passes, will be more likely to dump the puck in order to lessen the risk of having it picked off and taken the other way for a serious scoring chance. As the previous answer stated, it is a team skill, but some individuals have a special penchant for it