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During the Original Six era and well before the advent of free agency, NHL stars played their entire careers with one team and were thus able to carve out indelible legacies. Two legendary players who fit this bill were Jean Beliveau of the Montreal Canadiens and Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks – each played for two decades plus and racked up well over 1,000 career points with numerous individual and team accolades. As relative contemporaries who faced off on countless occasions during the 1960s and are among their respective teams’ all-time greatest players, thus the question:
Who was better – Jean Beliveau or Stan Mikita?
The Beginning
In the era before the NHL Entry Draft, both Beliveau and Mikita were identified and signed as teenagers, eventually making their debuts at a very young age.
Born and raised in Quebec, Canada as the oldest of eight children, Beliveau played both baseball and hockey growing up; he was spotted by a Canadiens scout at 15 and signed a “B-form” contract that obligated him to play for the Canadiens if he decided to turn pro. After starring in the Quebec Senior Hockey League (QSHL) and playing briefly for Montreal in 1950-1951 (two games played) and 1952-1953 (three games), Beliveau joined Montreal permanently for the 1953-1954 season and put up 13 goals and 21 assists for 34 points in 44 games played.
As for Mikita, he was born in the Slovak Republic (modern-day Slovakia), but moved to Ontario, Canada as an eight-year-old. There, he starred in the junior ranks with St. Catharines Teepees of the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA) before joining the Blackhawks – as a rookie in 1959-1960 at age 19, Mikita scored 8 goals with 18 assists for 26 points with a +13 +/- rating in 67 games played for a fourth-place finish in the Calder Trophy voting for top rookie.
Career Comparison
Across twenty plus years apiece in the NHL, Beliveau and Mikita were each at one point considered the best player in the league and both retired with a number of team records, some of which still stand to this day.
At 23, Beliveau became a full-fledged NHL star, scoring 37 goals with 36 assists for 73 points in 1954-1955 to finish fourth for the Hart Trophy as league MVP (when looking at numbers, remember that for most of his career in the Original Six era, the NHL season was 70 games long instead of the current 82). The next year, he would dominate and win both the Hart and Ross Trophies with a league-high and career-best 47 goals with 41 assists for a league-leading 88 points. As an encore in 1956-1957, Beliveau tallied 33 goals and 51 assists for 84 points to finish second for the Hart Trophy to Gordie Howe. Over a three-year stretch, he would have his two highest-scoring seasons:
- 1958-1959: a league-high 45 goals with 46 assists for a career-best 91 points; finished third for the Hart Trophy
- 1960-1961: 32 goals and a league-leading 58 assists for 90 points with a +10 +/- rating
As he entered his 30s, Beliveau continued to play at a high level and produce a point-per-game plus (he would consistently do so for roughly 15 years) – this included his second Hart Trophy in 1963-1964 on the strength of 28 goals and 50 assists for 78 points with a +9 +/- rating. A few seasons later, with 29 goals and a league-best 48 assists for 77 points and a +10 +/- rating, he again finished second for the Hart Trophy, this time to Bobby Hull. Then, at an age when most players were either already retired or diminishing in skill, Beliveau would have back-to-back runner-up Hart finishes at ages 36 and 37:
- 1967-1968: 31 goals and 37 assists for 68 points with a +25 +/- rating; finished second to Mikita
- 1968-1969: 33 goals and 49 assists for 82 points with a +15 +/- rating; finished second to Phil Esposito
Even in his final season in 1970-1971 at age 39, Beliveau remained highly productive with 76 points (25 goals and 51 assists) and a +24 +/- rating. Upon retirement, he was the franchise leader in career points and second in goals to only Maurice Richard; currently, Beliveau is second all-time in scoring among Canadiens to Guy Lafleur, and third in career games played for Montreal behind Henri Richard and Larry Robinson.
Meanwhile, after showing improvement in his second season, Mikita broke out in 1961-1962 with 77 points (25 goals and 52 assists) with a +12 +/- rating, marking the beginning of an entire decade with 70+ points per year. This was followed by a second-place Hart finish (to Howe): 31 goals and 45 assists for 76 points with a +25 +/- rating. Over the next five seasons, Mikita would win four Ross Trophies, two Hart Trophies, two Lady Byng Trophies for “sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability”, and also led the NHL in assists for three consecutive seasons:
- 1963-1964: 39 goals and 50 assists for 89 points with a +21 +/- rating; won first Ross Trophy and finished fifth for the Hart
- 1964-1965: 28 goals and a league-leading 59 assists for 87 points with a +29 +/- rating; won second Ross Trophy
- 1965-1966: 30 goals and a league-leading 48 assists for 78 points with a +6 +/- rating
- 1966-1967: 35 goals and a league-leading 62 assists for a career-high 97 points (tying teammate Bobby Hull’s then single-season points record from the previous year) with a career-best +40 +/- rating; won first Hart Trophy, third Ross Trophy, and first Lady Byng – he is the only player to win all three awards in a season. Interestingly, Mikita had previously been among the league’s most penalized players – he had three seasons with 100+ penalty minutes, including a career-high 154 in 1964-1965, before improving to only 12 penalty minutes
- 1967-1968: career-high 40 goals and 47 assists for 87 points; won second straight Hart Trophy, fourth Ross Trophy, and second Lady Byng. This would be the last time a Blackhawk would lead the league in scoring until Patrick Kane in 2015-2016
Though Mikita never won another major award after his age-27 season, he remained an elite player for another decade plus. In 1968-1969, he scored 30 goals with a career-high 67 assists to tie his career-best mark of 97 points, with a +14 +/- rating. The next year, Mikita finished fourth for the Hart Trophy with 86 points (39 goals and 47 assists) with a +27 +/- rating. Perhaps even impressively, in his mid-30s, he would post three straight 80+ point seasons, with a couple of top-10 Hart Trophy finishes:
- 1972-1973: 27 goals and 56 assists for 83 points with a +31 +/- rating
- 1973-1974: 30 goals and 50 assists for 80 points with a +24 +/- rating
- 1974-1975: 36 goals and 50 assists for 86 points with a +14 +/- rating
These would be his last great seasons, as Mikita would be plagued by back issues and dipped to the 50-60 point range in his last half-decade in the NHL – following 17 games played in the 1979-1980 season, he would hang up his skates at the age of 39, retiring as the Blackhawks’ all-time career leader in seasons played, games played, assists, and points. Additionally, Mikita retired as the third-leading scorer in NHL history (behind Howe and Esposito) and for many years, was the highest-scoring European-born player ever (until he was surpassed by Jaromir Jagr).
Overall, Mikita played 22 NHL seasons with the Blackhawks to Beliveau’s 20 years with the Canadiens, and has the advantage of more than 250 additional games played due to better durability, thus resulting in better career statistics across the board for goals, assists, points, and +/- rating (note that Beliveau’s career +/- rating is a little misleading because the metric was not calculated for the first eight years of his career). More specifically, Mikita has the slight edge in 30-goal seasons (9x vs. 8x) and 80+ point seasons (9x vs. 5x), though both players had a pair of 90+ point seasons and Beliveau actually scored 40+ goals more often (2x vs. 1x) and has a higher career point-per-game average (1.08 vs 1.05). For awards and accolades, Beliveau garnered more All-Star Game selections (12 to 9), but each player took home two Hart Trophies and Mikita won more Ross Trophies (4 to 1) and Lady Byngs (2 to 0). As among the premier players of their era, Beliveau (1972) and Mikita (1983) were both slam-dunk Hockey Hall of Fame inductees.
Regular Season Statistics
| Jean Beliveau | Player | Stan Mikita |
| 20 (1950-1951, 1952-1971) | Seasons | 22 (1958-1980) |
| 1,125 | Games Played | 1,396 |
| 507 | Goals | 541 |
| 712 | Assists | 926 |
| 1,219 | Points | 1,467 |
| +117 | +/- | +329 |
| 13x | All-Star Games | 9x |
| 2x | Hart Trophies | 2x |
| 1x | Ross Trophies | 4x |
| 10x | Stanley Cups | 1x |
| 1x | Conn Smythes | – |
| – | Other Awards | 2x Lady Byng |
| 1972 | Hall of Fame Induction | 1983 |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
While Beliveau and Mikita were similarly accomplished during the regular season, the former experienced far more postseason success as a member of the Canadiens dynasty; nevertheless, both players were perennial playoff participants (during the Original Six era, four of the six teams made the playoffs annually) and won Stanley Cup titles during their long and storied careers.
In 20 NHL seasons, Beliveau made the playoffs 17x and scored double-digit points on 11 occasions. This included 10 championships as a player (second most in league history behind only Henri Richard’s 11 Stanley Cups), as well as three losses in the Stanley Cup Finals – in fact, Beliveau is the all-time leader in scoring for the Stanley Cup Finals with 62 points (30 goals and 32 assists). Notably, he was part of five consecutive championship teams from 1955 to 1960 and led the playoffs in scoring with 19 points (12 goals and 7 assists) in 1955-1956 as Montreal prevailed over the Detroit Red Wings in five games. Later on, during the front end of back-to-back titles in 1965-1966, Beliveau won the inaugural Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP, putting up 8 goals and 8 assists for 16 points in a seven-game win over Mikita’s Blackhawks. Other title highlights included leading the playoffs with 10 assists (15 total points) for Stanley Cup #9 in 1968-1969 (a sweep of the St. Louis Blues) and going out on top in 1970-1971 by leading the postseason with 16 assists (22 total points) in another seven-game victory over Chicago. Additionally, Beliveau also won seven Stanley Cups as an executive for the Canadiens, giving him 17 total titles with the franchise.
Though he made 18 postseason trips with double-digit scoring on eight occasions, Mikita only won one Stanley Cup title with four other Finals losses (once to the Toronto Maple Leafs and three times to the Canadiens). His postseason peak came in back-to-back Finals trips in the early 1960s:
- 1960-1961: led the playoffs with 6 goals and added 5 assists for 11 points (+5 +/- rating) as Chicago beat the Red Wings in six games
- 1961-1962: paced the postseason with 21 points (6 goals and 15 assists) and a +9 +/- rating, but fell to the Maple Leafs in six games
Playoff Statistics
| Jean Beliveau | Player | Stan Mikita |
| 162 | Games Played | 155 |
| 79 | Goals | 59 |
| 97 | Assists | 91 |
| 176 | Points | 150 |
| +27 | +/- | -8 |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; both Beliveau and Mikita played well into their late 30s, though Mikita in particular was slowed towards the tail end of his career by nagging injuries. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Jean Beliveau | Player | Stan Mikita |
| 1954-1957, 1958-1961, 1963-1964, 1965-1966, 1967-1969 | Decade of Dominance | 1962-1970, 1972-1974 |
| 665 | Games Played | 698 |
| 349 | Goals | 329 |
| 456 | Assists | 531 |
| 805 | Points | 860 |
| +89 | +/- | +218 |
Source: Hockey-Reference.com
When normalizing across their decades of dominance, Mikita has a slight edge in all counting categories (again, the +/- rating comparison is inexact since the metric was not available for much of Beliveau’s prime) and also has a small advantage in terms of per-game scoring average (1.23 to 1.21).
My Thoughts
More than 40 years after either player last laced up their skates in an NHL game, Jean Beliveau and Stan Mikita remain not only legends of their era, but also among the top centers in league history. From a purely statistical perspective, Mikita may have the advantage, but I think Beliveau’s greatness goes beyond just his regular season numbers (which are great in their own right) – much like Bill Russell for the Boston Celtics in basketball, Beliveau was the heart and soul of the Montreal Canadiens and a driving force behind 10 Stanley Cup-winning teams; to this day, he remains the league’s all-time leading scorer in Finals games and in comparison to Mikita, scored at a much higher per-game rate than his Blackhawks counterpart. Certainly no knock on Mikita’s greatness, but Beliveau’s combination of overall scoring prowess, leadership, and postseason performance elevate him to a slightly higher place in the upper echelons of NHL legends.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Jean Beliveau
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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