Readers on my best and most overrated U.S. players

	Phil Housley scored a lot of points and might have lifted the Stanley Cup had the teams he played for been better. AP
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My recent column about the best American players in NHL history drew a number of responses.

Brett Hull didn't make the list of 10 best U.S.-born players? He'd have to be the best sniper. He didn't even make honorable mention.
-- Marcus, San Jose, CA

You're not the only reader who wrote in about the omission of Hull, who was actually born in Belleville, Ontario. Unlike Rod Langway, who was born in what was then Formosa but learned the game in Massachusetts, Hull moved back and forth between the U.S. and Canada in his early life. He played some of his early organized hockey in Winnipeg and was drafted out of the Junior A British Columbia Junior Hockey League's Penticton Knights. He could, therefore, be considered a product of Canadian hockey as easily as one from the U.S. even though he subsequently played for the U.S. Olympic Team. We made a special exception for Langway because his career clearly started in the U.S. as there was no organized hockey in his birth country.

Several readers wrote in to question my opinion that America's all-time leading scorer, Phil Housley, is overrated.

How many points do you think he would have had if he played on decent teams? It may be more remarkable that he scored that many points playing for teams that were lacking in talent. Who knows how many points he could have scored playing with some better players.
-- Steve, Albion, NY

I don't know if overrated is a fair word to describe Housley. Maybe playoff-choker, or something along those lines. During the regular season, he was an offensive force, almost as good as Brian Leetch. It was the postseason that made the difference. I was a little surprised that only twice did he advance past the first round, but it's true that he never seemed to come through in the clutch. Even in 1998, he had little to do with the Capitals' run to the finals. Their success had a lot more to do with Olie Kolzig, Brian Bellows and Esa Tikkanen.
-- Rick Fischer, Fairfax, VA.

Granted, Housley couldn't have done much to improve some of the Buffalo teams he played on. Some of his teams in Winnipeg were pretty good. He might have fit in better with the Edmonton teams that simply tried to outgun everyone. Then again, who wouldn't? I don't know if he could have played on the disciplined Islanders of the early '80s that won four straight Stanley Cups.

A quick tale about Housley: I was covering a game in Madison Square Garden when he was playing for the Capitals. After the game that night, I ran into the official scorer whom I knew and started to wave to him. He seemed distracted and pulled two other off-ice officials into a corner. It seemed that Housley had complained about not being awarded an assist and the scorer wanted to reconstruct the play with the other officials to make sure he hadn't made a mistake. This was a game Housley's team had lost, by the way.