Price is also a franchise player....pretty much ALL GMs in this league would pick Price to be their team's goalie if they had a choice (forget his contract for a second)
So is Stamkos....so is Tavares...so is Kopitar....so is Ovechkin (like it or not)
You have about 10-15 franchise players in this league...which is normal, these are the top of the top in the world...
I agree more with Rolex on this one, as I think there are way more than 4-6 franchise players in the league.
My definition goes even further.
Patrice Bergeron as everything of a franchise player to me :
-Elite player
-Best player on the team
-Heart and soul of the team
-Leader on and off the ice
-Fan favorite
-Building block hockey and marketing wise
I would argue that almost evey team in the league has at least one franchise players, except for the bottom feeders like Colorado who are actively looking to find one to build on.
I would also argue that a few elite teams have two franchise players, like Chicago with Toews and Kane, or Crosby and Malkin with Pittsburgh.
I don’t think a GM can give a contract like the one he gave to Toews without considering him a franchise player.
(I still think the best and more useful player on the Blackhawks is Duncan Keith, but that is another story)
So I would estimate the number of franchise players in the league to roughly 30.
Without analysing every player one by one, I would estimate the number of elite players to maybe 60.
(20 elite centre, around 35 elite wingers and less than 10 elite goaltenders).
So IMO around 60 Elite players, and around 30 Franchise players.
When GW and Altair talk about the following group of 4 players :
Crosby
McDavid
Karlsson
Matthews
I think this group is the level beyond Franchise players,
GENERATIONAL Players.
Crosby, McDavid and Karlsson are definitively Generational talents to me, but I would not be ready to put Matthews in that list yet.
Matthews is the real deal, an Elite and Franchise player at a very young age, but generational I’m not quite sure yet.