The Official Top 10 NHL Players Of The Decade Because Everyone Else Got It Wrong
One of my goals for 2020 is to get triggered less. Just take a deep breath. Don’t let the opinions of others get under my skin. If there are people out there who are morons well, that’s their problem. I am not going to let articles or tweets by others bother me going forward.
Right now though it’s still 2019 sooooo, hey Whyshinski/ESPN and NBC…
You know, I saw the PuckDaddy’s, or whatever he calls himself at ESPN now, list and decided to ignore it in the moment. He ran a good blog back in the day. Covered the game well. I just never valued his opinion. I wasn’t going to let one dope suck me into a trap of reacting to an ommission and insult of Patrick Kane being outside the top 10. Then when NBC did the same thing…I could’t ignore it. I reacted in a rational, coherent, and calm matter
They made me say FUCK on Christmas Eve.So now it’s been a week and it’s the last day of the decade. And whoever gets the last word in on an argument wins. Everyone knows that. So here I am.
Leaving Patrick Kane off the top 10 list isn’t wrong, it’s irresponsible and wreckless. Any hockey writer or fan who omitted Kane from the top 10 should be forced to write and apology and then be fired. Based on their rebuttal tweets and reasoning here is how the conversation would go with them.
Me: Patrick Kane had the most points of any player in the decade. How can you explain leaving the leading scorer out of the top 10?
Them: pOinTs aRE nOt eVerYthInG
Me: I notice you had Erik Karlsson as your best defenseman of the decade. Why?
Them: hE hAD thE MoSt pOinTs!!!
Do points matter or not? Sure, some guys had higher points per game than Kane, but you know what…staying healthy is…actually important. The best ability is availability, some have said. Kane has missed significant time only once in his career. He shows up every year, dominates, and leads his team in scoring. He’s been sensational. You can NOT leave him off the list by any standard measure or thinking. And if you do then you need to reevaluate your thinking and or profession.
Both lists favored Connor McDavid over Patrick Kane. McDavid might go down as the better player all-time. He might go down as one of the very best to EVER play. He’s incredible. Nobody out there has ever been quite like him and I hope the Oilers get back to the playoffs and put better players around him because he needs the international spotlight of the playoffs on him. Having said that, this is an all-decade list.
Here is how Connor McDavid started the decade
I don’t know what trophy that is, but congrats to 13 year-old Connor McDavid on winning it. I am sure he went home afterwards and had his mom drop him off at the movie theater to go see Toy Story 3. Maybe he even got to touch a boob. BIG time accomplishment for any 13 year-old
Here is Patrick Kane in 2010
Patrick Kane played the full decade and was a DOMINANT, franchise transforming, mother fucking SUPER STAR from the word go. He has been everything the Blackhawks dreamed of when they drafted him in 2007 and then more. That matters. It’s not Connor McDavid’s fault that he was born in 1997, but you can’t be ranked higher than the leading scorer of the decade if you only played in like 40% of it. Not to mention that Patrick Kane has more Cups than McDavid has playoff series wins. Again, that isn’t McDavid’s fault, per se, but it does matter.
And…if you want to say “bUT cHief, McDavid iN thE LasT 5 yEaRs HaS bEen So dOmInaNt
McDavid Points last 5 years: 435
Kane Points last 5 years: 428
We are talking about 7 points here. So, yeah, eat a dick.
With those two things out of the way here is my official top 10 of the decade
1) Sidney Crosby
I love Crosby. Nobody besides Lebron has delivered on the pre-draft hype better than Sidney Crosby. An absolute all-time great player. Might go down as top 3 all time with Gretzky and Orr. He started the decade as the best player in the world and 10 years later he’s still in that discussion. He does everything. He’s as close to perfect as a player can be. Three Cups, the gold medals, MVPs, Scoring titles, Conn Smythe, all everything all the time. If you have a different player as #1, well, you’re wrong. Sorry.
2) Alex Ovechkin
In terms of pure entertainment value there’s nobody better. He’s an absolute wrecking ball on the ice. He’s a power forward, but nobody labels him as that because he’s also the greatest goal scorer of all-time. There, that’s right, I said it. He might not end up with the all-time record for goal scoring, but when you adjust for the era I feel pretty comfortable giving Ovi that label. His lowest season goal total in the decade was 32. If you score 32 goals in the NHL and you’re a free agent, someone will give you 10 million dollars per year for the next decade. That was Ovi’s floor. Winning the Cup and rounding out his game puts him right up near the top of the list.
2-A) Patrick Kane
Full disclosure, I only listed Ovi above Kane to hide my own bias, but gun to my head if I had to choose either Ovechkin or Kane to start a team I am taking Patrick Kane. Kane started out as a seemingly one-dimensional player. He got better every single year and probably elevated the guys around him more than anyone besides maybe Sidney Crosby. Kane is the perfect winger. Nobody controls the puck like him. Nobody finds seams, backs off defenders, and creates better than Kane and he does it in a way that makes you say “wow” every game. Every Blackhawks playoff run has been stamped by Patrick Kane clutch moments. 11 career playoff game-winning goals. Hart Trophy, Art Ross, Conn Smythe, and something he will never get credit for because he doesn’t attention for it…leadership. He brings young guys along. He’s a great teammate. He wants his guys to be great. There’s nobody in the league I’d rather watch night in and night out than Patrick Kane.
4) Patrice Bergeron
Defense matters to me. If you look at the Cup winners over last decade, a common theme is having an elite two-way center. Toews, Kopitar, O’Reilly, Crosby and Backstrom don’t get enough credit for their defense, Datsyuk…those are foundational players. You get one of those players and you know you’ll be competitive every year and every night. To me, Bergeron is at the top of the list. Three Finals appearances. And he finished in the top 5 for the Selke every single year of the decade. That is preposterous. He did that without really sacrificing much offense either. Still a true 1C and the Bruins are still a threat in the East and it’s largely because they built the organiation on his back.
5) Duncan Keith
Like I said…I value defense. The reason I have Duncan Keith at the top of this list is for his defending. He was an absolute machine and even though he won two Norris Trophies I still don’t think he got enough headlines or love simply because he had to share it with Kane, Toews, Hossa, Sharp, etc. Duncan Keith didn’t have as many points in the decade as Karlsson, but he wasn’t a slouch either. He had multiple years with 60 points. He played in all situations and when it mattered most he was an ironman. Lance Armstrong lungs. In the playoffs, for his career, he’s averaged over 28 minutes per game. That’s every other shift. That means half the game, whoever was on the ice was effectively erased. Gone. Duncan Keith eliminate all of your space, drank all of your gatorade, sucked up all your air. He played with so much intensity and bite. There’s no defenseman in the last decade I’d rather have.
6) Geno Malkin
Another guy who got a little overshadowed by a teammate, but if this were based solely on the eye test, Malkin might be #1. 6’4 and 200lbs. Big, strong, fast, skilled, hammer shot, and he competes. When you create a player in a video game, Malkin is the model. 3rd overall in points per game. He has three Cups total, two in the decade. Also has an MVP and an Art Ross.
7) Drew Doughty
When Team Canada needed shut down minutes and they had all the best defensemen in the world to turn to, they routinely went with Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty. Doughty was a warrior. A guy who you could count on to play in every situation, play seemingly the entire game, and always deliver. He has a Norris and finished top 3 in voting 4 times even though he never had crazy point totals. He was just a gangster on some of the best teams of the decade. He looked gnarley. Played gnarley. Old time hockey. If you’re building a team to win, you can start with Doughty.
8) Henrik Lundqvist
The King of New York and for my money the best goalie of the decade. The Rangers effectively wasted him, and they only made the Final one time in the decade, but Hank himself was a super star. The perfect hockey player for New York City. Glamorous, handsome, and insanely good. There were other great goalies in this decade. You could make an argument for Quick, Price, Crawford, Luongo, or Fleury, but nobody did more with less support than Lundqvist. Goals saved above replacement leader, a Vezina winner, finalist three times, and the face of the franchise in a city that is hard to stand out.
9-A) Jonathan Toews
My Captain. Everyone knows the resume by now. Three Cups, A Conn Smythe winner, Selke winner, gold medals, all everything. There was a time during the decade when the Hawks were winning everything and Crosby had missed time with concussion symptoms that people started to ask if Toews was the best player in the NHL. That was always a bit crazy, but it was a fun way to piss everyone outside of Chicago off. 14th in the decade in points per game. And that was while having the responsibility of being matched up against the other teams’ top offensive players ever chance Joel could make that matchup happen. Quenneville also called him the best leader he’s ever been around. Toews, like Kane, was better and more important than anyone could’ve possibly imagined when they selected him 3rd overall. There’s been too much Toews slander in the last 3-4 years and I can’t abide it. When you think of decade defining players, Jonathan Toews flashes to your brain and if he doens’t then your New Year’s Resolution should be to get a new brain.
9-B) Anze Kopitar
Kopitar is criminally underrated. Cut from the same cloth as Toews and Bergeron, he was a Selke winner twice, and hovered just under being a point per game guy for his career. A true franchise 1C. Those LA teams from 2012 to 2014 were some of the best and the 2014 WCF vs the Hawks was maybe the best series of the decade. Kopitar vs Toews was an epic battle. You can’t go wrong with either. Slight edge to Toews for having the 3rd Cup and you know…being my guy and it’s my list.
It’s not a new take for me
10) Erik Karlsson
He was really fucking sweet.
You have to wonder how much higher on this list he would be if the Blackhawks took him with the 11th overall pick in 2008 instead of Kyle Beach. The Blackhawks top 4 would’ve been Keith-Seabrook, Hjalmarsson-Karlsson and it’s possible they would’ve never lost a game. Something to think about. On his own Karlsson was an unpararelled offensive defenseman. While he wasn’t a liability defensively, especially as his game grew, he also wasn’t a shutdown type of guy like Keith or Doughty. That’s why I have him a little lower on the list than the others. In terms of pure entertainment value, he will go down as one of the best.
So there it is. I did the final blog on this topic for the decade. I got the last word. That means I won and this is the list. Squabble in the comments and on twitter if you like.
Happy New Year.