You don’t make a top anything list without understanding you’re fixin’ for a fight. We could be ranking the best types of apples here and would get serious heat from some corners for going Granny over Gala.
Naming the top 25 NHLers of this century? Boy, you’re really asking for it now.
Of course, arguments — at least the civilized ones — are part of the fun. The only thing we ask is, for every person you swear should be on this list, please understand that means you’re taking an outrageously qualified and talented player off, too. There are only 25 spots available, so it’s a one-in, one-out process.
Bang the table for Jaromir Jagr, Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos all you want. We get it. Those are remarkable, accomplished and supremely skilled players. At the end of the cuts, though, we just couldn’t find a spot for them.
That’s a good segue to establishing our methodology. Quite frankly, about the only truly concrete criteria is you had to have played at least 400 regular-season games, starting with the 1999-2000 season and running to today. (To nip this one in the bud, that made Peter Forsberg an automatic cut.) And, naturally, we’re considering only what a player did during this century for the purpose of this ranking. If we were looking at the totality of Jagr’s career, he’d not only be on this list, but likely in the first three slots.
NHL on SportsnetLivestream Hockey Night in Canada, Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey, the Oilers, Flames, Canucks, out-of-market matchups, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NHL Draft.
Broadcast schedule
As you might expect, 25 becomes a small number fast in an exercise like this, especially when you consider the golden age of high-skill hockey we’ve been living in for half a decade now.
So, what lands a player on the list? At the highest level, it’s incredible individual achievements being at the centre of wild team success. Outside that tiny group, it could be a remarkable track record of sustained effectiveness. Or, alternatively, it could be a small — but still significant — period of time where you were universally recognized as the best at your position. And, absolutely, there is space carved out for players who could just best be described as “winners.” At some point, it’s not an accident.
Before we dive in, one last bit of bookkeeping to say that we’ll refer to the Lester Pearson/Ted Lindsay Award — the trophy given to the player chosen by his peers as the “most outstanding player” — as either the Pearson or the Lindsay, depending on whether or not a player won it pre or post the name change in 2010.
With that, let the fun begin. Our top 25 of the 2000s:
25. Carey Price
Though the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist have a longevity argument over Price, no goalie of the past 15 years was as universally admired for a five- or six-year period as Price was, from about 2011 to 2017. At his best, Price was a puck vacuum who combined size, athleticism and positioning in almost unfair fashion. His crowning achievement individually was the 2014-15 campaign, when he won the Vezina Trophy, Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award. The only other goalies to win the Lindsay (or Pearson) since the award was first handed out in 1971 are Dominik Hasek (twice) and Mike Liut.
24. Anze Kopitar
The only Slovenian to play more than 50 games in the NHL, Kopitar is a smothering two-way centre who anchored the Kings forward group through two Cup victories in 2012 and 2014. His overtime goal, on the road, in Game 1 of the 2012 Stanley Cup final versus Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils is one of the signature snipes in franchise history. Kopitar has won both the Selke Trophy and Lady Byng Trophy on two occasions and, at age 37, is tracking a 90-point season this year. Since he entered the NHL, in 2006-07, Kopitar has played more games than everybody except Ryan Suter (Suter was ahead by two on New Year’s Eve) and his 1,250 points in that time are exceeded only by Patrick Kane (1,300), Evgeni Malkin (1,327), Alex Ovechkin (1,471) and Sidney Crosby (1,534).
23. Zdeno Chara
You can make a compelling case that, by inking Chara in 2006, the Boston Bruins made the best UFA signing of all-time. He was already 29 at the time, but the one-of-one, six-foot-nine defenceman went on to play 1,023 games in a Bruins uniform. The B’s clearly knew what they had in Chara, as they named him captain before he ever played a regular-season game for the club. Chara won the 2009 Norris Trophy and, two years later, raised the Cup in Vancouver after Boston’s Game 7 victory over the Canucks. Chara — a fitness maniac before his time — played past his 44th birthday. He skated in more regular-season (1,596) and playoff games (200) this century than any other defenceman.
22. Joe Thornton
Thornton’s move from Boston to San Jose in November 2005, during the first winter after the lost lockout season, was a trade that shook the hockey world. “Big Joe” remains the only player ever to be dealt during an MVP campaign, as he took home the 2006 Hart after registering 92 points in just 58 games with the Sharks that year. His 125 points overall that season were also good enough to claim the Art Ross Trophy. Though he never got his hands on the Cup, Thornton’s pass-first play and outsized personality made him a defining character of the past 25 years of hockey. His 1,080 assists since the start of 1999-2000 are the most of any player on this list.
21. Joe Sakic
In 2000-01, Sakic came within a whisker of winning the Hart Trophy, the Pearson and the Conn Smythe. The only one he didn’t claim after Colorado’s 2001 Cup victory was the Smythe, as he finished runner-up to teammate Patrick Roy. From 1999-2000 through 2003-04 — the Dead Puck Era portion of this century — the only player with a better points-per-game average than Sakic’s (1.17) was Jaromir Jagr (1.22). Sakic put up a 100-point season in 2006-07 in his age-37 campaign. His breakaway tally late in the third period of the 2002 Olympic gold-medal game to cement victory over Team USA and deliver Canada’s first men’s gold at the games since the 1950s is as big an international moment for many Canadian hockey fans as Sidney Crosby’s golden goal in 2010.
20. Jonathan Toews
Forget what Toews did during his career; just consider, for a second, what he achieved by the age of 22. In 2007, he scored three times in a single shootout against Team USA at the World Junior Championship to propel Canada to a monster semifinal victory. In the winter of 2010, he was named best forward at the Winter Olympics as Canada claimed gold on home ice. About four months later, Toews was leading the Chicago Blackhawks to their first Stanley Cup victory in nearly 60 years. His contributions as Chicago’s tireless, two-way No. 1 centre and captain were recognized with the 2010 Conn Smythe. That Cup win also made Toews a 22-year-old member of the ultra-exclusive triple-gold club, as he had won both the WJC and World Championship in 2007. He went on to win two more Cup titles in Chicago and another Olympic gold in 2014, where he scored the game-winner in the final versus Sweden.
19. Evgeni Malkin
It’s tempting to call “Geno” Robin to Sidney Crosby’s Batman, but the big Russian’s body of work more than stands on its own. It was Malkin, not Crosby, who claimed the Conn Smythe after Pittsburgh’s 2009 Cup title. In 2011-12, he won a hat trick of big-boy awards, claiming the Hart, Ross and Lindsay. Malkin is a two-time scoring champ, three-time Cup winner and started his career with the 2007 Calder Trophy. His 180 playoff points this century are bested only by teammate Sidney Crosby’s 201.
18. Drew Doughty
Doughty played his first NHL game in 2009 and only one player — fellow defenceman Ryan Suter — has more total time on ice than him since the Kings’ blueline rock debuted 15 years ago. Doughty has basically been an elite NHL defenceman from his first strides in the league. As an NHL sophomore, he cracked Canada’s 2010 Olympic roster just months after turning 20 and was still just 22 years old in 2012 when he anchored the back end of a Kings team that won its first of two Cups in a three-year span. Doughty has two Olympics golds and a first-place finish at the 2016 World Cup on his international resume. He claimed the 2016 Norris Trophy, while finishing as a finalist on three other occasions.
17. Leon Draisaitl
Only two players have at least three 50-goal seasons on the books this century: Alex Ovechkin and Leon Draisaitl. The Oilers scoring menace is well on his way to a fourth this year, and should he win the Rocket Richard Trophy in 2025, he can add it to a shelf that already has a Hart, Lindsay and Art Ross, all from his spectacular 2019-20 season. Draisaitl has also been a serious clutch performer; his 1.46 points per game in the playoffs is second behind teammate Connor McDavid (1.58) for players in the 2000s who’ve skated in at least 70 post-season contests.
16. Duncan Keith
Keith was the lynchpin of the defence corps on Chicago teams that won three titles from 2010 to 2015. His work in the 2015 playoffs, in particular, was remarkable. Keith’s 21 points that post-season was the most by any defenceman in a single playoff year since Brian Leetch put up 34 two decades prior, in 1993-94. (Chris Pronger also had 21 in 2006, albeit in one more game than Keith.) Chicago’s No. 1 D-man earned himself the Conn Smythe with that incredible 2015 showing and has two Norris Trophies to boot. Keith was also integral parts of Canadian teams that won Olympic gold in 2010 and ’14.
15. Auston Matthews
Matthews’ 0.65 goals per game is the highest rate of any player this century (though he better return to the lineup soon, the way Alex Ovechkin is scoring) and his 69-goal campaign in ...
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Where does your favourite player rank? Top 25 players of the 2000s )
Also on site :