Every NHL Team's Player of the Quarter Century

One of the most fun things the NHL has done this year was announcing each franchise's quarter-century team. A panel of voters in each city voted on who they believed earned the recognition, and it's been interesting (and demoralizing from an aging standpoint) to see who made the cut for each team.

The other part of the fun in doing this is it allows us the opportunity to weigh in with our own picks, but rather than choosing players for each position and hemming and hawing over all of that, we're keeping it simple and picking out the best player from each team over the past 25 years.

Turn back the clock to 2000, play it forward until now, and wrack your brains trying to pick out who was the best, most emblematic player for each team over the past 25 years. It was pretty easy to pick out guys for certain teams, but others? Oh, brother, the debates. We know you're going to have counter-takes, and we know you'll want to tell us in the comments, so don't hold back.

We mentioned in the introduction that debates happened over who to pick from, and this was one of the first ones.

Ryan Getzlaf gets the call from us for the Ducks, because he was the face of the franchise for the better part of the past 25 years. He began his NHL career in 2005 and played 1,157 games while putting up 1,019 points. He played his entire career in Anaheim and was the team captain from 2010 until he retired in 2022, and he was part of their Stanley Cup championship team in 2007.

The other choice we could've made here was franchise icon Teemu Selänne. He and Paul Kariya were the faces of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the late 90s. When Selänne rejoined the Ducks out of the lockout in 2005 and helped lead them to the Stanley Cup in 2007, it was one of the best and brightest storylines attached to that team.

But...we're judging things based on the past 25 years, and Selänne's time in Anaheim the second time around doesn't come close to what Getzlaf did. Even if you take his full career with the Ducks franchise, this debate is really close (966 games, 988 points). But parameters are parameters, and the case has to be really good for us to bend the rules.

When you think of the Boston Bruins over the past 25 years, the two players who best exemplify the franchise are Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chára, but in the debate we had about who was the best player in that time, it's Bergeron who gets the call.

From 2003 to 2023, Bergeron won the Selke trophy six times and was vital in helping the Bruins win their first Stanley Cup since 1972 in 2011 and helped lead them to the Cup Final again in 2019. He was a second-round pick by Boston in 2003 and became a lifer with the organization.

Bergeron had 1,040 points in 1,294 career games, and despite the kind of hate the Bruins generate from fans across the game, he was a beloved and respected figure across the league.

When it comes to Chára, his arrival in Boston turned the Bruins franchise around and elevated them from being an occasional playoff team to an annual contender. That importance to the franchise doesn't go unnoticed, but former GM Peter Chiarelli bringing Chára over from Ottawa with him was one of those history-altering moments in league history.

Still, when it comes the totality of careers in mind and overall accomplishments, both Chára and Bergeron helped the team win the Cup, but Bergeron's career dominance as an elite two-way forward—and doing so solely in Boston—puts him ahead.

It's been a wild ride over the past 25 years for the Buffalo Sabres. One thing that's defined the organization over that time—and beyond—has been goaltending, and for the better part of the last quarter century, it was Ryan Miller who was the face of the franchise.

Miller had the unenviable task of taking the starting reins after Dominik Haŝek was an incomparable icon in Buffalo in the late 90s. When the Sabres traded Haŝek to Detroit in 2001, it was a trade they were going to lose no matter what, but coincidentally it was a goalie from Michigan in Miller who softened the blow.

Miller went 284-186 with one tie and 56 overtime losses in his Sabres career with 28 shutouts. He was instrumental in leading the Sabres to the Eastern Conference Final in 2006 and 2007 and put up one of the best seasons by a goalie in 2010 when he won the Vezina Trophy and helped lead Team USA to the silver medal at the Olympics, losing in overtime to Sidney Crosby and Canada.

Miller is the most recent goalie in Sabres history to take the team to the playoffs, and as much of a compliment as that is to him, it's less so for the franchise that traded him and team captain Steve Ott to St. Louis in 2014.

(Full disclosure: Even though I have covered hockey in Buffalo since 2013, I was not part of the panel that voted on the Buffalo Sabres' quarter-century team.)

There are so few players who are the absolute face of a franchise, and Jarome Iginla is one of the few.

Iginla's career with the Flames was a resplendent one. From 1996 until he was traded to Pittsburgh in 2013, he was the face of the Flames, and from 2000 through 2013, he put up 899 points in 908 games. Twice he won the Rocket Richard for most goals (2002, 2004), and in 2002 he also won the Art Ross as the NHL's scoring leader and the Pearson Award (later renamed for Ted Lindsay) as the MVP as voted on by the players.

Twice Iginla was the runner-up for the Hart Trophy and finished third in voting another time. He also helped lead the Flames to the Stanley Cup Final in 2004 before they lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Iginla played with heart, ferocity and power and was the prime example of how you wanted to have guys on your team play. Iginla was beloved in a way that so few players get to be, and the day Calgary traded him was one of the grimmer days for the franchise.

Over the past 25 years, there have been numerous Carolina Hurricanes players who could take the mantle as the team's greatest player. Eric Staal has the most points, Sebastian Aho is hot on his heels, and Cam Ward won the Conn Smythe in leading them to the Stanley Cup in 2006. But it was the captain of that Cup team who just so happens to be the Hurricanes' head coach right now who gets the call.

As Carolina's captain, Rod Brind'Amour was the veteran leader who rallied that 2006 team to the franchise's first and only Stanley Cup. Even though it was Ron Francis who got them to their first Final in 2002 and later became the general manager, the success Brind'Amour has had in actually winning the Cup in Carolina and now behind the bench helped seal his legacy as a Carolina hockey legend.

Brind'Amour is in his seventh season as Hurricanes coach, and he's led the team to the playoffs every year he's been in charge and is poised to do so again this year. Through the franchise's history dating back to their days as the Hartford Whalers, they've never been a perennial Stanley Cup contender until Brind'Amour took over.

If he coaches them to their second Cup? Just build the statue already.

The first part of the 2000s was a rather forgettable period for the Chicago Blackhawks on the ice. The team struggled to be relevant from 2000 to 2008, making the playoffs just once in 2002. But it was what happened off the ice that set the table for them to become a dynasty, as drafting Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews helped them take a massive leap forward.

Ultimately, it was Kane and his ability to pile up points in a way very few in franchise history ever have that helped lead them to three Stanley Cups. In 1,161 games, Kane had 1,225 points, including 446 goals. He won the Calder in 2008 and was the NHL MVP in 2016, and with the three Cups in between including the Conn Smythe in 2013, his legacy as one of the greatest players in Chicago history was sealed.

Until Chicago decided to rebuild, the thought was he would be with Chicago for life, but that wasn't meant to be. Still, whenever he retires, Kane will always be remembered for his years in Chicago, and when he's eventually enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, his highlight reel will be teeming over with what he accomplished there.

Joe Sakic's legacy with the Colorado Avalanche has never been in doubt, and what he's done with the franchise since 2000 has shined both on and off the ice.

On it, Sakic put up 581 points in 526 games from 2000-01 until he retired in 2009. He also helped them win the Stanley Cup again in 2001 after pulling it off the first time in 1996. From when the franchise moved from Quebec City to Denver, he was a fixture and the face of the team despite being a man of few words.

Even though his legacy as a player was never in doubt, it was when he became a team executive starting in 2011 when the next wave took hold. That year he became an advisor to the team, and at the 2011 draft they took Gabriel Landeskog No. 2 overall.

In 2013, Sakic was promoted to executive vice president of hockey operations. In that role, he essentially assumed duties as general manager despite Greg Sherman being in the role, and they drafted Nathan MacKinnon first overall. Sakic became the GM a year later and in 2015, they took Mikko Rantanen 10th overall. Even though the team began to turn it around, one difficult season in 2017 and some bad lottery luck turned into the Avs landing the No. 4 selection, which Sakic used to take Cale Makar.

Fast forward to 2022, and with Sakic as GM along with those three key players, the Avs won their third Stanley Cup. Sakic stepped aside as GM in 2023, but with all of those accomplishments, how do you not take him?

The history of the Columbus Blue Jackets was perfectly set up for this discussion, because their first season in the NHL was 2000-2001. For the past 24 seasons, we've got their entire timeline to use to pick their best player, and that player just also happens to be the best player in franchise history as well.

Rick Nash was the No. 1 pick in the 2003 draft and to this day he remains their only No. 1 pick—and they hit it out of the park.

Even though Columbus hasn't been teeming over with success, it didn't stop Nash from being one of the premier power forwards in the game. In 674 games, he established himself as the team's all-time leading goal scorer with 289 and is the Blue Jackets' all-time leading scorer with 574 points. He still has the most assists in team history, but Zach Werenski is closing in on his mark of 258 quickly with 250.

As an expansion team, the Blue Jackets needed to have a face of the franchise while they got off the ground, and Nash was it. Sergei Bobrovsky was brilliant, Werenski is becoming a big star and Boone Jenner has been a lifer, but Nash is at the top of the list.

Choosing the best Stars player of the past 25 years is something that would make a superb argument at the local pub. Between Marty Turco, Jamie Benn, Brenden Morrow, Sergei Zubov and Mike Modano, there's a great case to be made for every single one of them.

In the end, we opted to go with Modano. He was the face of the franchise when they left Minnesota for Dallas, and he is Dallas's all-time leader in multiple categories. The bulk of Modano's best scoring years were before 2000, but from 2000-2001 through 2009-2010, he played in 672 games and had 543 points. His 0.81 points per game in that time matches Benn, who has the most points and games played in Stars history since the 2000-2001 season.

But we're giving Modano the edge here because of how he was able to help make hockey a phenomenon in Dallas and is forever a legend in both Minnesota and Texas because of how great of a player he was, something he continued to demonstrate in the latter part of his career after 2000.

You'd think that with all the great players we've seen suit up for the Detroit Red Wings since 2000 that picking one to be the best over the past 25 years would be hard. However, when one of those players is a defenseman like Nicklas Lidström, it's an open and shut case.

Even though Lidström's NHL career began in 1991-1992, he didn't win his first Norris Trophy until 2001. He went on to win it six more times after that season and helped lead the Red Wings to the Stanley Cup in 2002 and 2008. In 2002, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy, and in 2008, he was Detroit's captain.

Lidström's run as the best defenseman in the NHL and his obscenely consistent high level of performance earned him the nickname of "The Perfect Human" by Wings fans, and how do you even argue it?

Even still, if you want to bring points into the discussion, since 2000-2001 Lidström was third in scoring behind Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk with 646 points in 871 games, and he averaged more than 26 minutes per game time on ice. From 2000-2001 until he retired in 2012, he missed a total of 31 games. It's freakish to be that good for that long and to have relatively no flaws.

For the first 15 years of this century, the Edmonton Oilers were the originators of getting lots of top first-round picks and being unable to turn their fortunes around to become a perennial playoff team. But when they won the lottery for the 2015 NHL Draft and got to select Connor McDavid, the course of the franchise changed instantly.

McDavid made the Oilers a regular playoff team and now a Stanley Cup contender. In his first 688 games, McDavid has 1,047 points, including 355 goals. He's averaged more than 1.5 points per game for his career, which helps get people thinking about Wayne Gretzky all over again in Edmonton.

For comparison's sake, Aleš Hemský, who was a great Oilers player from 2002 to 2014 when he was traded to Ottawa, played 652 games with Edmonton and had 477 points, and he's fourth in team history in scoring since the 2000-2001 season behind McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Yeah.

McDavid is a three-time league MVP and a four-time MVP as voted by the players. He's won the Art Ross Trophy for most points in a season five times, the Rocket Richard for most goals in a season once and won the Conn Smythe Trophy last year even though the Oilers didn't win the Stanley Cup.

He had all the hype before he was drafted, and he's more than lived up to it even though there's far, far more to come.

Picking the Panthers' greatest player of the past 25 years would seem like a slam dunk when you think about them winning their first Stanley Cup last season and how Aleksander Barkov was so all-around dominant throughout the postseason. Factoring that in with how great of a two-way player he's become over the years and it's an easy call, right?

Barkov is the franchise's top scorer since 2000-2001, well ahead of Jonathan Huberdeau and even further ahead of Olli Jokinen. He's won the Selke Trophy twice as the league's best defensive forward and he's even won the Lady Byng once as the league's most gentlemanly player.

With all of those things in mind, Barkov is indeed our pick, and we stick by it even though Roberto Luongo's case is a really strong one as well. Luongo was with the Panthers from 2000-2001 to 2005-2006 and returned in 2013-2014 and stayed with them until he retired after the 2018-2019 season. He's the best goalie in franchise history and did it all during the past 25 years. His career .919 save percentage in Florida is bonkers and his 38 shutouts are also ridiculous, it's just a shame he didn't always have the supporting cast around him to help push the Panthers for a Stanley Cup sooner.

Still, as good as Luongo was, Barkov is the best player in team history and captained them to their first Cup. It's hard to argue with all of that even if we do love Lu.

The greatness of Anže Kopitar and how he sometimes gets lost in discussions of modern all-time greats is the best example of how some guys who play on the West Coast just get forgotten about because us East Coast folks don't stay up late enough.

Since 2000-2001, Kopitar is the Kings' top scorer by a long stretch. His 1,254 points through 1,419 games puts him 542 points ahead of second-place Dustin Brown and Kopitar has only played just over 120 more games. The first half of Kopitar's career established how he was capable of putting up points with ease and then his evolution into one of the best two-way forwards in the game came with time. Once he became a dual threat it coincided with the Kings becoming an annual Stanley Cup contender.

He's won the Selke and the Lady Byng twice each not to mention helping lead the Kings to two Stanley Cups. He is the epitome of consistency in his all-around game and he's their greatest player since Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille and he's not far from surpassing Marcel Dionne (1,307) as the franchise's all-time leading scorer.

Kopitar is a first-ballot Hall of Famer whenever it's his time, and his praises cannot be sung enough.

Just like their expansion brethren Columbus Blue Jackets, the Minnesota Wild have only existed since 2000-2001, which makes this a choice about who is the greatest player in team history. Just like with Columbus, the pick for Minnesota is easy with Mikko Koivu.

For 16 seasons, Koivu was the top center for the Wild and over 1,028 games, he established himself as the franchise's all-time leading scorer with 709 points. His 205 goals are second to Marián Gáborík's 219 and their hold on those places is tenuous with Kirill Kaprizov racing up the leaderboard with 183. But Kaprizov didn't have to play for Jacques Lemaire the way Koivu did during an era where the Wild had a lot of defense and not a lot of offense.

From 2008-2009 until 2019-2020, Koivu was captain of the Wild, and his steady presence, consistent play and commitment to the franchise helped make him the face of a team that was lacking that kind of player.

We could've gotten ahead of ourselves and crowned Kaprizov already, but only having just over 300 games played compared to Koivu's massive total and how he helped establish the Wild's presence in the NHL, it would've been a bit too much of a reach. But if we do this kind of thing again five years from now...

When you think of the long and glorious history of the Montréal Canadiens and all of the legendary players who have worn the bleu, blanc et rouge--especially in goal—Carey Price is in the conversation as one of the greatest to ever play for the Habs.

Yes, there's Patrick Roy, Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden, but Price played more games with the Canadiens than all of them. He won the Vezina, Hart and Lindsay awards in 2015, and in his last full season, the Covid-truncated 2020-2021 year, he led the Canadiens to a shocking appearance in the Stanley Cup Final before succumbing to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Price led the Habs to numerous series upsets in the playoffs through his career, and the cliché about running into a hot goalie in the playoffs was seemingly crafted for Price. No one wanted to deal with him in the playoffs...for good reason. His career playoff save percentage was .919 over 92 games, and he had eight shutouts.

That might not sound eye-popping, but when you consider how much Price had to carry his teams at all times, it's essentially Herculean.

It's like a fantasy draft with the way goalies are showing up now in our list, but for how renowned the Nashville Predators were for their staunch defensive play throughout the 2000s, there was no one else but Pekka Rinne to choose as their best player over the last 25 years.

Rinne started 667 games and played in 683 total in his career in Nashville and won 369 of them with a .917 save percentage and 60 (!!!) shutouts. He also had a goal and 14 assists to go with all of that, too.

Rinne was a full-time player in Nashville from 2008 to 2021 and he won the Vezina Trophy in 2018. That honor came a year after he led the Predators to the Stanley Cup Final against Pittsburgh. During that 2017 playoff run, Rinne was out of his gourd incredible with a .930 save percentage, a 1.96 goals-against average and two shutouts. The only bad thing that happened was running into Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Chris Kunitz, Phil Kessel and a scorching hot Matt Murray in the Final.

Rinne's importance to hockey in Nashville also can't be understated. Upon his retirement, the team honored him with a statue outside of Bridgestone Arena. Great goaltending has been a regular thing in Nashville, but Rinne was head and shoulders above the others.

Did you really think this was going to be anyone else for the Devils? No disrespect to Patrik Eliáš, but the Devils were, have been, and still are the team of Martin Brodeur.

Even though Brodeur's Devils career began in earnest in 1993, his time in New Jersey from 2000-2001 through 2013-2014 was also incredible. He played in 812 games (808 of which were starts!) and won 444 games with a .912 save percentage and 82 shutouts. He also had a goal and 27 assists.

In that time, he won the Vezina four times and led the Devils to the 2003 Stanley Cup over Anaheim but lost out on the Conn Smythe to Jean-Sebastian Giguere whose playoff performance that year was out of this world. He had to be to take out Brodeur and even still, Brodeur had seven shutouts in the 2003 playoffs, most of anyone (Giguere had five).

You could argue his best performance came in 2012 when he led the Devils to the Stanley Cup Final against Los Angeles before going down in Game 6. He turned 40 years old during that playoff run and he along with Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk almost pulled off a stunner.

Debate, yell and scream about the Devils' style of play all you want, but Brodeur still had to play the games and still had to stop the pucks, and boy did he ever.

Islanders fans, please, stop booing. We're sorry, but who else would be the right choice as the franchise's best player of the past 25 years other than John Tavares?

In 669 games, Tavares had 621 points on Long Island after they made him the No. 1 pick of the 2009 NHL Draft. That's 40 more points than Josh Bailey who's second since 2000-2001 in team scoring and he played nearly 400 more games with the Isles than Tavares.

Three times Tavares helped get the Islanders to the playoffs and his last time doing so there in 2016 saw him put up 11 points in 11 games as the Islanders advanced to the second round before losing to Tampa Bay.

For his time on Long Island, Tavares was beloved. He led the team and was their heart and soul which made his free-agent departure to Toronto in 2018 that much more painful and infuriating for fans. He was supposed to lead the Islanders back to glory and yet their deepest postseason runs came after he left when they made it to back-to-back conference final/league semifinal appearances in 2020 and 2021.

Although we've seen outstanding play from Mat Barzal, Noah Dobson, Ilya Sorokin, Anders Lee and Brock Nelson in recent years, Tavares was the best of all of them over the past 25 years.

No one best exemplified and adored what it meant to be a New York Ranger more than Henrik Lundqvist.

For 15 seasons, Lundqvist was the Rangers' No. 1 goalie and the main reason for any and all success they had from 2005 through 2020. He won the Vezina once in 2012 and finished top five in voting six other times. In 2012 he also finished third in voting for MVP.

Lundqvist was the class of the league and certainly of the Rangers organization for his incredible ability, not to mention his endurance in-season. He had four consecutive seasons with 70 or more games played, including a career-high 73 games played in 2010 with 72 starts. Twice he had 72 starts in a season during that stretch. Being the backup during that time was about as easy of a paycheck to collect as you could get.

But when it comes to raw stats, Lundqvist was outstanding. He had 459 wins in 887 games (871 starts) with a .918 save percentage and 64 shutouts and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023. Even though the Rangers have had and still do have some outstanding players to consider, no one was beating Lundqvist.

The Ottawa Senators have had quite a few great players don the uniform since 2000-2001, but none were better than Daniel Alfredsson.

From 2000-2001 to 2012-2013, "Alfie" had 839 points in 850 games including 327 goals. During that time, he had some outstanding teammates in Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Erik Karlsson and Zdeno Chara, but it was Alfredsson who was the real heart of the team.

In 2007 Alfredsson helped lead the Senators to the Stanley Cup Final against Anaheim and that run would ultimately be the furthest Ottawa has ever gone in the postseason. He was tied with teammates Spezza and Heatley as leading scorers in the playoffs that year (22 points) and also led everyone in goals (14) and four of those were game-winners, also the most of anyone in the postseason. Had the Senators upended Scott Niedermayer and the Ducks that year, no doubt Alfredsson would've been Conn Smythe.

For all the great things Alfredsson did in his career, it made the way his time in Ottawa ended so embarrassing for the organization when they didn't re-sign him, and he left to play his final season in Detroit. In 2022, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame and fortunately, things have calmed down with the Senators where he's now an assistant coach.

It's kind of nuts that it's been nearly three years since the Flyers traded Claude Giroux, but when you think back on the past 25 years, he's been their best player by a long shot.

When Giroux emerged with the Flyers in the 2008-2009 season, his impact was felt instantly and only grew from there. In his 15 years with Philadelphia, he played an even 1,000 games and had 900 points as an outstanding two-way centerman.

At 22 years old in 2010, Giroux was one of the most important players in the Flyers lineup as they made it to the Stanley Cup Final against Chicago. He was tied for third on the team in playoff scoring with Ville Leino behind Daniel Brière and Mike Richards. The future was bright, and Giroux lived up to the expectations even while things got wild around him with teammates, coaches and management changing up often enough to make your head spin during his tenure.

Parting with Giroux was a tough decision, but with how beloved Giroux was in Philadelphia, it's sad that the 2010 Final was the only one the Flyers were able to appear in while he was there.

Of course, Sidney Crosby is the best Penguins player of the past 25 years. What, you were expecting Dick Tärnström?

Crosby is one of the greatest players in NHL history, never mind Penguins history where the only person in his universe is Mario Lemieux. He's led the Penguins to three Stanley Cups, and won the Hart Trophy, Rocket Richard Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy and Art Ross Trophy twice each and was voted as MVP by the players three times.

Crosby has been captain of the Penguins since he was 20 years old when he was actually "Sid the Kid" back in 2007-2008 and the fact he's in year 17 wearing the "C" is enough to make us all remember to take our fiber supplements.

Seeing Crosby's brilliance getting lost in the weeds now while the Penguins try to figure out how to get a rapidly aging team back into the playoffs for one more crack at it is tough, but seeing things winding down the way they began when Crosby came into the league is weirdly poetic if not a terrible bummer.

No one loved being a San Jose Shark more than Joe Thornton, and it's funny to think back that he didn't start his career there. His arrival from Boston in a blockbuster deal in 2005 proved to be immediately painful for the Bruins after Thornton won his only MVP that same season when he led the NHL in scoring.

In 15 years with the Sharks, Thornton had 1,055 points, 804 of which were assists, in 1,104 games. He helped make everyone around him better, even the players that were already outstanding like Patrick Marleau.

For a time, Thornton was captain of the Sharks, but whether he was wearing the "C" or not, Thornton was the Sharks. He was their superstar and face of the franchise and when he finally got the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in in 2016 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, it was a crowning moment of sorts despite the Sharks not coming away with the Cup.

Jumbo's greatness was always appreciated by people all over the league and his value to the team and fans in San Jose never wavered, something that was more than evident when the team retired his number earlier this season.

When there's a team that's only in the middle of their fourth season of existence, picking out their greatest player is a bit difficult to do since no one has really set themselves apart just yet. That's not exactly true for the Seattle Kraken though because Jared McCann has been that darn good.

In 283 games with Seattle, McCann is by far their best goal scorer with 110. He also has 110 assists which means he's got a franchise-best 220 points, 54 more than defenseman Vince Dunn who's second. McCann's goal total is 46 more than second place Jordan Eberle and with numbers that juicy it's hard to look away from that.

We're big fans of Matty Beniers as well, but we're waiting for that next big step from him where he takes charge of the Kraken as their face of the franchise. His rookie season was outstanding, but he had a classic sophomore slump a year ago and this season, hardly anyone is producing in a big way, McCann included despite being the team leader in points.

Still, for three-plus seasons now, it's McCann who has shined brightest coming out of the deep for Seattle and he gets the nod.

Breaking down who from the past 25 years should be crowned as the Blues' best player was a fascinating debate, because there were a lot of solid choices between Alexander Steen, David Backes, David Perron, Alex Pietrangelo and Keith Tkachuk (!!!). But between those guys, none of them dazzled and thrilled in the way Vladimir Tarasenko did.

For 11 years in St. Louis, Tarasenko terrified goalies with his shot and his speed up the ice. In 644 games he had 262 goals with the Blues and amassed 553 points, 57 more than Steen had in 121 more games played.

Tarasenko was a monster on the power play (65 power-play goals and 154 points) and no Blues player over that 25-year span shot more prolifically than he did (2.058 shots). He also had 10 overtime goals and 44 game-winners. When the Blues needed a goal, he was the one guy to look out for no matter what.

That the relationship between Tarasenko and the Blues over his shoulder injury soured and led to his eventual trade to the Rangers in 2023 was disappointing, but his legacy in helping the Blues win the franchise's first Stanley Cup in 2019 will live forever among the fans.

Seen Stamkos? The Tampa Bay Lightning's marketing campaign after they drafted Steven Stamkos with the No. 1 pick in 2008 went from a question to an exclamation once he began dominating the league and ruining goalies' egos with his terrifying one-timer from the circle on the power play.

From 2008 to 2024, Stamkos amassed 555 goals and 1,137 points in 1,082 games with the Lightning. He scored 13 overtime goals and had 85 game-winning goals and led Tampa Bay to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 and Cup Final appearances in 2015 and 2022.

Stamkos's legacy with the Lightning was an incredible one and seeing him cast aside by the team last summer in free agency was hard to watch, although not entirely an unfamiliar situation with the organization given their past with Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.

Watching Stamkos go to Nashville and hearing how bothered he was that he wouldn't finish his career in Tampa Bay was tough, but with everything that he accomplished there, he's the unassailable choice among many great candidates (St. Louis, Lecavalier, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Victor Hedman).

Even though this exercise spans the past 25 years, it's really the past eight or nine that have had the biggest impact between Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly and our pick as the best player in the past 25 years, Auston Matthews.

Yes, Mats Sundin is in this conversation, too. You could even toss in Tomas Kaberle and Phil Kessel if you really want to stir some people up, but when it comes down to impact and production and vital importance to the Leafs, it's Matthews who brought it all together to help Toronto become a perennial contender the past few years.

Matthews' 388 goals are 143 more than Nylander who sits behind him in second and Matthews has played 56 fewer games. Although Marner has the most points (707), Matthews is 20 back of him and has played 29 fewer games. When it comes to crunch time importance, it's Matthews again who stands out with 13 overtime goals and 62 game-winners.

And while Matthews's offensive ability is on par with the other greats in the NHL, it's the development of his defensive game that's helped him grow as an all-around threat as well. His ability to control the puck and drive play are superior as well. It's a competitive battle for the top spot, but Matthews is just so good and there's so much more to see from him in the future.

We know the Utah Hockey Club is technically in their first season in the league despite them being the same group of players, coaches and management that relocated from Arizona that were known as the Coyotes previously. Let's not get lost in the weeds in semantics and being technically correct, OK? We're putting it all together so you're just going to have to deal with that. Our site, our rules and our rules to bend as we wish. Deal with it.

With that in mind, who else would be the choice here other than Shane Doan? Doan was the face of the Coyotes from the moment they left Winnipeg and landed in the desert in 1996. His 1,210 games played in Arizona are by far the most and his 859 points are more than twice as many as Clayton Keller who sat in second place. If we were going strictly with this half season of Utah play, Keller would be the pick, but Doan's record with the Coyotes was far too much to ignore.

Doan's crowning moment in Arizona was when he helped lead the Coyotes to the Western Conference Final against the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and although the Kings won that series in five games, the run Arizona had to get there was the kind of inspiring road you would've thought could fix the situation there. Alas.

The Coyotes are gone, but not forgotten, and while their history is technically in moth balls for now, in due time Utah will have enough of their own legacy to build in the years to come.

We got such a thrill about bending the rules about Utah that we decided to do it again with the Vancouver Canucks and picked two players as their best over the past 25 years. Besides, if we separated Daniel and Henrik Sedin, we would've earned all the hate comments it would've produced.

Daniel and Henrik were the most prolific Canucks players the past 25 years and it's not even close. Both players had more than 1,300 games played and both of them had more than 1,000 points. Henrik had 1,070 points in 1,330 games and Daniel had 1,041 points in 1,306 games. Those point totals are nearly twice as many as Markus Naslund had and he was third on the list.

When former GM Brian Burke moved picks like mad to ensure he could take the identical twin brothers second and third at the 1999 NHL Draft, he knew it was the right thing to do and what they did to bring Canucks hockey back and help them become Stanley Cup contenders (they made it to Game 7 in the 2011 Final against Boston) gave them an edge no other team had.

Trying to differentiate the effect Henrik and Daniel had by comparing them to each other would be foolish since they were virtually inseparable on and off the ice, it's only fitting they're together again here.

The Vegas Golden Knights don't have a lot of seasons to dig into for this 25-year event, but given they're in their eighth season and they've got two Stanley Cup Final appearances and a Cup under their belt already, it's been plenty eventful with a lot to parse.

When breaking down their best players in that time, there is a bit of a legacy to work with and that's why Jonathan Marchessault gets the call from us. After his controversial free-agent departure this past offseason, he moved on to Nashville as Vegas's all-time leading scorer with 417 points in 514 games and a franchise-best 192 goals.

Marchessault, William Karlsson and Reilly Smith were vital in establishing the Golden Knights as a real threat in their first season as they helped lead them not just to the playoffs in their first year but all the way to the Stanley Cup Final. That kind of effect was massive in a competitive entertainment market like Las Vegas and Marchessault's scoring helped ensure that not only would the new fans be happy to have a team, but giddy to have a winning team.

That's why it was beyond fitting that Marchessault won the Conn Smythe Trophy when Vegas won the Stanley Cup in 2023 and showed that being new didn't mean needing to be bad.

Why yes, we did select Alex Ovechkin as the best Capitals player over the past 25 years. It's a hot take, we know, but sometimes you really have to stick your neck out to make the right call.

But seriously, Ovechkin brought hockey back from the dead in Washington in 2005 and invigorated a fan base that had been let down since their first and last (at that point) Stanley Cup Final appearance in 1998.

Ovechkin's goal scoring prowess was awe-inspiring and the speed and force at which he plays the game made fans in D.C. rise out of their seats every time he touched the puck. Being at the arena in Washington somewhat early on in Ovechkin's time there and witnessing how fans reacted to his presence on the ice was like having a rock star on the ice.

Now that Ovechkin has spent the past nearly 20 years ruining goalies and scoring goals at a rate only seen since Wayne Gretzky in the 1980s and 90s and now sits 20 goals away from breaking Gretzky's once thought to be untouchable all-time goal record, we're all adapting our brains into realizing that we are watching one of the greatest players of all time in real time and it's head-shaking in the best kind of way.

Going through the complicated history of the Winnipeg Jets (née Atlanta Thrashers) and trying to figure out who in the past 25 years has been the best player to don either uniform might've been hard to do if it wasn't for Connor Hellebuyck.

Hellebuyck and his two Vezina Trophies (likely soon to be three once this season is over) make him head-and-shoulders better than any goalie in franchise history and even though we respect the point totals put up by Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Ilya Kovalchuk, none of those players took home the kind of hardware Hellebuyck has.

Hellebuyck has 43 career shutouts and a career save percentage of .917. He's been a workhorse and through his first few years, the massive workload and porous Jets defense regularly made him the busiest goalie in the league year after year when it came to shots faced. The next step in Hellebuyck's career is to lead the Jets on a playoff run that will further cement the legacy he's building.

With 305 career wins to this point, Hellebuyck has more than twice as many as Ondřej Pavelec in second place (152) and more than three times as many as third-place Kari Lehtonen (94). We know things didn't go well in Atlanta, but even for as well as they've gone in Winnipeg, that kind of success from Hellebuyck is wild.