The Impossible NHL Quarter Century Team Vote

Voting just closed on the NHL's Quarter Century Team.  It started with a Quarter Century Team for each club, with only those players eligible for the league-wide fan vote.  That fan vote, however, wasn't the easiest task!  There will be 25 players on the Quarter Century Team, but fans could only vote for 10.  And voting for only 10 was nearly impossible!

For starters, they didn't break it down by position.  If you wanted to vote for 10 goalies, you could.  Ditto about 10 defensemen.  Or 10 forwards.  And, since forwards are the ones who get the most points, they're the most likely to get votes.  I really wish they'd broken it down by position (say, two goalies, three defensemen and five forwards).  That way, it would've been easier to narrow it down.  Because I have a feeling the final team will end up being very forward-heavy.

Although, there are two forwards who absolutely deserve every vote they received.  Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby have been the faces of the NHL for the better part of two decades, ever since they were taken No. 1 in back-to-back drafts and had a shared rookie year.  If fans were only able to vote for one six-player starting lineup, they'd be two of the three forwards.  It's not even close.  They're Top 25, Top 10, Top 5, Top 2 among NHL players in the 2000s.

I also think there's no way Patrick Kane couldn't be included.  Kane is arguably the greatest American player of all-time, but that's not the reason why.  It's because he was the best player on the Blackhawks dynasty that won three Stanley Cups in six seasons, scoring the Cup-winning goal against Philadelphia in 2010 to snap Chicago's 49-year championship drought.  That was a few months after he won Olympic silver with Team USA.  Oh, yeah, and he's got nearly 500 goals in 18 NHL seasons, too.

Like Crosby and Ovechkin, I don't see any possible way Patrick Kane isn't included on the Quarter Century Team.  I wouldn't be surprised if he's joined by two of his Blackhawks teammates, although I wouldn't consider either one of them a lock.  I'm, of course, talking about Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith.  Toews has a ton of competition at forward, but Keith should be on there.  There's no doubt that he was one of the top defensemen over the past 25 years.

Speaking of top defensemen over the past 25 years, there are two other Stanley Cup winners who deserve to be selected as much as Keith.  One is Crosby's Penguins teammate Kris Letang.  The other is Drew Doughty, the backbone of those two Kings championship teams.  If I were limited to three defensemen, they'd be my choices.  Although, I think recency bias may work in Cale Makar's favor.

Recency bias could very well come into play with the forwards, too.  Which isn't to say Connor McDavid doesn't deserve a spot.  In fact, I had him among my 10.  He's the best player in the NHL and has been for almost his entire career.  When he's done, we'll be talking about him as one of the all-time greats.  So, yeah, McDavid goes on there.

Nathan MacKinnon, Leon Draisaitl and Auston Matthews could easily make the cut, too.  And MacKinnon has won a Cup, which certainly works in his favor.  But let's also consider some of the other forwards who've been major contributors to Cup-winning teams: Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Corey Perry, Evgeni Malkin, Henrik Zetterberg, Anze Kopitar.  See what I mean?  I'm already over 10.

That doesn't even include the non-Cup winners.  Guys like Daniel Alfredsson (who began his career in 1995-96, but played the bulk of it in the 2000s), Joe Thornton and the Sedin twins.  Teemu Selanne's a tough one since his career was pretty much half-and-half between the 90s and the 2000s.  And what to do about Jaromir Jagr, who played in the NHL for approximately 85 years?  Frankly, I'm not sure the post-Pittsburgh portion of his career makes the cut.

Let's go back to defensemen since so far I've only mentioned three (four if you count Makar).  Alex Pietrangelo hasn't just played for Cup-winning teams in St. Louis and Vegas, he scored the clinching goal for the Blues in Game 7 against the Bruins in 2019.  Meanwhile, Nicklas Lidstrom won the Norris Trophy every freakin' year during his prime!  Zdeno Chara captained Boston's Stanley Cup team and was the most fearsome defenseman in hockey when he played.  Erik Karlsson's a three-time Norris winner.  And, while there may not be room for them on the Quarter Century Team, Brent Burns and Victor Hedman sure deserve consideration.

We're 31 players in and I still haven't mentioned any goalies.  And picking the goalies, frankly, is the hardest part!  Although, no team featuring the best NHL players over the past 25 years would be complete without Martin Brodeur and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Brodeur is another one whose career straddled the 90s and the 2000s.  He didn't win his first Vezina until 2002-03, though, which is also the year the Devils won the Cup (and the year after Canada won gold at the Salt Lake City Olympics).  Brodeur ended up with four Vezina Trophies in a five-season span and, oh yeah, he's the NHL's all-time leader in goalie wins.

Meanwhile, what's there to say about Marc-Andre Fleury's career that hasn't already been said?  After winning three Cups in Pittsburgh, he was the No. 1 pick in the Golden Knights' expansion draft.  Vegas immediately had a franchise goalie, and we all saw how that worked out!  They had arguably the greatest season by an expansion team ever, getting all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.  The only goalie in NHL history with more wins?  Martin Brodeur.

So, Brodeur and Fleury are locks.  What other goalies should be considered?  And how many will ultimately be selected?  Because how can you really choose between Roberto Luongo, Henrik Lundqvist, Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tuukka Rask, Jonathan Quick and Connor Hellebuyck?  I'd say you have to include Luongo (who somehow never won the Vezina Trophy), but which of the others?

Of the 40 players I just mentioned, I'd say there are eight who without a doubt need to be among the final 25: Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Drew Doughty, Martin Brodeur, Marc-Andre Fleury and Roberto Luongo.  To get to the 10 (aka the number people were allowed to vote for online), let's add in Connor McDavid and Nicklas Lidstrom.

In making some sort of attempt to have this Quarter Century Team be position-balanced, I'm gonna have my final team include 12 forwards, eight defensemen and five goalies.  My Top 10 has four forwards, three defensemen and three goalies.  Rounding out the team, I've got Corey Perry, Nikita Kucherov, Daniel Alfredsson, Henrik Zetterberg, Patrice Bergeron, Nathan MacKinnon, Joe Thornton and Evgeni Malkin at forward.  My additional defensemen are Zdeno Chara, Erik Karlsson, Alex Pietrangelo, Kris Letang and Victor Hedman.  Meanwhile, I've got just two goalies left.  They're both two-time Cup winners (which is what I used as the tiebreaker).  Jonathan Quick and Andrei Vasilevskiy.