All-Decade NHL Team by Michael Farber

SI.com, Dec. 14, 2009:

Top Unit:

Alexander Ovechkin. LW. Team in 2000s: Capitals. NHL debut season: 2005-06.

Like the sophomoric game beloved by fourth-graders, that darned Ovechkin always makes you look. Just as the puck seems to follow him on the ice, eyes reflexively follow him from the stands or on the screen. He burst into the NHL after the lockout, a wild mix of speed, skill, physicality and riotous enthusiasm. He scored 52 goals as a rookie, and 65 in 2007-08. If anyone breaches 75 again, it will be the man with the yellow laces in his skates and the tinted face shield. Darth Visor.

Joe Sakic. C. Team in 2000s: Avalanche. NHL debut season: 1988-89.

The anti-Ovechkin, Sakic, who retired before the 2009-10 season, was distinctly understated. (He was amused by the nickname bestowed by members of the Fourth Estate: Quoteless Joe.) But if he hid his own light under a bushel, he kept illuminating the red light behind the goaltender. Sakic had the quickest release in the game, a wicked wrist shot that resulted in 625 career goals, 250 during the decade. He won the Hart Trophy in 2001, a season he capped with his second Stanley Cup.

Jaromir Jagr. RW. Teams in 2000s: Penguins, Capitals, Rangers. NHL debut season: 1990-91.

L'Artiste was a man whose conspicuous gifts were as oversized as his moods. Jagr often seemed in need of a muse, especially during those dim seasons in Washington. How dreary were they? Well, in two-and-a-half years of what everyone remembers as professional purgatory for the grand Czech, Jagr still averaged 1.06 points per game. His 123 points for the Rangers in '05-06 should have been enough to capture the Hart Trophy that went to Joe Thornton.

Nicklas Lidstrom. D. Team in 2000s: Red Wings. NHL debut season: 1991-92.

SI.com's Player of the Decade truly is a man for the 2000s, practically perfect in every modern way. As post-lockout rule changes made the off-the-glass, crease-clearing blueline behemoth practically obsolete, positional hockey became paramount. Lidstrom's body and stick are always where they should be, which is reflected in scant penalty minutes for someone who plays against top lines. He is the NHL's best first-passer, its most astute power play quarterback, and its most refined defenseman, a deserving winner of six Norris Trophies. Only Bobby Orr (8) and Doug Harvey (7) won more.

Scott Niedermayer. D. Teams in 2000s: Devils, Ducks. NHL debut season: 1991-92.

The elegant Niedermayer, the 2007 Conn Smythe winner, won Stanley Cups with both of his teams during the decade. (He's also won world junior and world championships, a World Cup and an Olympic gold medal, but who's counting?) He is hockey's most fluid skater, a brilliant blueline artist who probably can do anything on skates -- including a triple Salchow.

Martin Brodeur. Team in 2000s: Devils. NHL debut season: 1991-92.

In passing Patrick Roy in career wins and equaling (as of this writing) Terry Sawchuk's majestic record for shutouts (103), Brodeur plays a style the late Sawchuk would recognize. While not a circa-1970s stand-up goaltender, Brodeur mostly eschews the butterfly style that Roy popularized. The four-time Vezina Trophy winner, whose team captured a pair of Stanley Cups during the decade, is so adept at handling the puck that the NHL instituted a trapezoid behind the net in 2005 to give forecheckers a sporting chance.

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