Team of the Decade?
So far into the 2010's the Blackhawks have 2 cups (2010 & 2013) so to this point they'd be the team of *this* decade but there's 6 cup finals to go.
The only teams with more than one in the 2000's was the Devils and Red Wings, each with two., Who would you pick? The Scotty Bowman 2002 Wings were a pretty different team than the Mike Babcock 2008 team, it's really hard to say anyone ruled the decade.
Much the same with the '90's, which was bookended by the '91 & '92 Penguins and the '97 & '98 Red Wings, both coached by Scotty Bowman (who took over in Pittsburgh prior to the sad passing of Bob Johnson). I do have great memories of the bitter rivalry that the Yzerman/Lidstom/Shanahan Red Wings had with the Sakik/Forsburg/Roy Colorado Avalanche in those years. I think the late '90's Wings had to beat better teams than the Lemieux/Stevens/Coffey Penguins of the early decade so I'll go with the Wings.
The '80's were dominated by two VERY different teams, the bruising four-straight cup winning Bossy/Potvin/Billie Smith Islanders and the '84, '85, '87' '88 high-paced Oilers of Gretzky/Messier/Kurri. They played each other in the finals in '83 (Islanders) and '84 (Oilers), I guess I will go with The Great One but that Islanders team was so dominant in the early decade it's a really close call.
The 60's and '70's were ruled by the Canadiens, nothing to discuss there.
Last edited by Paul Smeenus; 04-06-2014 at 11:12 AM.
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