Due to circumstances beyond my control I was watching an insipid sports channel yesterday. (I wasn’t at home and had little control over the background noise) The talking heads of the particular show that was airing where discussing the team of the past decade 2010-2019 for a different sport. At the time of the airing, their discussion impacted me very little. However, as the day wore on, their discussion, the little snowball that it was began to roll down the hills of my mind, picking up speed as I lay down to get sleep, and finally forming the crux of the following thoughts;
Technically, since our Pittsburgh Penguins came into the NHL in 1967-68, they aren’t really at the end of a decade but at the start of the 3rd year into their 6th decade. And their 5th decade of 2007-08 to 2016-17 may have been their most storied decade with 4 Stanley Cup appearances and 3 Stanley Cups. However, since we are 3 hockey months shy of the end of another…. well more natural decade? I started to muse over who would make up my All Decade Team of Penguins for the twenty-teens decade.
Since a typical hockey team consists of 4 lines, 3 defense pairings, 2 goalies and a maximum of 3 reserves, I set this as my roster size. Furthermore, the rules I set for myself did not include which players that I thought would gel as a team but which players contributed most to the success of the team over the last decade.
So without further ado my Penguins of the 2010-2019 decade.
Centers
1. Sidney Crosby
2. Evgeni Malkin
3. Jordan Staal
4. Nick Bonino
Perhaps the deepest the position our Favorite Flightless Fowl have had over the past decade has been Center. Picking the top 2 Centers was easy however, with the amount of hardware and thrills Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin provided over the last 10 years. Picking the 3rd and 4th Centers got a little trickier. No other Centers played the whole decade. Nick Bonino certainly was critical for the back-to-back Cup runs but Jordan Staal put up bigger numbers. There could also be an argument that Matt Cullen belongs in that top 4. However, these are my choices.
Left Wing (LW)
1. Chris Kunitz
2. Jake Guentzel
3. Carl Hagelin
4. Matt Cooke
The Penguins also have had some pretty good LW over the past decade. Chris Kunitz was on both Cup teams and was named first team All Star in 2012-13 so he is my pick as the top LW. Jake Guentzel certainly has been extremely important to this team’s success over the last couple of years and should also make the next decades All Decade Team if he continues with his success. His importance to the team gets magnified with his playoff performances. Carl Hagelin’s appearance on this list also needs no defense, his puck hound skills and time on the HBK line speak for themselves. However, some people may look at Matt Cooke’s name on this list and wonder about LWs like Conor Sheary. Sheary did have a better Points per Game (Pnts/G) average over the last decade than Cooke but Cooke played more games on LW, the Pnts/G difference wasn’t all that much and Cooke had better playoff performances. Sheary all but disappeared after his first playoff year.
Right Wing (RW)
1. Phil Kessel
2. Patric Hornqvist
3. James Neal
4. Pascal Dupuis
To the Phil Kessel haters, the Penguins didn’t win any Stanley Cups until Phil the Thrill got here, he was the best RW on the team over the past decade. James Neal actually was named to the NHL 1st Team All Stars in 2011-12 but Patric Hornqvist’s lunch pail contributions and playoffs give him the edge for me. As for Pascal Dupuis, he was bread and butter with Crosby and Kunitz for most of the decade.
Left Defense (LD)
1. Paul Martin
2. Brian Dumoulin
3. Ian Cole
Unfortunately, it was a lot tougher to find LD to really get excited about unlike the previous decade (2000-2009). There were no Sergei Gonchars, Ryan Whitneys or young Brooks Orpiks making any real contributions to our Aquatic Avians game this past decade. There really was no true top pairing LD.
Paul Martin may have been the closest thing the team has boasted for a top LD. He definitely was the best partner Kris Letang has had.
Brian Dumoulin has put up some of the better numbers among LD over the last decade and has shown flashes of offense upside. However, he has often been saddled with defensive partners that are defensively challenged so he hasn’t had the opportunity to really explore his offensive game.
Ian Cole is definitely not a top pair LD but should not be surprising that the team failed to get out of the second round once they traded him. Cole is the type of player a team needs. I still remember the time he skated an entire Penalty Kill himself. He may not have been the top pugilist during his time here, that honor goes to Ryan Reaves. However, he just may have been the toughest player to wear a Penguins sweater. He put his body on the line shift after shift.
Right Defense (RD)
1. Kris Letang
2. Justin Schultz
3. Matt Niskanen
Unlike the port side of the Defense, the Penguins have had some interesting RD. I am not retracting any of my criticisms of Kris Letang (defensively he is a millstone), however, he has contributed more than any other defensive player to the Penguins success over the past decade. And despite only being of average size, he has been one of the tougher players on our home town roster. He gets the top nod on RD.
Justin Schultz is a relative newcomer to the team, only playing the tail end of the decade but he has put up numbers to rival all but Letang.
I liked Matt Niskanen. It is a shame that we now live in a salary cap/free agent era and lost him to that free agency. He came into his own during a season where Letang was injured, but soon was at the end of his contract and grabbed the money the Washington Capitals were willing to throw at him.
Goaltending
1. Marc-Andre Fleury
2. Matt Murray
Hah, I bet some of you were thinking I would list Matt Murray as number 1. After all I am a self-proclaimed Murray backer. However, if anyone has really read what I have written over the last several years, I also am a Fleury fan. I was not one of those that felt you had to be either on team Fleury or a team Murray. More importantly Fleury’s body of work extends the bulk of the decade and not just the last 4 years of it. And during the Mike Johnston era where the offense was ground to a halt, Fleury was of utmost importance to the team.
Even if you asked me who I thought the Penguins All Time Goalie was, I still have to say Fleury. His body of work tops everyone. If Murray stays on his trajectory, he probably will supersede Fleury but as of this writing, Fleury still is No 1.
(No apologies to the Fleury detractors)
Reserve Forwards
1. Matt Cullen
2. Bryan Rust
As I wrote above, I would not argue with anyone who wanted to put Cullen in the top 4 Centers of the last decade, he contributed a ton to the Penguins victories. As for Bryan Rust there were other, bigger named players that passed through the ‘burgh over the past decade; Jerome Inginla and David Perron to name a pair, but between his speed and utility, he is my 2 reserve forward. I could plug him in just about anywhere in the lineup.
Reserve Defenseman
1. Olli Määttä
Despite Määttä being traded and all the negative media about the young Fins lack of foot-speed, I can’t ignore his contribution to the team this past decade.
Who will be the players we will be talking about in 2029. There is just a little over a month before the next season’s training camp kicks off. It really has been a long summer.
Good Stuff. Made me go back and look at stats. James Neal LW or RW??
I was looking at Jake Guentzel and was wondering if he even payed in that decade. Then I saw his playoff stats. Yea he did. 6th in playoff scoring for the decade. WOW.
Thanks Phil,
Neal is Left Handed but often played RW for Malkin with Jokinen on the LW. He was named to the NHL 1st team All Star Team in 2011-12 at RW. But whenever you look him up he is listed as LW, probably because he is left handed and has played elsewhere at LW. I guess it is like Guentzel, Simon and McCann often play RW for Crosby but are Left Handed and each is listed as a Center.
Interesting that you mention Guentzel as well, since he and Neal are polar opposites during the playoffs. Neal always seemed to disappear during the Playoffs while Guentzel thrived.