Detroit Red Wings All-Decade Team

This past decade has been very good to the Detroit Red Wings. With three Western Conference Championships and two Stanley Cups since we all filled our underground bunkers with Chef Boyardee and waited for the world to explode rang in the year 2000. With all the great Red Wings teams you would think that this all-decade team would have been hard to come up with, but really there were only one or two hard decisions to make. This is credit to the kind of organization that the Red Wings are where players want to stay with the team over the years.

To come up with this list I took into consideration the amount of time the player spent with the Red Wings, their significance within the organization, and what they did on the ice as a Wing. I only looked at a player’s time with the Red Wings and only at their stats from 1999-2000 to 2008-2009.

GM: Ken Holland; A great GM but also the only one that the Red Wings had during this decade so he wins this honor by default.

Head Coach: Mike Babcock; Four Central Division titles, two Western Conference Championships, one Stanley Cup in four seasons.

Center

1. Pavel Datsyuk

2. Steve Yzerman, Captain

3. Kris Draper, Assistant Captain

4. Sergei Fedorov

-Three Hall of Fame centers, plus Draper who spent the entire decade in Detroit.

Right Wing

1. Dan Cleary

2. Brett Hull

3. Darren McCarty

4. Kirk Maltby

- Two grinders, a Hall of Famer, and a Newfoundlander.

Left Wing

1. Henrik Zetterberg

2. Tomas Holmstrom

3. Brendan Shanahan

4. Luc Robitaille

-Hank could end up as one of the top three Red Wings ever and Homer has been a staple on this team for more than a decade.

Defense

1. Nicklas Lidstrom, Assistant Captain

2. Chris Chelios

3. Brian Rafalski

4. Niklas Kronwall

5. Mathieu Dandenault

6. Jiri Fischer

- A great defensive core. Fischer makes this list not only because he was a good defenseman but because his story will always be one of the things that I will remember from this decade of Red Wings hockey.

Goalies

1. Dominik Hasek

2. Chris Osgood

-Both won Stanley Cups this decade, but at his best Hasek could out play any goalie.

Ok, now let the debate begin! Any one I missed? Someone you want to take off the list? Sound off and let me know.

Note: Before Christmas I will have a blog ranking the ten nine Red Wings teams form the last decade. Also, I have two other special Red Wings blogs that I am working on so stay tuned.