After an extremely entertaining first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, here are ten things that have nothing to do with concussions, suspensions or brawls.
The New Jersey Devils, not usually involved in high stakes deals, got themselves one of the most prolific goal scorers of the last decade in Ilya Kovalchuk.
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After more than a month of voting in the latest Be The GM series from RealGM, a winner has finally been declared.
The Final Four featured the dynamic young talent of Tyler Seguin, the elite goal scoring of Steven Stamkos and the unheralded two-way greatness of Stanley Cup-winning captains Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews.
Toews and Crosby dueled it out for a solid week as the Chicago captain pulled off the upset to be named the franchise player RealGM readers would most like to build their team around for the next ten seasons.
I say upset because when healthy, there is not a player in the world better than Sidney Crosby. If healthy, would Chicago trade Jonathan Toews for Sidney Crosby straight up? Absolutely. Would Pittsburgh make that trade? Not a chance.
But this bracket had specific instructions: pick a player for the next ten seasons. With the recent concussion/neck problems Crosby has dealt with, who can blame voters for not wanting to take the risk that he will never get back to full health, full talent or full speed?
We cannot sell Toews short here either; he is a superstar, an elite center offensively and defensively, elite in the face-off circle, elite in the playoffs, elite in international play and an elite leader.
Toews was the third overall pick in 2006 behind Erik Johnson and Jordan Staal after taking the unconventional route for a Canadian by attending University of North Dakota as a 17 and 18-year-old. The native of Winnipeg, Manitoba registered 24-30-54 and a +11 rating as a rookie, earning All-Rookie 1st Team honors in 2007-08.
As a sophomore he set a career high with 34 goals and had 69 points; last season he set career highs in points with 76 and plus/minus with +25. This season he is on pace to break all of those marks, registering 27-25-52 in 52 games with a +17 rating.
The year Toews jumped into the "elite" category was 2010. In February of that year, Toews was an integral part of the Canadian gold medal-winning team at the Winter Olympics. His 8 points led Canada, his 7 assists tied the tournament-high, he tied for a tournament-high with a +9 rating and won almost 65% of his face-offs. He was named Best Forward in the tournament.
When the regular season concluded that year, Toews had 68 points in 76 games. However, in the playoffs Toews scorched the field with 29 points in 22 games as the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. He became the second-youngest player to ever win the Conn Smythe trophy and was the youngest captain to ever do so. The victory also made Toews the youngest player to gain entry to the Triple Gold club (Olympic gold, World Championship gold, Stanley Cup victory).
He is just as good defensively as he is offensively, sitting second in the NHL in face-off percentage this year (60.3%). In fact he has ranked 11th or better in every season since his sophomore year. At the time of writing he was also leading the league in takeaways and was second last season when he was runner-up for the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward.
Jonathan Toews has been selected to three-straight All-Star Games (there was no game in 2010, and he was injured this year) and is sure to be a perennial Selke Trophy nominee. At 23-years-old, he is all-but-guaranteed to be a fixture among the elite for at least the next decade and is very worthy of this selection.
-- Nick is an NHL Feature Writer for RealGM. You can reach him by e-mail nick.obergan@realgm.com or on Twitter: @NickObergan.
