When I saw a photo of Steven Stamkos in a Nashville uniform the other day, I’m not sure I felt anything strange about it other than being dazzled by the flashy jersey. This is not a commentary on Fanatics, by the way.
We’re all used to seeing players move teams after a long career with a particular franchise. It didn’t take long for long-time Lightning icon Marty St. Louis to be seen in a Rangers uniform. At first, it was impossible to imagine Raymond Bourque playing anywhere other than Boston, but now people only remember him for winning a Cup with Colorado in 2001.
It’s too early to predict Connor McDavid’s career, and if you believe Auston Matthews will play his entire career in Toronto, you’re joining us. It seems hard to believe Nathan MacKinnon will play anywhere other than Colorado. It’s equally hard to believe Adam Fox would give up his lifetime membership to the Rangers fan club, but not for long.
But for now, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Victor Hedman, Kris Letang and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are the last players to have played for a team throughout their careers. Loyalty and sentimentality disappeared with the hard cap, but players like Ed Giacomin, Jean Ratel and Phil Esposito might have wanted to talk about loyalty and sentimentality in the mid-1970s.
So who are the all-time One Team All-Stars?
The all-time first-team, one-team goalie is Ken Dryden. He only played 397 NHL games, but he won five Stanley Cups over seven seasons with Montreal. You can put a 500-game limit on that if you want, but there’s never been a better, richer goalie out of Cornell, not even Billy Smith or Patrick Roy.
Do you want to put an asterisk next to the name of a second-team, first-team goaltender? What if you found out that Henrik Lundqvist, who played all 887 of his NHL games with the Rangers, was signed by the Caps before heart problems prevented him from continuing his career?
Strictly speaking, Lundqvist is the best one-team goalie of all time, but if we’re sticking with one-franchise perfect goalies, second-team honors go to Kelly Price, who likely never ended up being traded due to contractual reasons, but played his entire 712 career games with Montreal.
Our all-time One Team First Team defenseman pair is Nicklas Lidstrom, who played 1,564 career NHL games with the Red Wings, and four-time Cup winning captain Denis Potvin, who played 1,060 career games with the Islanders.
Now, would there have been a more dramatic example of worlds colliding if Potvin had accepted Mike Keenan’s invitation to join the Rangers in 1993-94, five years after the Hall of Famer’s retirement? It would have been as far-fetched an idea as Bryan Trottier actually becoming the Rangers’ coach. Who would have believed such a thing?
Either way, Lidstrom and Potvin will join the first team, paired with Doughty, who is still in his 1,177th career game with the Kings, and Jacques Laperriere, whose 691-game career with the Canadiens includes five Cup wins.
You see, Laperriere being an assistant on the Bruins bench was as strange to the eye as seeing Trottier or Terry O’Reilly or Ted Green (!!!!) as assistants on the Rangers bench. Wayne Cashman? Just as crazy as Derek Sanderson actually playing for the Rangers.
Our all-time, one-team, first-team center is Mario Lemieux, who likely would have won every important offensive category had he stayed healthy throughout his unparalleled 8,915-game career with the Penguins.
Maurice Richard, who played 978 games with the Canadiens, will fill the first line on the right wing, and Ovechkin, who played 1,426 games with Washington, will fill the left wing.
Pittsburgh could dominate the midfield, but I would prefer Jean Beliveau, who has 10 championships and 1,125 career games with the Canadiens, over Crosby. The second line would be lined up with Mike Bossy, the all-time leading pound-for-pound goal scorer with 752 career games with the Islanders, on the right and Bob Gainey, who has 1,160 career games with Montreal, on the left.
I chose Gainey, who played 1,160 games as a second-team, one-team left winger with Montreal, over Daniel Sedin, 1,306 games with Vancouver and Bill Barber and 903 games with the Flyers.
Honorable mentions went to Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman, Stan Mikita, Malkin, Gilbert Perot, Henri Richard, Henrik Sedin and Kopitar.
Martin Brodeur played 99.44% of his career with the Devils, 1,259 games with New Jersey and then seven with St. Louis. Billy Smith played 99.26% of his career with the Islanders and 674 games after starting his career with five games with the Kings in 1971-72. Olaf Kolzig played 711 games, 98.88% of his career, with Washington and then eight with Tampa Bay.
All-time Rangers one-team: G: Lundqvist, D: Ron Greschner, Adam Fox, LW: Chris Kreider, C: Walt Tkachuk, RW: Rod Gilbert.
