Chicago Blackhawks: Ten best players of the 2010s
In the previous decade, the Blackhawks had a couple of lottery balls go their way. They earned the right to take Patrick Kane first overall in the 2007 NHL Draft. They expected to help them get to a championship level and he gave them everything they would have ever asked for and more. He has simply grown into one of the best players to ever lace them up. He is already starting to gain steam in the conversation for the best American hockey player who ever lived.
He wasn’t just one of the best players on the Blackhawks in the 2010s, he was one of the best players in the world. In fact, nobody had more points this decade than Patrick Kane. He led everybody in scoring. This includes Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and Evgeni Malkin. Some of them had some injuries while Kane maintained his health but that doesn’t diminish the fact that he led all players in scoring.
Kane won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP for their 2013 run to the Cup. He has also won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer, the Hart Trophy as the MVP of the league, and the Ted Lindsay Award as the league’s most outstanding player. He is a highly decorated player that is going to lead his Hall of Fame class on his first ballot. The thing that is cool is that he got even better as the years went on. He enters 2020 still amongst the league’s best players and could be near the top of this list again ten years from now.