Favorite Player Of All Time

It may seem strange to some people, concidering I grew up watching Steve Yzerman lead us to 3 Stanley Cups, The Russian Five, The Grind Line, etc that my favorite player of all time is still currently in the prime of his career. It was a tough decision but when I was a child my favorite player seemed to change every time an exciting, important, dramatic goal was scored. I mean come on, I watch this goal over and over again and every time I'm met with the same feelings of nostalgia and pride.



Pavel Datsyuk


However there is no denying that despite all of that my favorite player of all time is Pavel Datsyuk. This guy is as close to a wizard as I've seen. The guy has an entire legion of youtube video highlights for every 15 year old drooling teen and myself to gauk at all through summer while waiting for him to get back on the ice and show us something new. Half of my youtube favorites literally is taken up by this guy, the things he can do with the puck is beyond anything I've ever seen before.

Here is a breakdown of his stats since the lockout.

05-06 - GP 75, G 28, A 59, Pts 87, +- 26
06-07 - GP 79, G 27, A 60, Pts 87, +- 36
07-08 - GP 82, G 31, A 66, Pts 97, +- 41
08-09 - GP 81, G 32, A 65, Pts 97, +- 34
09-10 - GP 80, G 27, A 43, Pts 70, +- 17
10-11 - GP 56, G 23, A 36, Pts 59, +- 11

He has been extremely consistent aside from one down year spent playing 09-10 with an injury riddled Detroit team. Last year looked like it could have been the year he finally broke 100 points (and judging by his playoff performance it seems very likely) if it weren't for a serious wrist injury that kept him out a good chunk of the season. Concidering the lines are switched around almost on a whim it is good to know that Datsyuk can play with just about anyone and on top of that, make them a better player. He is extremely versatile and can be played on the wing as well (this helped me out a lot in my fantasy league last year). On top of being one of the most entertaining players on the ice, he's also one of the funniest players in the locker room. His broken english and twisted dry humor have become somewhat famous around Hockeytown.




I could go on and on and hit you with stats and random facts but I'd rather just leave you with one of my favorite Datsyuk compilations.