I am a little late on this story as I don’t pay much attention to ESPN or the articles that they put out, but seeing it get some traction, there was no way I couldn’t talk about it. The fine folks over at the worldwide leader of sports decided to make a top 25 hockey players of the 21st century. Now given their track record, there is no way we should doubt them for their picks, I say sarcastically, but man did their list irk me for a few reasons. The big one being the continued disrespect for what Jonathan Toews had accomplished in his career.
For those of you who might need a refresher, here is a list of Tazer's accomplishments:
Three Stanley Cups
Two Olympic Gold Medals
Two World Junior Championships Gold
One World Championship Gold
One World Cup of Hockey Gold
2010 Conn Smythe Winner (2nd Youngest to win one)
2013 Selke Trophy Winner
2015 Mark Messier Leadership Award winner
Six Time All Star
2010 Olympic Best Forward
Youngest Player in the Triple Gold Club (Stanley Cup, Olympic Gold, World Championship Gold)
Fifth youngest captain in NHL History (at the time)
One of eight players to win the Cup and Olympic Gold in the same year
The list goes on and on, and yet even with all those accomplishments, he still wasn’t good enough to crack ESPN's top 25 players. Ill link the article here for those who want to see their list, but while there are obvious players on the list like you’d expect, like Crosby, Ovi, Kaner, and Lidstrom, there were even more, and I just can’t even begin to think how they made this list over Toews. They have Henrik Lundqvist at 8, who has only one Vezina to his name and 459 career wins, Zdeno Chara at 11, who has a single cup and Norris Trophy, Jarome Iginla at 20, and Jonathan Quick at 25. I am not arguing that those aren’t great players; except for Chara, I think he’s one of the most overrated players, but come on, you must be kidding me if you think any of those guys deserve to be higher on a list like this than Toews. I don’t even think that this is the bias in me for being a Hawks fan and him being my favorite player from that era. It’s simple facts that whatever could be accomplished by Toews, he went out and did it. Sure, he never won the Hart, Art Ross, or Rocket Richard trophy, but his game was never built for those awards.
He was one of the all-time greatest captains in league history and was so highly regarded in that area that Sidney Crosby felt the need to make sure Toews was ok with him being named captain over him. Are you going to tell me that the last few years of his career, where he didn’t perform as well due to medical issues, are really going to be enough to keep him out of the conversation for one of the best players to play the game? That’s beyond insane to me. I don’t understand why, after the career he had and being an absolute no-brainer Hall of Famer, only people from Chicago truly appreciate the player he was. With the amount of money ESPN paid for hockey rights, they would make sure to have the people covering the game actually know what they are talking about.
Oh, and what other things annoyed me about this list? The photos they picked were Jonathan Quick in the Rangers jersey, Duncan Keith in the Oilers jersey, Joe Thornton in a Panthers jersey, Steven Stamkos rookie photo, and, while I get it, Patrick Kane in the Red Wing jersey. Minor things, but hey annoying to me.
If you were making this list, where would you realistically put Toews? For me, I think he belongs in the in the top 6. Yes, there might be some bias on that one.
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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