Canucks: Selecting the all-decade team of the 2010s

At The Canuck Way, we’re takeing one more trip down memory lane for the 2010s.  Here are the votes for the Vancouver Canucks’ all-decade team.

For the first three years of the 2010s decade, the Vancouver Canucks enjoyed their greatest run in franchise history.

They won another Northwest Division title in 2009-10, and it was followed by consecutive Presidents’ Trophies in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The highlight of the decade, of course, was Vancouver’s trip to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, where they fell to the Boston Bruins in a back-and-forth seven-game series.

They missed the playoffs in five of the next seasons from 2014 to 2019, but the team finally appears to be turning a corner. General manager Jim Benning has drafted numerous stars — namely Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser — who will hopefully lead this team to a new decade of dominance in the 2010s.

So yes, it was simply a decade full of ups and downs for Vancouver. But before the 2010-11 campaign, Canuck fans had only been able to celebrate two trips to the Stanley Cup Final. They fell just one game shy of reaching the ultimate dream, and for that, it’s safe to say that the decade was largely a successful one for this franchise.

As the decade moved along, Vancouver bid farewell to many of its fan favorites, plus a handful of franchise icons. This included Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Alexandre Burrows, Ryan Kesler, Sami Salo and Roberto Luongo, among others.

With these players gradually leaving over time, Benning and the front office assembled a new young core to build around. But did any of the new core players make our Vancouver Canucks’ 2010s all-decade team?

Nine of us from The Canuck Way voted on the three best forwards, two best defenceman plus the top goalie and head coach for the Canucks of the 2010s decade. Here are the final tallies.

Forwards

Henrik Sedin

Do I really need to give him an intro? Henrik Sedin: The captain of the Vancouver Canucks through some of the brightest moments of the franchise’s history —  including but not limited to two consecutive Presidents’ Trophy seasons.

Alongside brother Daniel, he is a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame when the time comes, and one would be pretty hard-pressed to find anyone who would go against this claim. 1,070 points in the NHL is no small feat, and there are only five active players above him.

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He is fondly remembered for his instant chemistry on the ice with his twin, most notably with the both alongside recent inductee to the Ring of Honour Alex Burrows. But even without the latter, Henrik improved whichever player was on his wing.

It was not just his on-ice achievements which earned him The Canuck Way’s team of the decade honour; it was also his community work around Vancouver.

While there may be a perception that pro athletes have to give back to their adopted communities, Henrik — again alongside Daniel brought this action to an unparalleled level — fully immersing themselves in the tapestry of Vancouver’s well-being.

Whether it was the impact he made on children’s lives through community work, being a crossing guard at his child’s school, or leading the team to the Stanley Cup Final, Henrik was able to do it all. That is why he makes the team of the decade.

-Ben Steiner

Daniel Sedin

While Henrik Sedin was the passer, Daniel Sedin was the goal scorer. He was the Canucks’ best goal scorer of the 2010s, and Daniel is the franchise’s all-time goals leader with 393.

Daniel scored a plethora of memorable goals throughout the decade, including a ridiculous between-the-legs dandy against the Calgary Flames in 2010. He was a huge part of the 2010-11 team that went to the Stanley Cup Final, too.

In the regular season, Daniel scored 41 goals and 63 assists for 104 points to win the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer. He also won the Ted Lindsay Award as the most outstanding player voted by members of the NHLPA.

In the playoffs, he scored nine goals and 11 assists in 25 playoff games. The biggest was probably the game-tying goal in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Boston Bruins. On Nov. 30, 2017, Daniel became the second Canuck (after Henrik) to score 1,000 points in the NHL.

Daniel is without a doubt the best Canucks’ goal scorer of the 2010s, as well as the greatest goal scorer in their history.

-Joshua Rey

Elias Pettersson

After not even two seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, you wouldn’t think Elias Pettersson would be eligible for an all-decade team. But the impact he’s made on this franchise has been unique, so an exception has to be made. From his first laser beam in his first NHL game on his first NHL shot to the many times he’s dazzled us on the ice since then, the season and a half might as well be ten years. That’s how much he’s changed the Canucks’ fortunes for the better.

Before Pettersson began his ascent to generational status, there was legitimate concern about where the next wave of offensive stars would come from. After the Sedins retired, who would lead the team into the next decade?

From the moment he started breaking records in Sweden, fans and media alike knew they had something special, a superstar to lead them into the next era of Canucks hockey. Amid immense pressure, he has risen to every challenge that has been brought before him and has already become a premier threat in the NHL.

Pettersson quickly became a key member of the Canucks in his first month in the big leagues. Head coach Travis Green was enamored by his skill, speed and overall hockey IQ that he placed him with another rising star in Brock Boeser. It didn’t take long for them to develop chemistry with each other and start making plays that only the most seasoned duos execute, like the bank pass from center ice.

That’s just one of many that they have executed over the last season and a half. Since they were put together, they have been practically joined at the hip as one of the most offensively gifted duos in the entire NHL.

To put it simply, Pettersson has changed the landscape of Canucks hockey. He hasn’t even played two full seasons yet, but you could write an essay on his career already. The highlight reel is packed full of elite shots, dekes, passes, shootout moves, smart hockey plays, and even a patented death stare. He has won the Calder Trophy and was in the conversation for the Hart Trophy.

Whether you call him Petey, the Alien, the Swedish Gretzky or just Elias, he has become an icon in a city that desperately needed one after the Sedins retired. Bo Horvat may be the captain, but it will be Pettersson leading the new core into the next decade. Despite only playing in less than two years of this past decade, he is deserving of this spot on the all-decade team. So let’s all join in, and walk with Elias.

-Matthew Zator

Defencemen

Alexander Edler

Alexander Edler used the entire decade to become the franchise leader in points by a defenceman. The Swedish defender has spent his entire 14-year NHL career sporting the orca on his chest, and he’s inching closer to 400 career points.

To put it simply, The Eagle — as his teammates call him — has been the backbone of the D-core, and ultimately the team’s No. 1 blueliner throughout the entire 10-year period of the 2010s.

Edler plays the simple game but is extremely effective in any situation the coach puts in front of him. He logs a ton of minutes, as he plays on the top pair and on both first units of the power play and penalty kill.

He can be trusted to produce around 40 points and close to double-digit goals each season. He has only played a full 82-game season once in his career (2011-12), but that was his best season of all — where he managed a whopping 49 points and a career-high 11 goals.

The massive workload he faces every season usually forces Edler to miss a handful of games each season, but when he is playing, he eats pucks daily in the blocking column and knows how to throw a massive center ice hit.

He has earned the title as not only the best Canuck defender of the decade, but the best one in history. His loyalty to the city of Vancouver and the Canucks is 100 and his work here isn’t complete. We are lucky to have him help guide this team into the next decade.

-Brayden Ursel

Kevin Bieksa

While Edler was an easy choice to be the Canucks’ top defenceman of the past decade, the second half of this pairing was a more difficult choice. Arguments could be made for Chris Tanev or Quinn Hughes to be here, but we eventually settled on Kevin Bieksa.

The Canucks selected Bieksa (aka “Juice”) in the fifth round of the 2001 entry draft. He would go on to play for the Canucks from 2005 to 2015, and he was a core member of the 2011 team that went to the Stanley Cup Final.

While Bieksa was never the most offensively gifted defenceman, he was known for his role as a leader in the dressing room during some of the most successful seasons in franchise history. The first characteristic of Bieksa that comes to mind for most is his sense of humour, as he was the prank master in a room that included such characters as Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows.

That said, Bieksa could always be counted on to come through in the game’s biggest moments, including when he scored the infamous “stanchion goal” off a puck that ricocheted to the defenceman in overtime of game five of the 2011 Western Conference Final against the San Jose Sharks. The goal won the Canucks the series, and it sent them to the Cup Final.

Over four years after being traded to the Anaheim Ducks, Bieksa remains a part of Canucks Nation, having recently launched the “Kes and Juice Podcast,” in which he and Kesler tell stories of their time in the NHL, including many from their time with the Canucks. Bieksa loves Vancouver, and the city always loved him back. He deserves his spot on the all-decade team as much as anyone.

-Owen Gibbs

Goalie

It’s hard to picture the Vancouver Canucks in the 2010s without Roberto Luongo. The native of Montreal, Quebec made an immediate impact on the franchise from the first season he played here back in 2006-2007 — reaching 40-plus wins for the first time in his career and placing second in Hart and Vezina Trophy voting.

That incredible inaugural season made Canucks fans realize that they had found their backstopper for the near future — one that would be a key piece surrounded by a core of players that were stepping into their prime years.

By the time the 2010s rolled around, Luongo was still playing some of his best hockey behind a team that had created a powerful bond with one other. The team was just so much fun to watch, because as a fan watching those early decade games, you could tell that they were battling and fighting for one another every single game.

The players’ emotion, passion and dedication poured through the screen, and maybe no player demonstrated it more than Luongo — with his slightly unorthodox goaltending style that resulted in some acrobatic stops that left fans mesmerized and wondering “How did that puck stay out?”

He was the heartbeat of a team that would trek all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in 2011, and he produced some of the best hockey that Vancouver fans got to witness. I mean, how could one forget the iconic Stanley Cup Final run? I have chills down my spine just reminiscing about it.

From the beginning of the 2010-2011 season to his trade back to Florida in 2014, Luongo played 177 games, with 97 wins –with a save percentage that was .917 or better in three of those years. He has the most wins among Canuck goaltenders in this decade, and he earned a William M. Jennings Trophy alongside Cory Schneider in 2010-11. He also served as captain from 2008-2010 — a rarity in the NHL for a goaltender — but a testament to Luongo’s leadership and presence in the Canucks locker room.

You can think what you want about his controversial departure and whether it was drawn out too long, or the unfortunate cap recapture penalty the the team is stuck with due to his subsequent retirement, but you can’t recapture the memories that Luongo and those special moments with the Canucks earlier this decade.

-Lucas Celle