Ranking the 10 Most Entertaining NHL Teams to Watch

Hockey and its signature circuit, the NHL, offer an appealing aspect for every type of sports fan.

The physicality and general sacrifice required to make a play put the sport on par with football and lacrosse. The end-to-end flow with abrupt changes in possession lumps it into another group with lacrosse, along with soccer and basketball.

Baseball buffs who appreciate the proficient hand-eye coordination of batters and fielders ought to likewise admire that of a superior puck-handler, passer and shooter. The fact that this all happens in the process of rapid movement on ice gives the game an element of kinship with speed skating and various track and field events.

As they are constituted going into the 2013-14 season, here are the top 10 NHL teams who exemplify one or more of these qualities the best.

10. Anaheim Ducks

They may not have Bobby Ryan anymore, but the tandem of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry should continue to radiate from both a visual and statistical standpoint. Besides that, Getzlaf is one of those current NHL captains who can and does use his brawn to clear space for his skill and that of his colleagues.

Those colleagues include a host of younger, more energetic forwards on the rise, such as Emerson Etem, Kyle Palmieri and Jakob Silfverberg.

9. Ottawa Senators

The aforementioned Ryan has had his entertainment value shipped to Ottawa. There, he will join Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson, among others, on the NHL’s most inspiring underdog team.

In their first season under head coach Paul MacLean, the Sens pushed the first-place New York Rangers to seven games in the opening round of the playoffs. In their second, they abolished the Northeast Division champion Canadiens in five games, leaving no shortage of something to build on going forward.

8. New York Islanders

The play in the embedded video was the final touch on a puzzle to the playoffs for the Islanders, who proceeded to give the top dog Pittsburgh Penguins a valiant six-game fight. Appropriately enough, the play in question involved three of the forwards who, when they and the team are on top of their game, make this team fun to watch.

There is the former first overall draft pick in John Tavares, who has lived up to that label well enough through four seasons in the league. There also is the somewhat late-blooming but unquestionably ideal power forward in Kyle Okposo and three-time 30-goal scorer Matt Moulson.

7. Edmonton Oilers

With three straight first overall draft picks, all of them forwards, to start this young calendar decade, the Oilers had better have the material to feed the eyes, even if it is not translating to immediate gains in the standings.

Edmonton has more than just Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov as part of its jelling core group. Jordan Eberle, as evidenced by the example video, has been in on his share of impressive scoring plays as well.

In addition, Hall brings a side of sandpaper to his skill set, although he has crossed the line on occasion.

6. Tampa Bay Lightning

Steven Stamkos, who preceded Tavares and the three Oilers as the first overall draft choice, has become an increasingly dominant drawing element to Lightning games. But with this being the definitive team sport, his otherworldly quantity and variety of goals has its noticeable spread of crafty setup men, such as Ryan Malone and Martin St. Louis.

The potential for even more of this flair is on the horizon with Jonathan Drouin likely coming into the equation this fall. The rising rookie is coming off of a major junior career that saw him working as a prolific playmaker opposite Nathan MacKinnon on the Halifax Mooseheads.

5. Philadelphia Flyers

In recent years, the Flyers have generally come off as the team most likely to engage the opposition in a simultaneous shootout and hit-fest.

The combination of Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell tends to personify the franchise by dishing up abundances of both points and hits. But other players, such as hit-happy defenseman Luke Schenn and forwards Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek can and will fill in on one or both of those elements as well.

4. Los Angeles Kings

Los Angeles has yet another physical all-around captain in Dustin Brown, who leads a whole host of sharp, defensively responsible players.

Those who say defense is always dull likely diverted their attention for many of the 1,446 hits that placed the Kings second in the league this past season. Those who stereotype the Kings as lacking visual flavor on the ice forget they have a natural, slick scorer in Anze Kopitar, one nifty all-around defenseman in Drew Doughty and another on the rise in Slava Voynov.

Oh, and then there is acrobatic goaltender Jonathan Quick, who can put forth an entertaining arm-wrestling match with any worthy adversary in the other crease.

3. Washington Capitals

At least when he is giving a 100 percent effort and not drawing the ire of outspoken studio analysts, Alexander Ovechkin spawns no shortage of energy. As he goes offensively, so go linemates Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson, or maybe the other way around, as Stephen Whyno of the Washington Times opined in April.

Besides his embarrassment of pure offensive tools, Ovechkin joins the likes of Brown, Getzlaf and Giroux among the captains who also have a penchant for inciting his teammates and rooters with a good check.

There is even more behind Ovechkin, because defensemen John Carlson and Mike Green can both polish off a play with a pyrotechnic point shot.

2. Chicago Blackhawks

Whether they are on the same line at any given time or not, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are constantly in selective company among the NHL’s topmost twosomes. They have been since they simultaneously broke into the league in 2007-08 and have thus given rise to a flashy, ultracompetitive Blackhawks team.

Besides Toews and Kane, there are other slick scorers such as Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Brandon Saad. In other roles, there are all-around defensemen such as Duncan Keith and the brawny forward Bryan Bickell, who broke out for all to see during the team’s 2013 title run.

1. Pittsburgh Penguins

It does not require much effort to arrange a fun matchup provided the Penguins are one of the contesting parties.

They are a natural kinetic counterpart to their Pennsylvania cohabitants, the Flyers. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, one of the few elite duos that rival the aforementioned Kane and Toews, can join Ovechkin in creating a contest within the contest every time they collide with the Capitals.

That is merely the surface on the rivalry front. All Eastern Conference teams have the right to elevate their intensity when the Pens are on tap, and they almost always do.

Beneath the marquee portion of its roster, Pittsburgh has its resident well-rounded defenseman in Kris Letang and additional searing strikers such as Pascal Dupuis, Chris Kunitz and James Neal.

With that arrangement, it is little surprise the Pens sizzled their way to favorable results through at least the halfway mark of the 2013 playoffs. Even though they were subsequently swept in the conference finals, it is not as if their world-class cast did not put forth an exceptionally valiant last-minute buzz.