San Jose Sharks: All-Decade Team for the 2010s

Goalie: Antti Niemi

The choice for goalie came down to two options who each split the decade pretty evenly.

There was the Finnish Antti Niemi who served as the Sharks’ goalie from 2010 to 2015 and finished as a top-three finalist for the Vezina Trophy back in 2013.

And then there was the Vancouver-native Martin Jones who has been the team’s goalie since 2015 and led the Sharks to their only Stanley Cup Finals appearance in franchise history.

Despite Jones’ multiple clutch playoff performances, we decided to go with the former.

Niemi simply had the better regular-season numbers and it’s hard to wash away the stench from Jones’ recent shortcomings. The 11-year NHL veteran put together a number of excellent seasons with San Jose including that incredible lockout-shortened 2012-13 season.

Niemi finished that campaign with a goals-against-average of just 2.16 and a save percentage of .924. On top of that, the southpaw led the NHL in goalie wins with 24 in the shortened year.

While he would finish third in the Vezina Trophy voting behind Sergei Bobrovsky and Henrik Lundqvist, it would still be the best season by any Sharks goalie since the days of Evgeni Nabokov.

In fact, Niemi trails only Nabokov on the Sharks all-time leaderboard in games played, wins, and shutouts.

Jones has had his moments in San Jose, but Niemi was more consistent and the better choice to represent the Sharks’ All-Decade Team.