When the San Francisco Giants won their third World Series in five-seasons in 2014, immediately the, “D” word started floating around: were the Giants a dynasty? In sports, only the greatest of the great are considered to attain dynasty-status; with one championship the team will be remembered as being the best of that year, with two, the team is truly special, but it is at three and above when the team truly places itself on a level where it can only be measured against history, and not against its peers. But how does one separate the greatest sports dynasties from the Big Four North American professional sports leagues (Major League Baseball, the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and National Hockey League)? Which dynasty is truly the greatest of all?

To make this list, a team must have won at least four championships in ten-years or less. Franchises that have had multiple periods of greatness, like the Yankees, Canadiens, Celtics, and Lakers are only listed once, with the best of their best. One of the primary tools that aids in the evaluation of these dynasties is the Simple Rating System – or SRS – that is used by Sports-Reference.com in order to more effectively evaluate teams; it creates a league baseline for a particular season and each positive number represents how much more often the team scores points/runs/and goals than the average team in the league in that season. So in baseball a team that has an SRS of one scores one more run on average than any team in the league.

10.) San Francisco 49ers (1981-1989): The San Francisco 49ers were the first professional team from the Big four in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they were also the black sheep of the large metro areas teams, being the only franchise in the area that had neither won a championship nor even made it to the championship game/series. That all changed in 1981 when the team that Bill Walsh had been building around young QB Joe Montana went 13-3 and the Niners advanced to host the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game. With the Niners trailing Tom Landry’s team, and the clock running out, Montana fired a pass to Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone to win the game that became known as simply ‘the catch,’ the 49ers would defeat the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl XVI, and the dynasty was off and running. Walsh instituted his version of the West Coast Offense, which was based around Montana throwing short, accurate passes that allowed the wide receivers lots of room to gain yards after the catch, but while everyone knew about the 49er offense early on, the secret to their greatness was a massively underrated defense – led by future hall of fame great Ronnie Lott at safety – and after contending but falling short for a few years, San Francisco answered back with their incredible 1984 season. Walsh and Montana lead the league’s top rated offense offense, Lott and defensive coordinator George Seifert commanded the league’s top rated defense, and the team went 15-1 in the regular season and returned to the Super Bowl after beating a great Chicago Bears team in the NFC Title game (in 1985 that Bears team would go 15-1, do the ‘Super Bowl Shuffle,’ and achieve their own immortality) before facing the 14-2 Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX. The Dolphins were the talk of the league due to second-year quarterback Dan Marino having maybe the greatest regular season a QB has ever had and winning the MVP. What was supposed to be a close match with Walsh and Montana on one side and Dolphins’ Hall of Fame head coach Don Shula and Marino on the other, turned into an easy 38-16 victory for the Niners and Montana answered any critics by winning his second SB MVP award.

A football fan might have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Jerry Rice yet, a man who is considered to be not only the greatest wide receiver in league history, but perhaps the single greatest PLAYER of all-time; the reason for leaving off number 80 is that the 49ers actually won those two Super Bowls BEFORE the team drafted Rice in 1985. While the Niners continued to make the playoffs in 85-87, they couldn’t make it through the NFC playoffs (the Conference entered a period of dominance that saw an NFC team win the Super Bowl each season from 1984-1996), and in 1988 the Niners actually had a less impressive regular season than in previous years, but they made it back to the Super Bowl for a rematch with the Bengals, and the already legendary Montana cemented his status as maybe the greatest QB ever when the Niners got the ball took the ball at their eight yard line down 16-13 with 3:04 left on the clock. Montana led the Niners down the field in a text book example of Walsh’s West Coast offense, making short, accurate passes that gave his receivers plenty of room for yards after the catch and fired a TD to John Taylor that gave the Niners a 20-16 victory. Montana’s reputation for coming through in the clutch was also aided by the fact that, in order to relax his teammates at the start of the drive, he pointed out actor John Candy in the stands. Rice won the game MVP, but the team was shook up when Bill Walsh announced his decision to retire from the game, handing the team off to Seifert. The Niners through the league in ’89 with 14-2 record, and Joe Montana won his first regular season MVP award. In the playoffs, the ’89 Niners were the most dominant team in league history, cruising into a second consecutive Super Bowl and then destroying the Denver Broncos in 55-10, the greatest blowout in SB history; Montana won his third SB MVP after throwing five TD passes. In 1990 Montana rolled to his second consecutive league MVP and the team again finished the league’s best record at 14-2. No team in NFL history has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls, but those ’90 Niners came the closest, hosting the NFC title game against the rival New York Giants before losing on a 15-13 on a last second field goal. The dynasty had come to an end not just because of the loss, but because Montana was badly injured during that NFC title game and would miss almost all of the next two seasons. During his injury, fellow hall of famer Steve Young had won the starting job, and while the team remained consistently great and won a fifth Super Bowl in 1994, without Walsh, Montana, and Lott, it was no longer the same team, but the team had established a reputation for excellence that meant they would never be the black sheep in the Bay Area, or anywhere else, ever again.

Key Figures:

Eddie DeBartolo (Owner and President)

Bill Walsh (Head Coach for 1981, ’84, and ’88 Championship teams. Retired after ’88 win.)

George Seifert (Defensive coach in 1981, Defensive Coordinator for ’84 and ’88 champions, HC in ’89)

Joe Montana

Ronnie Lott

Jerry Rice

Best season during the run: 1989 – Some people might say 1984 and that team had a Simple Rating System score of 12.7, but I’m picking the 1989 team that, while having a less impressive SRS of 10.7, went 14-2, and won their first two playoff games by scores 41-13 over the Minnesota Vikings and 30-3 over the Los Angeles Rams on the way to a 55-10 demolition of the Broncos in SB XXIV. Also, unlike the 1984 team, the ’89 team included Jerry Rice and featured Montana’s first MVP season. The 1989 San Francisco 49ers are actually my personal pick for the greatest team in NFL history.

Most Memorable Moment: ‘The Catch,’ which won the 1981 NFC Title game for the young 49ers and beat the Dallas Cowboys (NFL royalty at the time), is one of the most famous plays in NFL history, so it earns the spot here. In second place is Montana’s drive to win Super Bowl XXIII over the Bengals 20-16 following his pointing out John Candy in the stands.

9.) Los Angeles Lakers (1980-88): It may be hard for NBA fans to imagine now, but before the Lakers drafted Magic Johnson in 1979, the franchise was mostly known for coming up short in the biggest games. Between the 1961-62 season and ’72-73 the Lakers made the NBA Finals nine times, but had only won the championship once (in 1972). Six of those losses came at the hands of the Bill Russell Celtics (more on them later) between ’62 and ’69, and then even after Russell retired the Lakers fell to the Knicks in humiliating fashion in ’70 (when Wilt Chamberlain could not take advantage of a horribly injured Willis Reed in game seven). In ’75 the Lakers acquired the best player in the league, 27-year-old future Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Milwaukee Bucks, but in spite of Kareem’s singular dominance, the Lakers still couldn’t win a championship in what had become a watered down league. Everything changed when Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson joined the team. Besides himself being a great player from the very first game, Magic also made Kareem and his teammates better. In his rookie year the Lakers made it to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1973, and they defeated Julius Erving’s great Philadelphia 76ers in spite of their best player, Kareem, going down with an injury in game 5. With Kareem unable to go in game six in Philadelphia, Magic filled in with one of the greatest games in NBA history: Magic started the game at center in spite of being a point guard (although he was 6’9”) and he went on to play all five positions on the court, score 42 points, grab 15 rebounds, and dish out 7 assists to lead the Lakers to a game and series victory that earned him the Finals MVP award. After a down year in ’81 the Lakers promoted assistant coach Pat Riley to head coach and with Magic and Kareem leading the way, they again beat Dr. J’s 76ers in the Finals. In ’83 the Lakers returned to the finals and again played the 76ers, but they had added Moses Malone from Houston, who had always given Kareem trouble, and the 76ers crushed the Lakers in a sweep. However, the NBA was still not extremely popular, and in 1984 Magic’s Lakers would meet the Boston Celtics in the Finals, reigniting the Lakers-Celtics rivalry that suddenly had new blood because the Celtics were led by Magic’s college rival Larry Bird (Magic’s Michigan State had defeated Bird’s Indiana State in the 1979 NCAA Championship), and the league would never look back. Boston had won the championship in 1981 and in ’84 Bird won MVP and was the game’s best player. Bird’s Celtics prevailed in a classic seven game series (and he won Finals MVP too), but that was the only time Bird’s team would get the better of Magic’s in the Finals. In ’85 the two teams returned to the Finals but after a dominating Celtics win in game one, the Lakers railed back to win the championship in six games, with Kareem winning Finals MVP; it was the first time the Lakers had ever defeated the Celtics in the NBA Finals.

However, Kareem was past his prime and was exposed as such in the 1986 playoffs as the young Houston Rockets knocked off the Lakers before themselves losing to an all-time great Celtics team led by Bird, who won his third-straight league MVP. Riley’s response to Kareem’s aging was to give total control of the team to Magic, and he did not disappoint as he led the Lakers to their OWN all-time great season in 1987, won league MVP for the first time, and then faced the Celtics again in the Finals. Magic’s Lakers would win the series in six games (and it was the rubber match for the Bird-Magic Finals series, with Magic’s team beating Bird’s two to one), win Finals MVP, and clearly show that now HE was the best player in the NBA, and not Magic or Bird. In ’88 the Lakers returned to the Finals and bested a young, determined Pistons team in seven tough games, becoming the first team to win back-to-back championships since the ’68-’69 Celtics. Having won five championships in his first nine seasons in the league, Magic, who won his second MVP in ’89, was the heart of an aging team and, while the Lakers again won the Western Conference, the Pistons were just too much for an old and battered Lakers team to handle and they were swept. Big changes faced the dynasty in 1990 when Kareem retired and Pat Riley left the team too, but Magic had another MVP season, leading a Lakers team that fell short in the Western Conference playoffs for only the third time in Magic’s career. Magic was still playing great basketball in 1991, but the league had changed around him and when he helped drag the Lakers into the Finals, Magic was no match for the game’s new unquestioned master, Michael Jordan, and the Bulls won in five easy games. However in spite of the fact that Magic’s rival and friend Bird’s career was nearly over due to a horribly injured back, Johnson was still only 31-years-old and in good health. That was why the sports world was turned upside down when in October 1991, Magic announced that he had contracted HIV and would therefore have to retire from the NBA. At the time, it seemed a death sentence for Magic, but while it thankfully turned out not to be the case, his career was over. In 12-seasons the Lakers had made it to the NBA Finals nine times and gone five and four, and had won all five between 1980-88. Magic won three MVPs and three Finals MVPs during the run, and completely changed the culture of the Lakers, going from the team that always came up short to a team that could win the biggest games. Even now, with Kobe Bryant at the end of his career and the team in bad shape, it is still a prime destination for free agents and that is not just because the team plays in Los Angeles, it is because Magic, Kareem, and Riley helped to change the franchise.

Key Figures:

Jerry Buss (Owner and President)

Jerry West (General Manager)

Pat Riley (Head Coach from 1981-89)

Magic Johnson

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

James Worthy

Best season during the run: 1986-87 – 65-17, 8.32 SRS, victory in NBA Finals in six over the defending champion Celtics.

Most Memorable Moment: Rookie Magic Johnson jumps center for the Lakers in place of the injured Kareem, plays every position and scores 47 points. Hell of a way to end your rookie season in the NBA. Two other big moments would be Magic’s baby skyhook that pretty much sealed the 1987 Finals for the Lakers – a huge feat because it meant the Showtime Lakers would be the Team of the ‘80s and not the rival Celtics, and it meant Magic would be the player of the decade instead of Bird. In third place is the terrible moment when Magic had to prematurely retire due to HIV.

8.) Edmonton Oilers (1983-90): The 1980s Oilers’ dynasty may be the greatest assemblage of talent in sports history, as their roster reads not only like an all-star team for the era in which it played, but an all-star team made up of Hall of Famers and starring ‘The Great One’ Wayne Gretzky, the greatest player in hockey history. In 1983 the Oilers made it to the Stanley Cup Finals but was crushed by a battle-tested Islanders dynasty (more on them later) that swept Edmonton to win its fourth-consecutive Stanley Cup Championship. Gretzky had already proven he was the best player in the league, had won the Hart Trophy for NHL MVP four-straight times, and was still only 23-years-old, and the team finally started playing up to his skills, winning the President’s Trophy as the top team in the NHL regular season, and made it back to the Cup Finals for a rematch with the Islanders, and this time the Oilers steamrolled the Isles to end their ‘drive for five’ beating the four-time defending champions and announcing their arrival to the league. The Oilers had accumulated an almost unbelievable collection of talent in a league of 21-teams, surrounding Gretzky with Hall of Famers Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, and Grant Fuhr and fellow top-ten all-time player Mark Messier, and from the ’84 season through ’88 the Gretzky’s Oilers won four Stanley Cups in five-seasons, with only an upset at the hands of a great Calgary Flames team in the second round of 1986 playoffs stopping them from winning five-consecutive titles; instead they had to settle with a pair of back-to-back championships in ’84-’85, and ’87-’88. However, the dynasty – which had a higher ceiling than almost every dynasty on this list – was running into the kind of trouble that did not face the others, and that was a cheapskate owner in Peter Pocklington. After the ’87 season, the cracks started to show when Pocklington got into a dispute with Coffey, and then traded the star defenseman (who is in the discussion for who is the second best defenseman ever behind Bobby Orr) to Pittsburgh. The trade did not stop the Oilers from winning it all again the following year, and running through the playoffs with an incredible record of 16-2, meaning that the Oilers did not even lose enough games through four rounds to have even been eliminated in one round. In the ’88 Stanley Cup Finals the Oilers swept the Boston Bruins and Gretzky hoisted the Cup for the fourth time in five-seasons; it was the last he’d ever win, and his last game as an Oiler.

Pocklington had decided that he did not save enough money with the Coffey trade, and he therefore could not afford to sign the Great One to a new contract after his current one expired after the ’89 season, and he shocked the world by trading could not afford to keep the Great One, shocking the hockey world by trading hockey’s biggest star to the Los Angeles Kings at the age of only 27. In 1989 the Oilers, now led by Messier, who had succeeded Gretzky as team captain, were upset in the playoffs by Gretzky’s Kings. But incredibly, the Oilers’ dynasty was still not done and in 1990 Messier won his first Hart Trophy and led the Oilers to their fifth Stanley Cup in seven-seasons. After that win, through a series of trades and free agent departures, the Oilers eventually dismembered the entire dynasty, Messier left for the New York Rangers, and Kurri joined Gretzky in LA.

There are other teams on the list that might have one more championships if or two things went differently, but the Oilers are unique in that they were broken up by their owner and while it may seem silly to say that four championships in five-years and five in seven stand as a failure to live up to the team’s potential, it is the truth nonetheless. If Pocklington had not been so cheap or if the Oilers played in a bigger market and could have been kept together, it is hard to believe that they would not have just kept winning title after title. If the team was great enough and had enough skill that it could win without Coffey and then without him and the greatest player in history, how could it have been stopped if it could KEEP those players together? It is why this dynasty is not ranked higher, because by all rights this should have been the single greatest dynasty in sports history, but Pocklington’s decision to break up the team not only kept it from attaining that status and made it so the Oilers’ dynasty is ranked behind two NHL dynasties that directly preceded their run.

Key Figures:
Glen Sather (Head coach for first 4 Cup wins, General Manager for the whole run.)

Wayne Gretzky

Mark Messier

Paul Coffey

Grant Fuhr

Jari Kurri

Glen Anderson

Best season during the run: 1983-84 – The Oilers went 57-18-5, led the league with 119 points (the next closest team had 104) and finished with an SRS of 1.51. In the Stanley Cup Finals they met the Islanders in a rematch of the ’83 finals that ended in an Islanders’ sweep, and defeated the four-time defending champion Islanders four games to one.

Most Memorable Moment: John Pocklington’s decision to trade the 27-year-old Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings and the tearful press conference that followed it is sadly the most memorable moment for a dynasty that was cut short by a cheap owner and a small market when it might have been the greatest in sports history.

7.) Green Bay Packers (1961-67): There is a reason the Super Bowl winning team is handed a trophy named for Vince Lombardi. Before Lombardi took the helm of the Packers in 1959, the team had been terrible every year after winning the 1944 NFL Championship. Green Bay was the most successful franchise in the early years of the NFL, winning six NFL titles between 1929 and ’44. After that win though, the franchise fell on hard times, and watched from afar as the 1950s were dominated by upstarts like the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts, two teams that had only come into the league in 1950 from the All-American Football Conference. But that all changed when Vince Lombardi arrived in 1959 after serving as the offensive coordinator for the perennial contender New York Giants (on a staff that amazingly had Lombardi in charge of the offense and Tom Landry as defensive coordinator) and instantly turned the team’s culture around. In 1960, only his second season ever as a head coach in the NFL, Lombardi had the Packers in the NFL Title game for the first time in over a decade, losing 17-13 in Philadelphia to the Eagles. The Packers’ loss to the Eagles was only the beginning for Lombardi squad that would own the decade, and in 1961 the Packers finished with the league’s best record at 11-3 to return to the NFL Championship game before smoking Lombardi’s former team (the Giants) 37-0. The Pack followed up their success in ’61 by having arguably the greatest season in NFL history, going 13-1 and defeating the Giants again (though, with the game in NY, the Giants kept it closer before losing 16-7). After the Packers came up short of the playoffs in ’63 and ’64, some critics wrote off the Packers as an old team past its prime, but Green Bay was far from done, and still relying primarily on the power sweep that Lombardi had invented, the Packers returned to the NFL Championship game in ’65 and defeated the defending champion Cleveland Browns 23-12.

Professional football changed forever in 1966 though, when the competing American Football League formed an agreement with the NFL for its champion to play the NFL champion in a new title game that would eventually be called the Super Bowl, and the new game would lead to the greatest coaching not just of Lombardi’s career, but perhaps in NFL history. The coaching was amazing for one simple reason: once the Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL Title game (which, prior to this season would have made them the champions of football), Lombardi somehow successfully kept his team of veterans mentally sharp and hungry to play in a Super Bowl that seemed anti-climactic and even a bit like an exhibition to some of the players. Lombardi was under an amazing amount of stress too, because the NFL believed that its brand of football was far superior to that of the AFL and many of the NFL’s most powerful owners were pressuring Lombardi and telling him that he represented the NFL and had to win. Then once the game began, the Packers showed up to play and decimated the AFL champ Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Super Bowl I. In ’67 the Packers started to show their age, but once again they found themselves back in the NFL Championship game, again playing the Dallas Cowboys in a game that, due to the sub-zero temperatures in Green Bay, came to be known as the ‘Ice Bowl.’ Trailing 17-14 with the time running down and the ball at the one, it was expected that the Packers would kick a field goal to tie the game at 17 and head to overtime, but Lombardi, saying he wanted to get everyone out of the cold, called a QB sneak and Hall of Famer Bart Starr plunged ahead for the score that gave the Packers a 21-17 victory. In Super Bowl II the Packers again smoked the AFL Champion, this time the Oakland Raiders, by the score of 33-14.

Winning Super Bowl II made the Packers became the first – and still only – team in NFL history to win three consecutive championships (the 1929-31 Packers technically did too, but back then there was no championship game at all and the league champion was just the team with the best record). However, after the game not only was the team now truly past its prime, Lombardi was burned out too, and after he was carried off the field by his victorious players, he retired from the Packers; his team had won five championships in seven-years with the last two doubling as the first two Super Bowls. Like I said: there is a reason it is called the Lombardi Trophy.

Key Figures:

Vince Lombardi (HC and team President)

Bart Starr

Ray Nitschke

Paul Hornung

Jerry Kramer

Max Magee

Best season during the run: 1962 – The Pack went 13-1,and won the NFL Championship 16-7 over the Giants. Their SRS of 19.1 is the second greatest in history, trailing only the 2007 New England Patriots 20.7. Of course, those Patriots lost in the Super Bowl to the Giants, which means that this Green Bay team may in fact be the greatest single-season team in league history.

Most Memorable Moment: Winning Super Bowl I is up near the top, but the prize needs to go to the QB Sneak by Bart Starr that ended the Ice Bowl with a victory for the Packers. It was the last game Lombardi ever coached at Lambeau Field, as the Packers won go on to win Super Bowl II in Los Angeles and then he would retire.

6.) New York Islanders (1980-83): When the Montreal Canadiens dynasty (more on them to come) ended after their fourth-consecutive Stanley Cup Championship in 1979, the New York Islanders were eager to replace that dynasty with one of their own. Coming into the league in the 1972 expansion, the Islanders had begun accumulating one of the greatest collections of talent in NHL history: it honestly was not that far behind the roster the Oilers had put together. As the ‘70s progressed the Isles and their eventual Hall of Fame head coach Al Arbour built a remarkable team with a foundation of Hall of Famers led by defenseman and captain Denis Potvin, center and ’79 NHL MVP Bryan Trottier, goalie Billy Smith, and rightwing Mike Bossy, who is perhaps the greatest pure goal scorer in NHL history. The Islanders were poised to replace Montreal in the ’79-’80 season, but new rules had expanded the playoffs to four rounds, which made it more difficult to win one championship, let alone more than one. Still, the Isles made it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in their history, where they faced the Philadelphia Flyers, a team that had won back-to-back championships in ’74-’75 before being shoved aside by the Habs’ dynasty and was trying to return to greatness. The Islanders would not be denied, however, and they defeated the Flyers in six games to become only the second expansion franchise (after those Flyers) to win the Cup. The Isles had pushed themselves very hard to win the Stanley Cup, but somehow the team did not lose focus after their victory, but instead found new purpose in a desire to surpass the preceding Montreal dynasty. In ’81 the Isles showed their commitment to excellence by finishing with the best record in the sport, driven in large part by Bossy’s league-leading 68 goals, and they then defended their championship in the playoffs, defeating the Minnesota North Stars in five games. In ’82 the Isles again earned the best record in the sport, and once in the playoffs and, after a scare against the Pittsburgh Penguins in round one, rolled through the next three rounds with 12 victories and only two losses, sweeping the overmatched Vancouver Canucks in the Finals to win their third consecutive Stanley Cup. In ’83 the Isles did not finish with the best record in the league, but once the playoffs started they were just as deadly as ever, advancing to the Finals for the fourth straight time, this time against the young Wayne Gretzky Oilers who were gunning for the Isles just as the Isles had once chased the Habs, but the Oilers proved no match for the Isles and were swept by New York as the team won its fourth-consecutive Stanley Cup championship.

However, unbeknownst to the Islanders until later, they had inadvertently helped the Oilers to overtake them when Wayne Gretzky passed by the Isles locker room after the game and saw the bruised and battered Islanders have a very low-key celebration. The Great One later said that it was seeing those Islanders, and recognizing the price that they had paid (not just in the ’83 playoffs but through their incredible run) to win that showed him what it truly took to be a champion. When the Islanders returned to the Finals in ’84 for the fifth-straight season, they again ran into the Edmonton, but this time the Oilers were ready, and they beat the Isles in five-games to end their ‘drive for five,’ and announce the start of their own dynasty. By that point, the Islanders had set a record that is likely to stand forever by winning a ludicrous 19 consecutive playoff series from 1980-84. The Canadiens had won their titles when there were less rounds of the playoffs, while the Isles won 16-consecutive playoff series during their four-straight Cup wins, and then won three more to return to the Finals in ’84, ending at an almost unfathomable 19.

For some reason, this dynasty usually doesn’t receive the acclaim that it should, and I believe that may be because it took place in the time between the Canadiens’ run and that of the Oilers, and the Isles did not have the gaudy team stats of the Canadiens, who set records for the amount of points a team had won in one season, while they did not have the individual stars to equal the Oilers collection of Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, and Jari Kurri. Bossy, Bryan Trottier, and Denis Potvin are three of the greatest players in NHL history, but the Oilers’ stars were all better at the things that those Isles were best at. Bossy may be the greatest pure goal scorer in NHL history, but not only did Gretzky outscore him, he also had an all-around game that Bossy couldn’t match. Trottier was an incredibly well-rounded center, but was he as good as Messier? Probably not. And Potvin is one of the best defensemen ever, but Coffey produced far more points and won three Norris trophies just as Potvin did. Had the amazing Bossy come along in almost any other era he would have won multiple MVPs, he just had the misfortune to play at the same time as Gretzky. For example, Alex Ovechkin won the MVP in 2008 when he led the league with 65 goals and 112 points, while in ’82 Bossy scored 64 goals and earned 147 points, but that year Gretzky set the single-season record for goals with 92 and accumulated 212 points.

The Islanders may not have been the match of those Habs and they didn’t have The Great One, but for a while there they won like no one ever had before and none have since, are the last team in any of the Big Four Sports leagues to win four-straight championships, and strung together 19-consecutive playoff series victories; there’s nothing unfortunate about that.

Key Figures:

Al Arbour (HC)

Dennis Potvin

Mike Bossy

Bryan Trottier

Billy Smith

Best season in the run: 1981-82 – The Isles went 54 – 16 – 10, and led the league with 118 points, and a 1.63 SRS. They swept the Vancouver Canucks in the Cup Finals to win the team’s third-straight Stanley Cup.

Most Memorable Moment: The Isles steam-rolled the league for so long that they actually had few moments that truly stand out. Just before the dynasty, Bossy had scored 50 goals in 50 games, but Gretzky soon bettered that. They invented the playoff beard, but in the absence of one specific moment I’ll again highlight the facts that they won 19-consecutive playoff series and are the last Big Four team to win a title in four consecutive seasons.

The top five dynasties in sports history will be listed tomorrow in Part II.