Before there was Teemu Selanne, there was Jari Kurri, the original "Finnish Flash."  Kurri is arguably the first true hockey megastar from Finland, and on a line with Wayne Gretzky, his talents truly shone.

Much like it was easy to decree that Wayne Gretzky was the greatest Edmonton Oiler of all-time, we find it quite simple to state that Mark Messier is a firm number two for this list.  This is no small praise, as when you look through the top ten, there are many Hall of Famers who were responsible for the Oilers' dynasty of the 1980s.

So, where do we start?

You hear the term “prodigy” thrown around a lot, but in terms of what a hockey prodigy was/is, there is nobody where those words suited better than Wayne Gretzky.

When the Indiana Pacers knew they were going to trade Paul George, they acquired Victor Oladipo, who truly lived up to his potential, along with Domantas Sabonis, a center who had played only one year with Oklahoma City.

In his first two seasons with Indiana, Sabonis came off the bench but managed to average 12.9 points per game. Last year, he ranked 17th in rebounds per game and 8th in rebound percentage. These are impressive numbers for a player who did not average 25 minutes per game! He also had a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 19.8 over those two seasons.

With such productivity, Sabonis earned the starting power forward position and became an All-Star, finishing the season with 18.5 points per game and 12.4 rebounds per game. The Pacers had found an undiscovered gem, and by this point, the NBA had taken notice of the skills of Arvydas Sabonis's son. In the 2020-21 season, Sabonis maintained an average of 12 rebounds per game while increasing his points to 20.3, and his assists rose to 6.7 per game. Statistically, he seemed on track to be among the top five players in franchise history, but there were limited reasons to retain him if the team wasn't a contender.

Ultimately, Sabonis was traded to Sacramento during the 2021-22 season, concluding his time in Indiana with averages of 16.3 points and 10.5 rebounds per game.