While the 1980s may well be remembered for the wacky fashion statements and larger-than-life personalities who dominated NHL hockey during one of its most free-spirited eras, two teams stand head and shoulders above all the rest.

The young and brash New York Islanders opened the decade with a run of four-straight Stanley Cup championships, establishing the recent expansion team's legitimacy and creating a legacy for the franchise that lasts to this day.

Those Islanders were followed by the even younger and even more brash Edmonton Oilers, refugees from the defunct World Hockey Association. The Oilers, riding the almost surreal talent of prodigy Wayne Gretzky, took five of the remaining seven Stanley Cup championships in the decade.

Along the way, the Oilers turned their home into the "City of Champions" and rewrote most of the scoring records in the League's record book.

"In '78, when we were in the WHA and we were headed to the NHL, I don't think anybody would have said that 25 years later two guys from the Edmonton Oilers were going to be 1-2 in scoring,” Gretzky said of he and Messier.

Not surprisingly, the question remains to this day about which of these two dynasties was the team of that decade. Each franchise has its adherents and there may well be no clear-cut answer.

From the 1979-80 season to the close of the decade, Edmonton was the slightly more successful team, winning one more Stanley Cup than the Islanders and compiling 77 more regular-season points. But Edmonton did register six consecutive 100-point seasons, which vastly outdistances the Islanders' three 100-point seasons in a four-year span of the 1980s.

Yet, the Islanders also have their accomplishments to present into evidence. Mainly, the team was the most consistent franchise at the height of its powers.

Only one other team in the long and glorious history of the game -- League standard-bearer Montreal -- has ever strung together four-straight Stanley Cup championships. The Canadiens, who have a League-best 23 titles, won five-straight titles from 1956 to 1960. They added a four-year run from 1976 to 1979.

During New York's four-year run of sustained excellence, the Islanders amassed 19 consecutive playoff series wins, a testament to their big-game ability.

During New York's four-year run of sustained excellence, the Islanders amassed 19 consecutive playoff series wins, a testament to their big-game ability. Ironically, the run ended in the 20th series, a four-games-to-one ouster at the hands of Edmonton in the 1984 Stanley Cup Finals. The Oilers' Game 1 victory in that series also ended the Islanders 10-game winning streak in Stanley Cup Finals play.

And, unlike the Oilers, who can only boast seven players that played on all four of its championships, the Islanders had 16 players who shared in each of the team's titles – a consistency and unity in team-building that is all but extinct 20 years later.

Ah, the players. As with all debates, it is most important to look at the crux of the issue. In this case, that focal point should be the young men that brought glory to their teams during this era.

Perhaps those legends that wore the franchise's sweater during each team's heyday could be the delineating factor between the two dynasties. After all, each team possessed some of the greatest individual players to ever don skates. And, those mercurial talents played at a time when individual skill -- not the team systems of today -- ruled the rink.

When all is said and done, the Oilers will have likely have six Cup-winning players, including Jarri Kurri, (above, center) enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Each franchise can rightly boast some of the greatest players, not only of their generation, but to ever pull on an NHL sweater.

The Islanders claim five Hall of Fame players that performed for the club during its four-year championship run. Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith and Bryan Trottier all competed in all four title-winning seasons. In essence, that "Big Five" -- a combative goalie in Smith, a point-producing defenseman in Potvin, an intimidating winger in Gillies, a two-way center extraordinaire in Trottier and an explosive winger in Bossy -- served as the franchise's foundation.

The team's coach, Al Arbour, formed and nurtured that foundation. He, too, is in the Hall of Fame.

"The fact that I'm in the Hall of Fame is really part and parcel that we had such a great team," said Gillies, who had his No. 9 retired by the Islanders on Dec. 7, 1996. "That's all part of the whole great big picture. It was a thrill to be associated with such a fine group of players for so many, many years. It's that old cliche that you couldn't have got there without your buddies and I really feel strongly about that.

"If you could put all 20 in there, it would be wonderful. Unfortunately there are only a few of us that are going to get the recognition," Gillies said. "But to have won four and have lost on the fifth try was a run that very few teams have been able to put together. And if you look at our total run of 19-straight series without a loss and then losing in the 20th one, I think that's the greatest feat that any hockey franchise has ever pulled off by far. I feel that I was part of arguably the best group to have ever been assembled."

On the other side of the ledger, the Oilers have just three Cup-winning players currently in the Hall of Fame. But, what players they were!

Gretzky, without argument, remains among the greatest, if not greatest, player to play the game. He owns almost every offensive record in League history. He won four Stanley Cups before his blockbuster trade to Los Angeles.

The Islanders claim five Hall of Fame players that performed for the club during its four-year championship run. Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Denis Potvin (above), Billy Smith and Bryan Trottier all competed in all four title-winning seasons.

Finnish phenom Jari Kurri defined the two-way game that is so in demand today, yet remained one of the most explosive scorers of his generation. Goalie Grant Fuhr, often lost in all that offensive firepower, won just about every big game in which he was asked to man the crease. Each of those players won five Stanley Cups.

Plus, it is safe to assume that other players from those Oiler teams -- Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Kevin Lowe, to name three -- will find their way into the Hall once they become eligible.

Glen Sather, who coached Edmonton's collection of disparate personalities and presented the team as a successful and unified team, is also in the Hall of Fame.

It becomes abundantly clear after all of this, that the teams were eerily equal in both their playing talent and on-ice results.

For that reason, it seems the argument about who was the team of the 1980s may well wage, undecided, until 2080 and beyond!