Since we’re all in an international hockey mood this week, let’s try a roster challenge that reader Derrick sent in a while ago. His question was simple: Which NHL team could produce the best lineup of three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie from the same country, that isn’t Canada?
That sounds just about perfect for a Wednesday time-killer while we wait for the return of best-on-best hockey. Let’s see where this takes us.
And yes, before we start, I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thought I had when I first saw Derrick’s question, and he told me he had it too. It’s that this is too easy, because the answer is obviously going to be the Detroit Red Wings and their Russian contingent. Start with the famed Russian Five, mix in Pavel Datsyuk, and this one is over before it starts. Except it isn’t, because it turns out that the Red Wings have never had a Russian goaltender, meaning they can’t ice a team for this challenge.
That tells me two things. First, today’s column won’t be 200 words long, and second, this might be tougher than it sounds. Let’s find out.
But first, a few ground rules™: Teams get credit for whatever a player did when he was on their roster, but not before or after, so if the Habs want Ilya Kovalchuk, they get the six-goal veteran, not the Richard Trophy version. We don’t care about specific positions beyond forward, defense and goalie. And we’ll use birthplace as our determining factor unless we know a player represented a different country internationally.
My gut says the American rosters will be the easiest to nail down, so let’s start with a few of those.
Detroit Red Wings — USA
We already realized we can’t use the Wings for their Russian stars, and building something around Nicklas Lidstrom falls apart due to the franchise’s lack of top-notch Swedish goalies. So let’s play this one on easy level and see what we can do with American stars.
The obvious place to start is the blue line, where we don’t get the very best of Chris Chelios but can claim a decade of solid play. We’ll pair him with Mark Howe, who actually played for both the U.S. and Canada internationally but was born in Detroit. We can give them some solid goaltending in Jimmy Howard, whose 246 career wins are third-most among American goalies who only played for one franchise.
Unfortunately, things kind of fall apart up front, where the Wings’ penchant for collecting old stars means they wouldn’t get anywhere near the best years out of Mike Modano or Brett Hull. We end up using two guys off the current roster, but for an all-time squad from an Original Six team, it’s not a great group.
Forwards: Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, Jimmy Carson
Defense: Mark Howe, Chris Chelios
Goalie: Jimmy Howard
Not bad, but probably not enough. I’m betting an old Norris rival can top that …
Chicago Blackhawks — USA
Hmm, maybe not.
The good news: We get to use Chelios again, but this time it’s from his prime years that include two Norris Trophies, so that’s an upgrade. We can start our forward line with a pair of Hall of Famers and choose between Eddie Olczyk and Tony Amonte for the other spot. And there’s competition for the other blue-line job, with names like Gary Suter and Dustin Byfuglien getting consideration before we decided on a guy from the current roster.
That’s all great … until we get to the goalies. It turns out America’s team doesn’t seem to like to shop local when it comes to the crease. The situation is bad enough that I found myself seriously considering a few years of Bob Mason or the very early (and very bad) Craig Anderson years. In the end, I had to settle for … well, you’ll see.
Forwards: Patrick Kane, Jeremy Roenick, Eddie Olczyk
Defense: Chris Chelios, Seth Jones
Goalie: Scott Darling
Huh. Note to self, check the goalies before you start on any of these, it’s definitely the position that’s going to be a stop sign for some of these teams.
Let’s try one more Original Six team, preferably one where we know we won’t have to worry about the net.
Adam Fox celebrates a short-handed goal against the Senators with Chris Kreider. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
New York Rangers — USA
If it’s true that good teams are built from the net out, the Rangers should be in great shape. They get to start with Mike Richter and his 301 wins, and then the blue line is even better, with arguably the greatest American star of all time in Brian Leetch plus an active Norris winner in his prime. But can we maintain that momentum up front?
Not really. Like the Wings, the Rangers love to collect former stars who’ve passed their prime, but names like Patrick Kane, Kevin Stevens, Doug Weight and Blake Wheeler don’t really help us much. Instead, we’re basically going with the current team.
Forwards: Chris Kreider, J.T. Miller, Vincent Trocheck
Defense: Brian Leetch, Adam Fox
Goalie: Mike Richter
By the way, if this group doesn’t click up front, the next man up would be some guy named Chris Drury. Be ready, boss.
Let’s try one more American squad before we head over to Europe.
Buffalo Sabres — USA
I couldn’t find enough support to build a Czech team around Dominik Hasek, but we can settle for Ryan Miller in goal on the American version. That means we get two 1990s stars at their peak in Pat LaFontaine and Phil Housley. We sputter a bit after that, but for our first non-Original Six entry, this is a decent group.
Forwards: Pat LaFontaine, Kyle Okposo, Jack Eichel
Defense: Phil Housley, Mike Ramsey
Goalie: Ryan Miller
The second blue-line spot is a bit dicey, and I’ll totally understand if Sabres fans want to boot Eichel off the team and replace him with someone like Drury. Still, not a bad entry.
Let’s turn to the Sabres’ expansion cousins for our next entry, as we up the difficulty with some European options.
Vancouver Canucks — Sweden
It’s the obvious starting point, right? The Sedins feel like two excellent forwards for the price of one, and either Elias Pettersson or Markus Naslund slide right in next to them for an excellent top line. The blue line isn’t amazing because the Canucks have somehow managed to have one star defenseman in over five decades of existence, but it’s not awful. And the goaltending delivers seven solid seasons that peaked with a fourth-place Vezina finish. We can work with that.
Forwards: Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Markus Naslund
Defense: Alex Edler, Mattias Öhlund
Goalie: Jacob Markstrom
That’s honestly in the running for our top team so far. Let’s stay in Canada and try another Swedish squad.
Ottawa Senators — Sweden
We start with the two obvious franchise icons. The goaltending is a tough call; I went with current starter Linus Ullmark over Robin Lehner or pre-breakout Filip Gustavsson, but I’d be happy with any of those options. So three players in, it’s a solid start.
Unfortunately, the depth is going to fail us here, as trading away a young Mika Zibanejad haunts the Senators yet again.
Forwards: Daniel Alfredsson, Andreas Dackell, Magnus Arvedson
Defense: Erik Karlsson, Erik Brännström
Goalie: Linus Ullmark
While we’re in Ontario, I thought we could also try a Swedish roster with the Maple Leafs, who’d start with Mats Sundin and Borje Salming. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as you can get before names like Jonas Hoglund and Carl Gunnarsson start showing up, so I bailed on that project quickly.
It’s time to try a Russian team. We’ll start with the obvious first option.
Washington Capitals — Russia
It’s all about Ovie here, but there’s just enough talent around him to make this a viable entry. We’re only getting the tail end of Fedorov and the early years of Gonchar, but it’s still a decent group.
Forwards: Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Kuznetsov, Sergei Fedorov
Defense: Sergei Gonchar, Dmitry Orlov
Goalie: Semyon Varlamov
By the way, we’re counting the old USSR as Russia for our purposes today, while keeping an eye on the international resume of players like Peter Bondra (who represented Slovakia) and Dmitri Khristich (who represented Ukraine).
On to another team with a strong claim to the Russian crown …
Tampa Bay Lightning — Russia
When you can lead off with a duo that combines for two scoring titles, a Vezina, an MVP and a Conn Smythe, I’d call that a solid start. The question is whether Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy have enough support from the rest of Lightning history to contend.
The answer is … kind of. They get Mikhail Sergachev on the blue line, but that’s about it. And there isn’t a ton of depth of front behind Kucherov. So we’re left with a top-heavy team that probably can’t compete with some of the others in this post.
Forwards: Nikita Kucherov, Vladislav Namestnikov, Alexander Selivanov
Defense: Mikhail Sergachev, Nikita Nesterov
Goalie: Andrei Vasilevskiy
As someone who knows a thing or two about building a vastly superior Finnish roster, let’s see what we can find there.
Roope Hintz celebrates Miro Heiskanen’s goal against the Avalanche in the second round of the 2024 playoffs. (Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
Dallas Stars — Finland
As tempting as it is to try to build a Predators team around Pekka Rinne and Kimmo Timonen, I think Dallas is the clear path here. We get most of the prime years from Finland’s third-winningest goalie ever, three key pieces off of the current roster, plus a three-time Selke winner. While there are no Hall of Famers here for now, the third forward spot is the only real weak point. I like this group a lot.
Forwards: Roope Hintz, Jere Lehtinen, Jussi Jokinen
Defense: Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell
Goalie: Kari Lehtonen
Finally, let’s close out with a country that used to be part of hockey’s big six, and maybe still is. That would be the Czechs, and with apologies to the 1980s Nordiques and the Stastny brothers, it’s not an especially tough call as to which team to look at here.
Pittsburgh Penguins — Czechia
A fun thing happened in the 1990s. Well, two fun things. First, an anthropomorphic mullet named Jaromir Jagr arrived in Pittsburgh, got weirdly friendly with some peanut butter, and became arguably the most entertaining player of his generation. Second, the Penguins enjoyed that experience so much that they tried to collect pretty much every Czech forward they could find for the next decade.
That means we’re going to be all set up front, where we get not just Jagr but also a decade of Martin Straka and height-of-his-powers Petr Nedved. (The latter actually played for Canada at the 1994 Olympics but represented what was then the Czech Republic in later tournaments.)
As you might expect, things get tougher from there, as our blue line is thin enough that I thought about asking Petr Sykora to switch positions. But we’re solid in net thanks to the always-underrated Tomas Vokoun, who trails only Hasek on the all-time Czech win list. Sure, he had only 13 of those wins in Pittsburgh, but those were followed by a memorable playoff run, so we’re taking what we can get. We have Jagr, it will be fine.
Forwards: Jaromir Jagr, Petr Nedved, Martin Straka
Defense: Jiri Slegr, Michal Rozsíval
Goalie: Tomas Vokoun
So, who you got?
I’m not sure it matters with this sort of exercise. Personally, I like the Finnish Stars, Swedish Canucks and American Rangers, although I’m not sure any of them are going to beat a team like the Canadian Canadiens, with that Rocket/Beliveau/Lafleur/Harvey/Robinson/Roy combo. Huh, look at that, a Team Canada with a goalie — I remember when we used to make those here.
Now it’s over to you. Head down to the comment section and take a crack at your favorite team, favorite country, or just any combination that strikes you as interesting.
(Top photo of Nikita Kucherov, Mikhail Sergachev and Andrei Vasilevskiy posing with the Stanley Cup in 2021: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
