Building the Best Team Canada Roster for a World Cup of Hockey in 2023
Connor McDavid knows hockey. Breaking news there, we know, but last week McDavid said hockey needs to have a best-on-best international competition again.
We last saw the NHL's best face off against each other in 2016, which included not just the best players from Canada, the United States and elsewhere but also McDavid's Team North America of the best NHL players 23-and-under. Everyone loved it.
We should get a World Cup of Hockey reconvened as soon as possible so we can see McDavid team up with Sidney Crosby and everyone else Canada can bring to the table for such a tournament.
But what, exactly, should a Team Canada roster look like, apart from one of the greatest collections of talent on ice the world has ever seen? We've got some ideas, and in our fantasy land, we're the Team Canada general manager for a World Cup of Hockey coming up this year.
We're picking the full array: Four forward lines, three defensive pairs and three goalies. There'll be some extra forwards and defensemen, too, but we're doing it, folks. When it comes to forward positions, we're going by what NHL.com tells us their position is, and we're not just stuffing the lineup with centers even though that would be super fantasy-hockey stuff. We'll be using the past three seasons for collecting stats to justify the picks. Defensemen are slotted by handedness. Lefties on left, righties on right.
O Canada, let's go.
The Forwards
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First line: Brad Marchand - Connor McDavid - Mitch Marner
Second line: Jamie Benn - Sidney Crosby - Mark Stone
Third line: David Perron - Nathan MacKinnon - Jonathan Marchessault
Fourth line: Andrew Mangiapane - Patrice Bergeron - Claude Giroux
Extras: Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Huberdeau
When it comes to forwards, no one has greater depth than Canada. The United States is close, but picking out 14 forwards for this meant there are another 14 who could score eight goals per game in a tournament as well.
There were no easier calls to make for this team than at center. McDavid, MacKinnon, Crosby and Bergeron are absolute no-brainers. Just picture trying to find the right way to match up against a fourth line and Patrice Bergeron comes over the boards. Good luck with that, friends. Having so many great centers out there from Canada makes it tough to not just have a whole lineup of them.
On the wings, it's a curious mix on the left and right, but the easiest choices were who slides in next to McDavid on the top line. Marchand and Marner are each incredible, and that Marchand is so good at scoring and infuriating opponents makes him the perfect player for such a tournament. Putting Marner and McDavid together is almost unfair for how fast they are.
Hard-nosed, straight-line players like Benn and Stone go best with how Crosby plays. That they're both capable of scoring a bunch as well makes it even more fun. You could say almost the same thing about MacKinnon's wingers in Perron and Marchessault. Both are solid scorers but can also be major irritants to opposing teams.
Having Bergeron on the fourth line is already a huge luxury, but Claude Giroux on his right wing alongside a net-crasher like Mangiapane means they'll be able to shut down opponents and score down low. Having Stamkos and Huberdeau available to mix into the lineup as well is just unfair.
The first power-play unit being able to have McDavid, MacKinnon and Crosby conceivably is the stuff dreams are made of.
Leaving off the likes of John Tavares, Brayden Point, Mark Scheifele, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nazem Kadri and Bo Horvat among many, many others just at center is bonkers. A Cap'n Crunch, Oops! All Centers! roster would've been silly but also really fun.
The Defensemen
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First pair: Morgan Rielly - Cale Makar
Second pair: Josh Morrissey - Kris Letang
Third pair: Shea Theodore - Dougie Hamilton
Extra: Devon Toews, Brent Burns
If you wanted to be negative about this roster, you could say Canada's defensemen aren't nearly as good as their forwards. While that would be true, there's not an ocean-sized gulf between the two. Canada's blue-line crew is outstanding.
Keeping handedness in mind with each pairing shows how well-balanced they can be.
Being able to roll out Cale Makar with Morgan Rielly on the first pairing is a lot of fun. Makar is one of the best players in the league, never mind just as a defenseman. He dominates on power plays, is superior at even strength and crushes it with puck possession. Find something he doesn't do well, we dare you. Rielly is the guy who helps the Maple Leafs go from the backend, and now he'll help the maple leaf of Canada go for gold.
Josh Morrissey has been a very good defenseman over seven full seasons in Winnipeg, but then this season he went out there and became a point-scoring aficionado. We love a glow-up, don't we? Letang is one of the older players on this roster at 35, but he's still very, very good and, like Makar, can run the heck out of a power play. Not that Canada needs any help in that department.
Hamilton plays a smart, heady game, as does Theodore, while extras Toews and Burns are capable of pouring on points, and Burns' shot can still sizzle.
Anyone Canada puts out on defense can own the ice with puck possession and drive the offense all game long. It's a luxury that very few countries have, with perhaps Sweden the only other who can challenge at that position. But, goodness, Canada is just stacked.
The Goaltenders
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No. 1: Marc-Andre Fleury
No. 2: Darcy Kuemper
No. 3: Tristan Jarry
If there's a weakness for Canada, it's somehow in goal.
The days of being able to run out Roberto Luongo, Carey Price or Martin Brodeur are distant memories. Even with Marc-Andre Fleury and his incredible career, there is not a lot of international experience to be had with this trio.
Incredibly, Fleury has been to the Olympics but didn't play in a game in 2004. He was Canada's top guy at World Juniors in 2003 and 2004, but the NHL's absence from the past few Olympics cost him a shot to win a gold medal himself. A 2023 World Cup of Hockey would be all for Flower to take it and run, and who wouldn't want to see that?
If there's a silver lining to most Canada goalies having little international experience, it makes justifying choices a bit easier. Going with Darcy Kuemper is an easy call. He's forever been an under-the-radar excellent goaltender and, oh yeah, he won the Stanley Cup with Colorado last season. Among Canadian goalies, Fleury and Kuemper are tied for most shutouts since the start of the 2020-2021 season with 12.
Who's next in line behind them on the shutout list with seven? Why, it's Tristan Jarry. That might make it look like shutouts were the only criteria for judgment, but over the past three seasons, Jarry has the most games played and a .913 save percentage. Jarry also has the most wins in that timeframe, just ahead of Fleury.
Beyond those three, competition to make the team is limited. Vegas' Logan Thompson could get the call, while Cam Talbot and Jordan Binnington were also candidates. Carter Hart has performed at a level that would warrant consideration, but he would be considered ineligible by Hockey Canada because he was on the 2018 World Junior team that's under investigation for an alleged group sexual assault.
Fleury, Kuemper and Jarry all have numbers this season that aren't completely awe-inspiring, but two of them are Stanley Cup winners (Fleury three times over), and big-game players are ideal for a tournament where every game is a big deal.
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