B/R's All-Time Team Canada Roster

Canada has been one of the world's hockey superpowers on the international stage, and with the 4 Nations Face-Off beginning Wednesday night with Canada taking on Sweden, we wanted to take a look at a hypothetical all-time Team Canada roster.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind here.

The first is that players did not have to have actually played for Canada in a major international competition. We are just looking for the best Canadian players. If you are Canadian, you are eligible.

The second is that we got a little flexible with positions and did not stick strictly to a player's natural position. Mostly because there were too many all-time great centers that had to be here, and probably not enough good left wingers to justify leaving them off.

Mark Messier? Steve Yzerman? You can shift to the wing for this team.

So let's talk about who else is on the roster.

First-line Forwards

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Wayne Gretzky

Mark Messier - Wayne Gretzky - Gordie Howe

Starting off strong with arguably two of the top-five players in NHL history with Gretzky and Howe on the same line.

The craziest Gretzky stat remains the fact that if he did not score a single goal in his NHL career he would still be the league's all-time leading point-getter just based on his assists.

Messier is one of the traditional centers who we are shifting to the wing, and he gets reunited with his former long-time Edmonton Oilers teammate in the top spot here.

This line has the greatest playmaker between two outstanding goal-scorers who also bring plenty of grit, toughness, physical play and two-way play.

Second-Line Forwards

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Steve Yzerman - Mario Lemieux - Mike Bossy

Mario Lemieux as a second-line center is just one of the things that highlights the absurd, legendary depth that Canada would have. He and Gretzky dominated the 1980s and early 1990s, and had it not been for major health and injury issues throughout his career, Lemieux would have had a chance to challenge a lot of Gretzky's records. Or at least get closer to them.

Speaking of injuries limiting a legendary career, let's talk about Bossy on the right wing.

In terms of actual peak performance, few players can match what Bossy did in his career. He scored at least 50 goals in each of his first nine seasons in the NHL, and had injuries not forced him to retire at age 30, there is a chance that Alex Ovechkin might be chasing his all-time goal record.

Yzerman, like Messier, is getting moved over to the wing to play alongside Lemieux. Which would be fitting because they were both dominant players throughout the same era and both finished their career with comparable numbers.

Yzerman was a truly dominant scorer in the early part of his career and gradually morphed into a two-way presence that would be a great complement to Lemieux and Bossy.

Third-Line Forwards

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Bobby Hull - Sidney Crosby - Maurice Richard

We get our first active player on the list with Sidney Crosby checking in as the team's third-line center. He is already one of the game's all-time greats whose career stacks up with almost any legend in NHL history, and especially in Canada.

His overall numbers have been consistently dominant, while he also carries around the "what if" question of what his numbers might look like had so much of his career not been sidetracked by injuries between 2010 and 2013, not to mention the lost time due to various shortened seasons and lockouts.

Bobby Hull is the first natural left winger on the team, and he was one of the best to ever do it on the side of the ice. He was one of the dominant players of his era, but has some questionable and problematic off-ice histories.

On the right side is Maurice Richard, who was not only a great champion with the Canadiens (eight Stanley Cup rings) but was also one of the best goal-scorers of all-time. He led the league in goals five different times and eventually had the league's goal-scoring award named after him. That's when you know you were an all-time great, when they are naming awards after you.

Fourth-Line Forwards

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Jean Beliveau - Connor McDavid - Guy Lafleur

This is probably the only team that Connor McDavid would ever be a fourth-liner on, but he absolutely deserves a spot on this roster. He entered the NHL with immense hype and has not only matched it, he has arguably exceeded it. The only thing he is missing is a Stanley Cup ring, but he is getting closer.

On his wing, Beliveau (another center we are moving to wing) is one of the NHL's greatest winners with his name on the Cup 10 times, while also topping 500 goals and over 1,200 points for his career.

On their right is Guy Lafleur, another Canadiens legend that is a two-time MVP winner and three-time Lester B. Pearson winner. There was not a better or more productive player in the NHL in the mid-1970s than him. If we are just talking "peak" performance, Lafleur's peak was as good as anybody.

First-Defense Pairing

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Bobby Orr - Ray Bourque

As good as Canada's all-time forward group is, the defense might be just as good.

On the first pairing we are going with a couple of Bruins legends in Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque.

Orr is not only on the short-list of the NHL's all-time greatest players, he also might be one of the most impactful for the way he completely changed the game and the way people think of defensemen and their role.

He not only took on an offensive role from the blue line, he became the Bruins offense and posted six consecutive 100-point seasons, leading the league in scoring twice. As a defenseman. Just absolutely bonkers numbers.

Bourque never really matched Orr's output offensively, but he honestly was not far off. He was still one of the elite scorers for defensemen during his career while also winning five Norris Trophies.

Second-Defense Pair

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Denis Potvin - Doug Harvey

Potvin, along with second-line right winger Mike Bossy, was one of the focal points and cornerstone players of the 1980s New York Islanders dynasty. At his peak, he was an offensive dynamo that also won three Norris Trophies in a four-year stretch. He is still perpetually in the minds of his team’s fiercest rival nearly 40 years after he last played a game in the NHL, which is probably something no other NHL legend can say.

In terms of raw numbers, Harvey may not have matched what players like Orr, Bourque, or Potvin did, but he was still a force offensively. He was very much the Orr or Potvin of his era, putting the sort of numbers that were traditionally not seen from defensemen. He also has seven Norris Trophies to his name.

Third-Defense Pair

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Paul Coffey

Larry Robinson - Paul Coffey

You could probably make a strong argument for Robinson to be as high as the first defense pairing and he would not be out of place there. Plus-minus might have its flaws as a statistic, but nobody has a higher plus-minus in their career than Robinson’s plus-722. A dominant defensive presence, elite offense, swift skating and just the complete, total package as a defender.

Then we have Coffey, a three-time Norris Trophy winner (including wins a decade apart) that was one of the league’s most dominant offensive forces regardless of position. When the puck was on his stick you knew there was a chance magic was about to happen, and he helped turn Edmonton, Pittsburgh and Detroit into Stanley Cup contenders as soon as he arrived in each organization (he won Stanley Cups with both Edmonton and Pittsburgh).

Goalies

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Martin Brodeur

Patrick Roy – Martin Brodeur – Jacques Plante

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s there was a constant debate centered around Roy and Brodeur as to who was the better goalie at the time, and from a historical context. To some degree, it still exists.

Brodeur has the raw numbers in terms of wins and shutouts, but there has always been some debate as to how much of that was due to him and how much of it was due to the system and defense around him. The latter points no doubt helped, but it’s not like the Devils could have just simply plugged any random goalie behind those teams and received the same result. He is still one of the game’s best.

But in terms of individual talent and play, Roy was probably just a little bit better and a little bit more dominant. So he gets the top spot on our team.