{"id":852588,"date":"2026-08-12T12:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852588\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T12:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:44:19","slug":"who-wins-an-all-time-roster-battle-of-nhl-stars-based-on-how-many-stanley-cups-they-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/852588\/","title":{"rendered":"Who wins an all-time roster battle of NHL stars based on how many Stanley Cups they won?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a summer spent on failed GM theories<\/a>, contrarian takes<\/a>\u00a0and blockbuster alternate history<\/a>, we\u2019re going to keep today\u2019s post nice and simple. It\u2019s an idea that\u2019s been sent in by a few of you over the years, most recently reader Stephen C., and I\u2019ll admit to being surprised we haven\u2019t done it already.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make some all-time rosters based on how many Stanley Cup titles a player won.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. Just a nice fastball over the heart of the plate to take a swing at. We\u2019ll go through the best players, check how many Cup titles they\u2019ve won, and assign them to that team. Then we see which one is best, and then ideally spend the rest of the day arguing about it in the comment section.<\/p>\n

But first, a few ground rules\u2122:<\/p>\n

Each team gets a 20-man roster of 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies. We\u2019ll try to keep centers and wings in their proper slots, although we\u2019ll assume some of these guys can play out of position.
\nFor this exercise, \u201call-time\u201d will go back to the start of the expansion era in 1967. Winning the Stanley Cup in a league with only six teams was just a completely different sort of challenge.
\nThe one place this gets tricky: active players. It\u2019s more fun to include a few names from today, but it would be weird to put Connor McDavid on Team No Cups when he still has time to win a few. So, my compromise will be that we can use active players whose careers are close to over, which we\u2019ll define as 35 or older.<\/p>\n

Can the Sedins change the Canucks\u2019 culture?<\/p>\n

Sean Gentille and Thomas Drance<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see where this takes us\u2026<\/p>\n

Team No Cups<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll start with some good news, at least as far as the DGB Research Department is concerned: We\u2019ve already got this one.<\/p>\n

Back in 2021, we had a post where we pitted a team of stars who never won the Cup against one made up of players who won the Cup on multiple teams<\/a>. Somewhat surprisingly, Team Multi Cups pulled off the upset. That might not bode well for Team No Cups in today\u2019s competition, but it means our roster-building work is already done.<\/p>\n

Well, mostly. In the five years since that post, we\u2019ve had a few players call it quits without ever claiming their ring. So while we\u2019ll start with that 2021 roster, and you can go back and reread that post to get the logic behind the picks, we\u2019re going to need to make a few adjustments.<\/p>\n

Specifically, we can ditch the weak-ish third defense pairing of Doug Wilson and Randy Carlyle for recent Hall of Famer Shea Weber and Erik Karlsson, who\u2019s still active but meets our 35-plus criteria. And while Curtis Joseph should be in the HHOF himself, he\u2019s going to lose his spot on Team No Cup to Henrik Lundqvist, who wins a coin-flip battle for the job with Carey Price.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Joe Thornton, who absolutely has to be on the team. Looking at the forwards already in place, Thornton is going to end up bumping a Sedin. But which one? I went back and forth on the answer for a while before realizing we didn\u2019t need one \u2014 they\u2019re twins, after all, and nobody can tell them apart. We\u2019ll assign one roster spot to their particular genetic makeup and then let them figure out who plays when.<\/p>\n

All told, here\u2019s what our updated roster looks like:<\/p>\n

Team No Cups<\/p>\n

WCW<\/p>\n

Jarome Iginla<\/p>\n

Joe Thornton<\/p>\n

Marcel Dionne<\/p>\n

Cam Neely<\/p>\n

Adam Oates<\/p>\n

Paul Kariya<\/p>\n

Mike Gartner<\/p>\n

Gilbert Perreault<\/p>\n

Eric Lindros<\/p>\n

Pavel Bure<\/p>\n

Dale Hawerchuk<\/p>\n

Sedin<\/p>\n

DDG<\/p>\n

Brad Park<\/p>\n

B\u00f6rje Salming<\/p>\n

Roberto Luongo<\/p>\n

Shea Weber<\/p>\n

Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n

Henrik Lundqvist<\/p>\n

Mark Howe<\/p>\n

Phil Housley<\/p>\n

Not bad. And given how the rest of history\u2019s greatest players will be sliced and diced onto different teams, quite possibly the favorite. But let\u2019s give them some competition.<\/p>\n

Team One Cup<\/p>\n

With no disrespect to the collection of OGWAC legends we just saw, truly great players are supposed to win at least one Stanley Cup. But how many of them win exactly one? Let\u2019s find out.<\/p>\n

Our 35-plus rule for active players helps us right away, as we can start with history\u2019s greatest goal scorer in Alexander Ovechkin. And if he needs occasional offensive support, we also have wing options like 684 goals of Teemu Sel\u00e4nne and 668 goals of Luc Robitaille. Mix in Lanny MacDonald and Martin St. Louis, and firepower from the wings won\u2019t be an issue.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we don\u2019t have a truly elite offensive center to work with those guys. Patrice Bergeron and Doug Gilmour are excellent two-way threats, and Mike Modano won\u2019t be out of place, but we\u2019re not as deep down the middle as Team No Cup. We may get future reinforcements from Nathan MacKinnon, but for now he\u2019s too young.<\/p>\n

We do make some of that back on the blue line, where we can start with Ray Bourque and Al MacInnis and then turn to Chris Pronger and Zdeno Ch\u00e1ra, who might need a full cleanup crew after every shift. But we run into another issue in goal, where our options get thin enough after Eddie Belfour that we\u2019re left choosing between the brief peak of Tim Thomas or the longevity of Mike Richter.<\/p>\n

We end up with plenty of star power, especially on the wings and the top four, plus a checking line that should be just about impossible to score against. Is it enough to compete?<\/p>\n

Team One Cup<\/p>\n

WCW<\/p>\n

Alexander Ovechkin<\/p>\n

Doug Gilmour<\/p>\n

Teemu Sel\u00e4nne<\/p>\n

Luc Robitaille<\/p>\n

Mike Modano<\/p>\n

Martin St. Louis<\/p>\n

Dave Andreychuk<\/p>\n

Marc Savard<\/p>\n

Lanny McDonald<\/p>\n

Henrik Zetterberg<\/p>\n

Patrice Bergeron<\/p>\n

Rod Brind’Amour<\/p>\n

DDG<\/p>\n

Ray Bourque<\/p>\n

Al MacInnis<\/p>\n

Eddie Belfour<\/p>\n

Chris Pronger<\/p>\n

Zdeno Ch\u00e1ra<\/p>\n

Tim Thomas<\/p>\n

Rod Langway<\/p>\n

Brian Leetch<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a perfect team. I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s even better than Team No Cups. And in theory, that bodes poorly for our next few teams, since winning multiple Cup titles is harder than winning just one. Or at least, it\u2019s supposed to be. Does that logic apply to the true stars? Let\u2019s find out.<\/p>\n

Team Two Cups<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take long to realize we\u2019re going to be loaded up front. The early \u201990s Penguins offer us both Mario Lemieux and Jarom\u00edr J\u00e1gr, and we give them 740 goals\u2019 worth of third wheel in Brett Hull. That unit is so stacked that it somehow bumps 1970s scoring king Phil Esposito down to the second line, where he gets two 1990s legends to work with. Oh, and good luck even touching the puck when that fourth line is out there. The forwards are stacked.<\/p>\n

We get off to an arguably even better start on the blue line, where we can drop Bobby Orr onto the first pair. But that\u2019s where this juggernaut-in-the-making starts to lose some steam. A search through the modern era\u2019s other top retired defensemen doesn\u2019t dig up all that many two-time winners. It almost gets comical, as we find ourselves debating names such as Rob Ramage and Marty McSorley while wondering whether we can just triple-shift Orr.<\/p>\n

Luckily for Team Two Cups, our 35-plus active-player rule somewhat saves them because it offers access to Victor Hedman and Drew Doughty, among others. That allows us to ice a functional group, and no blue line with Bobby Orr can be all that bad, but this is a weak spot.<\/p>\n

Will it matter? Maybe not, because having Dominik Ha\u0161ek between the pipes should help clean up any mistakes on the back end. The backup spot is a bit trickier, as Andrei Vasilevskiy isn\u2019t old enough and Sergei Bobrovsky will just have to get bumped up to Team Three Cups next spring, but we ultimately end up just fine there, too.<\/p>\n

Team Two Cups<\/p>\n

WCW<\/p>\n

Jarom\u00edr J\u00e1gr<\/p>\n

Mario Lemieux<\/p>\n

Brett Hull<\/p>\n

Joe Sakic<\/p>\n

Phil Esposito<\/p>\n

Ron Francis<\/p>\n

Steven Stamkos<\/p>\n

Bobby Clarke<\/p>\n

Bill Barber<\/p>\n

Pavel Datsyuk<\/p>\n

Peter Forsberg<\/p>\n

An\u017ee Kopitar<\/p>\n

DDG<\/p>\n

Bobby Orr<\/p>\n

Sergei Zubov<\/p>\n

Dominik Ha\u0161ek<\/p>\n

Drew Doughty<\/p>\n

Victor Hedman<\/p>\n

Bernie Parent<\/p>\n

Alex Pietrangelo<\/p>\n

Ryan McDonagh<\/p>\n

Our theory that this would get tougher as we went didn\u2019t really hold up with Team Two Cups. But spoiler alert, it\u2019s about to get blown out of the water in our next section.<\/p>\n

Team Three Cups<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit, I went into this assuming Team Three Cups would be our toughest entry to fill out. Not many players win the Cup three times, and many of the ones who do go on to win even more. How many guys are going to wind up with exactly three?<\/p>\n

More than I thought, and you\u2019re probably already ahead of me on how this is going to shake out. Team Three Cups gets to start with the core of the 2010s Blackhawks, and then combine that with the cap-era Penguins, so we\u2019re already building around names such as Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane. Then we get a big chunk of the pre-cap Red Wings dynasty that didn\u2019t all stick around for that fourth Cup in 2008, including Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov. And then we get to turn to the pre-cap Devils, who give us Martin Brodeur in goal and let us start our blue line with Scott Stevens.<\/p>\n

We admittedly start to get into slimmer pickings around the edges of the roster, and this team would be in trouble if we started to add press box depth. (Although that would get Phil Kessel on the team, which has me considering it.) But as far as finding 20 guys to build a roster around, this one ends up being shockingly good.<\/p>\n

Team Three Cups<\/p>\n

WCW<\/p>\n

Steve Yzerman<\/p>\n

Sidney Crosby<\/p>\n

Patrick Kane<\/p>\n

Mari\u00e1n Hossa<\/p>\n

Evgeni Malkin<\/p>\n

Sergei Fedorov<\/p>\n

Brendan Shanahan<\/p>\n

Joe Nieuwendyk<\/p>\n

Mark Recchi<\/p>\n

Guy Carbonneau<\/p>\n

Jonathan Toews<\/p>\n

Igor Larionov<\/p>\n

DDG<\/p>\n

Chris Chelios<\/p>\n

Scott Stevens<\/p>\n

Martin Brodeur<\/p>\n

Duncan Keith<\/p>\n

Brent Seabrook<\/p>\n

Marc-Andr\u00e9 Fleury<\/p>\n

Kris Letang<\/p>\n

Brian Rafalski<\/p>\n

Other than realizing that my Marc-Andr\u00e9 Fleury pick may have just summoned the Chris Osgood zealots, I like this team a lot.<\/p>\n

Team Four or More Cups<\/p>\n

I originally was going to try to ice a Team Four Cups, but the forwards end up being Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy, and then you\u2019re digging through the old Islanders dynasty to find guys to play with Kris Draper, Craig MacTavish and Chris Kunitz. So, instead, we\u2019re going to group everyone who has won the Cup four or more times into one final squad. Is that an unfair advantage? Maybe, but we\u2019re feeling generous.<\/p>\n

Even with the added leeway, the forwards are a bit of a project. We end up relying on the 1970s Habs dynasty for a big chunk of our spots, with the 1980s Oilers helping out. We end up finding Hall of Famers for almost every spot, but it\u2019s admittedly the weakest forward group we\u2019ve had yet, by some distance.<\/p>\n

But then, something weird happens: As far as building from the net out, we\u2019re actually in great shape. We have a goaltending duo that can compete with any of them, and almost certainly the best one-through-six blue line of this entire exercise. Apparently that old saw about building from the net out does have some truth to it, because you can win a lot of Cups with the right guys back there.<\/p>\n

Team Four or More Cups<\/p>\n

WCW<\/p>\n

Mike Bossy<\/p>\n

Wayne Gretzky<\/p>\n

Guy Lafleur<\/p>\n

Mark Messier<\/p>\n

Bryan Trottier<\/p>\n

Jari Kurri<\/p>\n

Steve Shutt<\/p>\n

Jacques Lemaire<\/p>\n

Glenn Anderson<\/p>\n

Bob Gainey<\/p>\n

Clark Gillies<\/p>\n

Claude Lemieux<\/p>\n

DDG<\/p>\n

Nicklas Lidstr\u00f6m<\/p>\n

Denis Potvin<\/p>\n

Patrick Roy<\/p>\n

Larry Robinson<\/p>\n

Paul Coffey<\/p>\n

Ken Dryden<\/p>\n

Larry Murphy<\/p>\n

Scott Niedermayer<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a fascinating group. It\u2019s also hard not to notice that only Nicklas Lidstr\u00f6m and Scott Niedermayer were especially productive into the cap era. With 32 teams and more on the way in the middle of the parity era, it may be a while before this team sees any reinforcements.<\/p>\n

And the winner is\u2026<\/p>\n

Up to you, of course.<\/p>\n

Loading\u2026<\/p>\n

(And I\u2019m offering a prize: one Internet Fist Bump in the comment section to anyone who wants to find a coach and GM for each of these squads.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a summer spent on failed GM theories, contrarian takes\u00a0and blockbuster alternate history, we\u2019re going to keep today\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-852588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}