Late August is the time on the NHL calendar for ridiculous exercises. In this case, it meant poring over each New York Rangers player’s former rosters dating back to junior hockey and other professional leagues and picking each of their best-ever teammates.

The result is the Rangers’ All-Teammate team: a collection of superstars who previously overlapped with current Rangers, sorted into a lineup that would be one of the best in NHL history. Though this prompt is admittedly silly, it offers a reminder of the hockey world’s interconnectedness. Every team has players separated from all-time greats by only one degree.

Here were the guidelines used while selecting the roster:

• A current Rangers player must have been teammates with the selected player for at least one game on a non-national team. Olympic or international tournament teammates are not allowed, and I’m also not counting the U.S. National Team Development Program.  

• Each Rangers player could be used only once. Sam Carrick couldn’t bring both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to the roster, for example. 

• Former Rangers teammates didn’t count, so Henrik Lundqvist won’t make it for playing with Mika Zibanejad or J.T. Miller in New York. 

• Current Rangers players weren’t eligible, even if they were teammates elsewhere. This means Igor Shesterkin can’t be on the All-Teammate team for his time alongside Vladislav Gavrikov in the KHL. 

• Players were selected based on their peaks, not how good they were when they shared a locker room with a given Rangers player. Jaromir Jágr is prime Jágr, not end-of-career Jágr with Vincent Trocheck and the Panthers. 

• I tried to be realistic and use players who will have a shot at legitimate playing time this coming season. I didn’t go through the projected Hartford roster.

And now, the selections:

First line

Left wing: Alex Ovechkin
Former teammate: Taylor Raddysh

Raddysh boasts one of the best former teammate collections of any Rangers player. He played with McDavid in juniors, all of the Lightning stars early in his NHL career, and the likes of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews with Chicago. We’re going to forgo all those players and use him to get Ovechkin, the greatest goal scorer ever. They played together last season with the division-winning Capitals.

Center: Sidney Crosby
Former teammate: Conor Sheary

Slated to attend training camp on a professional tryout, Sheary is not a lock to make this year’s Rangers roster. But given his championship pedigree and connections to Sullivan, with whom he won two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh, he will presumably get a long look. That made him fair game for this exercise, which allowed me to pick Crosby to lead the center group. Like Raddysh, though, he has quite a group of former teammates, having also spent time in Tampa Bay and Washington.

Right wing: Jaromír Jágr
Former teammate: Vincent Trocheck

This is a fun one. Jágr spent 2 1/2 years with Florida, where Trocheck was starting his NHL career. The All-Teammate Team adds another great, albeit in this case one who won a league MVP last century.

Second line

Left wing: Nikita Kucherov
Former teammate: J.T. Miller

The Rangers traded Miller to the Lightning in 2018, giving him the chance to play with Kucherov, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Andrei Vasilevskiy. Choosing which Lightning player to use was difficult for this exercise, so I opted for the one who filled a position of need. Kucherov is a Hart Trophy winner (2018-19) who has also finished top three in voting the past two seasons.

Center: Connor McDavid
Former teammate: Sam Carrick

The Ducks did the All-Teammate Team a huge favor by trading Carrick to Edmonton at the 2023-24 deadline. That allowed us to sneak McDavid onto this roster. Putting him and Kucherov on a line together would be magical, and they’re going to have a Hall-of-Fame right wing, too.

Right wing: Jarome Iginla
Former teammate: Jonathan Quick

Iginla finished his career in Los Angeles, where he overlapped with Quick. Quick was also teammates with Rob Blake early in his Kings career, so I considered adding him on the blue line. Iginla edged him out, though. The idea of him on a line with Kucherov and McDavid was too hard to pass up.

Third line

Left wing: Kirill Kaprizov
Former teammate: Carson Soucy

Soucy, who also spent time with Seattle and Colorado,  played with Kaprizov in the latter’s rookie year with the Wild, getting an up-close look at a Calder Trophy-winning season.

Center: Pavel Datsyuk
Former teammate: Igor Shesterkin

We’re going to the KHL for Shesterkin’s teammate — he and Datsyuk played together for SKA St. Petersburg. With three Selke trophies, Datsyuk is one of the best two-way centers this century. He’s a perfect 3C for this team.

Right wing: Daniel Alfredsson
Former teammate: Mika Zibanejad

Zibanejad started his career in Ottawa, where he skated alongside Alfredsson, a Hall of Famer and a fellow Swede. He also could have brought Erik Karlsson to the team, but we’re in decent position with defensemen.

Fourth line

Left wing: Zachary Bolduc
Former teammate: Alexis Lafrenière

Our top three lines are all Hall of Famers or players who have a chance to make it. Though a promising young player, Bolduc represents a significant drop-off. A 2021 first-round pick now with the Blues, he and Lafrenière were junior teammates with Rimouski.

Center: Jack Eichel
Former teammate: Will Borgen

Borgen played only 14 games with Buffalo, but he overlapped with Eichel during that time. Creating a center group of Crosby, McDavid, Datsyuk and Eichel (now with the Golden Knights) is some quality GM work, if I do say so myself.

Right wing: Wyatt Johnston
Former teammate: Will Cuylle

With some of the young players who have spent their entire career with the Rangers, we have to look to their junior teams. We’ll do that again here with Cuylle and the Stars’ Johnston, former teammates for OHL Windsor. Our forward group is veteran-heavy, but Johnston and Bolduc inject some youth.

Top pair

Left defense: Zdeno Chára
Former teammate: Urho Vaakanainen

Chára won a Cup and a Norris Trophy with Boston, played 1,680 regular season games and will soon be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. That’s a great start to my defensive corps. Vaakanainen could have brought Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand or David Pastrnak to this team from his time in Boston. My center group was set, though, eliminating a dramatic need for Bergeron, and peak Chára felt like the best player to add on the blue line.

Right defense: Cale Makar
Former teammate: Juuso Pärssinen

Pärssinen got traded twice in 2024-25, going from the Predators to the Avalanche to the Rangers. His brief stop in Colorado gave us the option to add either Nathan MacKinnon or Makar. As already mentioned, our center group was in good shape, so Makar made the most sense. He’s had a historic start to his career with Colorado.

Second pair

Left defense: Duncan Keith
Former teammate: Artemi Panarin

Keith has a loaded resume: two Norris Trophies, a Conn Smythe Trophy, three Stanley Cups and a Hall of Fame induction. Panarin could have brought plenty of players to this roster — Patrick Kane was the other one I considered — but Keith is a perfect fit on the left side of our defense.

Right defense: Erik Karlsson
Former teammate: Jonny Brodzinski

Brodzinski played with San Jose for only three games, but during that time he was teammates with Karlsson, a three-time Norris winner. Karlsson is one of the best offensive defensemen this century and though he’s imperfect in his own zone, this roster has other players who can take on more of a shutdown role. Brodzinski also played in Los Angeles, so Drew Doughty was another option for this slot.

Third pair

Left defense: Quinn Hughes
Former teammate: Justin Dowling

The Rangers signed Dowling this summer for some organizational depth. I did not go through former teammates of every organizational depth player (apologies to Derrick Pouliot and Trey-Fix Wolansky) but Dowling played 52 games for the Devils last year, plus five more in the playoffs. I felt that should make him eligible, so he brings Hughes to the All-Teammate team from their time together in Vancouver. Five of our six defensemen have won the Norris Trophy. The one that hasn’t is up next, and he’s still an elite player in his own right.

Right defense: Jaccob Slavin
Former teammate: Scott Morrow

Slavin is one of the best defensive defensemen in the game today. He consistently gets Norris votes and is as respected as anyone in the league. He also has two Lady Byng wins. He showed the world how good he is with his performance at February’s 4 Nations Face-Off.

Goalie

Starter: Sergei Bobrovsky
Former teammate: Vladislav Gavrikov

Gavrikov played with Bobrovsky in Columbus. With two Vezinas and now two Stanley Cups in Florida, Bobrovsky has compiled quite a resume. We could’ve added Andrei Vasilevskiy from one of the ex-Tampa Bay players, or Tuukka Rask from Vaakanainen, but Bobrovsky is Hall of Fame-worthy in his own right and allowed us to get Kucherov from Tampa Bay and Chára from Boston.

No. 2: Logan Thompson
Former teammate: Braden Schneider

Thompson and Schneider played together with Brandon Wheat Kings. He’s not at the same superstar level as many of the others on this roster, but he still has made an All-Star Game and shown he can be a respectable NHL starter.

Healthy scratches: Ryan Donato (Adam Fox with Harvard); Moritz Seider (Adam Edström with Rögle in Sweden); Kevin Korchinski (Matt Rempe with the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds)

So, in total, the lineup goes:

Ovechkin-Crosby-Jágr
Kucherov-McDavid-Iginla
Kaprizov-Datsyuk-Alfredsson
Bolduc-Eichel-Johnston

Chára-Makar
Keith-Karlsson
Hughes-Slavin

Bobrovsky
Thompson

That’s a team that would win a fair number of games.

(Top photos of Conor Sheary with Sidney Crosby, and Vincent Trocheck with Jaromir Jagr: Kirk Irwin / Getty Images, Eliot J. Schechter / NHLI via Getty Images )