His win with the 2001 Avs, in the final game of his 22-year career, still stands as the greatest Cup handoff of all time. Let’s flip the script at the start with Team Last Year here, if only because they’ve got the most obvious pick of all in Ray Bourque. Let’s see if that continues on the blue line. So far, Team First Year has better depth while Team Last Year has higher star power. That saves us from total disaster, because believe it or not I’m pretty sure our only other option is Cristobal Huet of the 2010 Blackhawks. Luckily, we only need one starter, and we can find that in Dominik Hasek, who didn’t play much for the 2007-08 Red Wings, but still qualifies for the team. There’s a lot less to choose from in Team Last Year, partly because old goalies often stick around forever. He’ll be capably backed up by Cam Ward from the 2006 Carolina run, with Jordan Binnington on speed dial if we need depth and/or someone to throw water bottles around. That said, we can still find a Canadiens Hall of Famer in the criminally underrated Bill Durnan, who was winning everything as the league’s best netminder as soon as he arrived in 1943-44. We also can’t use Ken Dryden, who memorably won the Cup a year before winning the Calder, because he doubles up by also winning in his last year. Patrick Roy won the Cup and the Conn Smythe as a rookie in 1986, but he played a single game with the 1984-85 Habs, so he’s out. Team First Year starts off with a pair of agonizing near misses. As always, we’ll start in goal and build from there. But we should still be able to find enough talent to fill out a roster, even if it may not have the elite-level guys that Team Last Year has. So no Mario Lemieux, no Sidney Crosby, not Alexander Ovechkin. Then again, the Ray Bourque story is great in part because it’s relatively rare, so maybe there aren’t as many of those guys as you’d think.Īs for Team First Year, we know that there won’t be any top draft picks on the team, since those players go to bad teams and have to wait at least a few years for their Cups. My first thought is that Team Last Year will take it, because of the Ray Bourque factor - legends who want to go out on a high note and retire immediately after winning a Cup. I’m kind of interested to see where this goes, and I’ve already gone back and forth on which teams I think will win.
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