The "NHL 100" list is stirring plenty of debate, but it's also creating an opportunity to let the imagination run wild.
When Wayne Gretzky joked Friday night that he, Mario Lemieux, and Bobby Orr "would have been pretty good at 3-on-3," that got us thinking: Who else among the league's list of its greatest players could form tantalizing trios in the relatively new overtime format if it had existed in their day?
Here are three of the many dream combinations that could be assembled from the NHL's centennial collection of modern superstars and past legends:
Sid, Ovi, and Kane
Let's begin with the current crop, and this triumvirate is as good a place as any to start.
Picture Alex Ovechkin on the left wing, Sidney Crosby down the middle, and Patrick Kane blazing down the right side and you have an unstoppable line that would simply be as unfair as they come.
Crosby and Ovechkin might get the chance to form two-thirds of this hypothetical trio when they suit up together for the Metropolitan Division All-Stars in the 3-on-3 tournament this weekend.
We may never see Kane play with them, but as Meatloaf once sang, two out of three ain't bad.
Bure, Hull, and Sakic
Seriously, how amazing would it have been to watch Pavel Bure in 3-on-3?
Lining him up with two of his legendary 1990s contemporaries would be icing on the cake, and imagine how dominant the "Russian Rocket" could be playing on the left side with Joe Sakic in the middle and Brett Hull on the right wing.
Bure's dynamic scoring ability, Hull's knack for goals of all kinds, and Sakic's mix of playmaking and his patented wrist shot would give goalies nightmares for years.
Gretzky, Bourque, and Gartner
The Great One's dream trio of himself, Lemieux, and Orr would be arguably the best of all time, but there are still plenty of salivating sets of stars to ponder if we stick with our theme of using players from the same era.
How about a 1980s unit featuring Gretzky, Mike Gartner, and Ray Bourque, for example?
The most productive player ever would have a 700-plus-goal scorer on his wing and the most prolific offensive defenseman in NHL history manning the blue line.
It's also tempting to wonder how Gretzky would have fared in 3-on-3 with his former Edmonton Oilers teammates, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey.
Given the sheer number of intriguing possibilities, it's a shame that the new overtime format was only enacted last season. Now we just need to figure out how to build a time machine so we can go back and see how this all would have played out.
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