Who is your All Letter Team?

Try to come up with the best team you can by picking a centre, left and right wings, two defensemen and a goalie. The one restriction is their last names must all start with the same letter.

Don’t necessarily think in terms of fantasy points. Try to come up with a line that has all the tools to be successful on the ice against suitable competition.

What is the best team you can come up with?

So far I’ve made teams for letters A through M. Here they are with my thoughts on each team.

Amazing A’s
Sean Avery – Nik Antropov – Daniel Alfredsson
Karl Alzner – Adrian Aucoin
Craig Anderson
With Respect To: The 4 guys named Armstrong who could almost field a
team on their own.
Summary: Entirely serviceable and could be a first line on many NHL teams.

Buoyant B’s
Alex Burrows – Nicklas Backstrom – Danny Briere
Dan Boyle – Dustin Byfuglien
Martin Brodeur
WRT: Niklas Backstrom, Dustin Brown and Paul Bissonnette’s Twitter account.
Summary: Skill, speed and nastiness.

Charging C’s
Mike Cammalleri – Sidney Crosby – Jeff Carter
Zdeno Chara – John Carlson
Corey Crawford
WRT: Cal Clutterbuck (would this be two points?) and Grant Clitsome.
Summary: Weak in goal and in their own zone, they would own on the PP.

Diamond D’s
Pavel Datsyuk – Matt Duchene – Shane Doan
Drew Doughty – Michael Del Zotto
Rick DiPietro
WRT: Steve Downie
Summary: Yahoo has Datsyuk as a LW preventing saving this team from drafting
David Dziurzynski.

Easy E’s
Patrik Elias – Lars Eller – Loui Eriksson
Christian Ehrhoff – Tobias Enstrom
Brian Elliott
WRT: Ray Emery, Jordan Eberle
Summary: This team would certainly live up to their name.

Fancy F’s
Alexander Frolov – Mike Fisher – Eric Fehr
Cam Fowler – Kurtis Foster
Marc-Andre Fleury
WRT: Theo Fleury who I guess is on this list for being on the Flames
last preseason.
Summary: Marginally better than the Easy E’s.

Great G’s
Simon Gagne – Ryan Getzlaf – Claude Giroux
Mike Green – Josh Gorges
J-S Giguere
WRT: Matt Generous, Gonchar, Gaborik
Summary: You know what, sub in Giroux instead of Gabby and this might
be the best two-way team providing Gagne is healthy.

Hazy H’s
Taylor Hall – Shawn Horcoff – Dany Heatley
Victor Hedman – Roman Hamrlik
Jaroslav Halak
WRT: Jimmy Howard, Hossa and Havlat
Summary: Average at best without a stronger pivot and Hossa sitting on
the bench.

Irredeemable I’s
Raitis Ivanans – Mike Iggulden – Jarome Iginla
Matt Irwin – Brayden Irwin
Leland Irving
WRT: Danny Irmen for being left off the team.
Summary: Brayden had to move to the back end from his natural C, none
of it helps the I’s who might lead the league in fighting majors.
Ivanans has also played D so he probably should have moved back but
the Irwin-Irwin pairing is too good to be true especially in front of
Irving.

Jumping J’s
Jussi Jokinen – Olli Jokinen – David Jones
Erik Johnson – Jack Johnson
Brent Johnston
WRT: All the other Johansens, Johanssons, Johnsons and Johnssons in
the league: 12 of them.
Summary: Probably terrible but I could see them losing a lot of games
2-1 or 3-2.

Killer K’s
Ilya Kovalchuk – Anze Kopitar – Patrick Kane
Tomas Kaberle – Duncan Keith
Miikka Kiprusoff
WRT: Ryan Kesler who might complement Kane and Kovy better.
Summary: There’s a lot of skill here but it isn’t feeling much like a team.

Lazy L’s
Andrew Ladd – Vincent Lecavalier – Brian Little
Nicklas Lidstrom – J-M Liles
Henrik Lundqvist
WRT: Lehner and Lindback, L goalies of the future. Lucic
Summary: Shame there wasn’t a better L goalie in the league as
otherwise this team could surprise a lot of people.

Mighty M’s
Patrick Marleau – Evgeni Malkin – Antti Miettinen
Andrei Markov, Tyler Myers
Ryan Miller
WRT: Mike Modano who had the C spot for the longest time until I
remembered Malkin.  Oops.
Summary: Someone else at RW could make this team a contender.

Conclusion:  I think the A-M Conference Finals would involve the Buoyant B’s and Great G’s with the G’s transition game just being just too much for the B’s.