Howe was easy, but why Roy belongs was harder

By Michael Farber

This week SI.com let four writers live out a G.M.'s dream. The assignment? Pick three Dream Teams in each of the four major team sports: one for the best of all time, one built to win right now and one built for five years from now. Each team features a complete roster of players, including reserves, as well as coaches. Check out our experts' picks, then weigh in with your thoughts.

These are hockey Dream Teams, which means that in compiling them, I will dream that there are no checkers, no penalty killers, no role players. I mean, it's not like I'm going to actually take this team barnstorming. If the late Terry Sawchuk is peeved that he has to be Patrick Roy's backup in goal on the All-Time team, well, he's in no position to argue, is he?

The goaltending position on the historical team -- or the Ghost of Christmas Goodies Past, as I like to think of it -- vexed me the most. Recently the esteemed Serge Savard, who narrowly missed making this team as a reserve defenseman, advanced the counterintuitive argument to me that goaltending is not the most important position because, in almost every case, teams make goalies more than goalies make teams. Remembering the 1999 Buffalo Sabres and Dominik Hasek, Savard still has some convincing to do.

Anyway, 20 players: two goalies, four forwards at each position, six defensemen (irrespective of which side they played) and not an ounce of reality.

FORWARDS LW | Bobby Hull | Chicago Blackhawks (1957-72), Winnipeg Jets/Hartford Whalers (1972-80) When Hull and Blackhawks teammate Stan Mikita started curving their blades almost a half century ago, it changed the game forever. Back in an era before goalies started looking like those faux sumo wrestlers that cavort on the ice between periods in some arenas, Hull's slapshot coming down the wing turned a generation of netminders into insurance salesmen. When he jumped to Winnipeg of the World Hockey Association, he played on one of the most spectacular, and now forgotten, lines in history with Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson. Hull was among the first players to speak out against mindless violence in the game. C | Wayne Gretzky | Edmonton Oilers (1978-88), Los Angeles Kings (1988-96), St. Louis Blues (1996), New York Rangers (1996-99) Gretzky had more assists than the No. 2 scorer in NHL history (Mark Messier) had points, but you would need a machete to hack your way through the statistical thicket that definitively proves, yet somehow also obscures, No. 99's utter dominance. Gretzky was all about numbers, but he was also about trusting your -- and, more importantly, his -- vision. If you insist on doing the math with Gretzky, it was not the mere arithmetic but the geometry that was so extraordinary. He understood angles and spaces more profoundly than anyone who ever has laced up skates. If there is such a thing as hockey genius, Gretzky had it. RW | Gordie Howe | Detroit Red Wings (1946-71), Hartford Whalers (1979-80) Maurice Richard, Howe's archrival and eventual friend, was a more dynamic offensive player and a better pure goal-scorer, but the Rocket was not, alas, Mr. Hockey. Howe established the eternal benchmarks for the fully-evolved player. (To this day, if a player scores a goal, records an assist and has a fight in the same game, it is known as a Gordie Howe hat trick.) His longevity -- 26 NHL seasons interrupted by a famous stint playing with his sons Mark and Marty in the WHA -- was surpassed only by his productivity: 801 NHL goals. Howe did for elbows what Jennifer Lopez did for backsides. DEFENSE D | Bobby Orr | Boston Bruins (1966-76), Chicago Blackhawks (1976-79) If arthroscopic surgery had been around 40 years ago, the Orr vs. Gretzky argument might be more compelling. (Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Orr has told friends lousy knees run in the family.) For sheer thrills, however, Orr's 10 years still rule the debate. I took a bus from Providence on a Saturday afternoon during Orr's rookie year (1966-67), paid a scalper a 100 percent markup for a seat high in the arena at Boston Garden -- five bucks for a $2.50 ticket -- and sat there with my mouth open for 2-1/2 hours. Johnny Bucyk scored on a penalty shot and the Bruins beat the Rangers 4-3, I think, but seeing Orr that day was like listening to Mozart's Elvira Madigan piano concerto for the first time. Eternally haunting. D | Doug Harvey | Montreal Canadiens (1947-61), New York Rangers (1961-64), Detroit Red Wings (1966-67), St. Louis Blues (1967-69) Before there was Orr, there was Harvey, whom I saw only late in his career with the Rangers. Now, maybe everything Harvey could do, Orr could do a little better -- rush the puck, control the game from the back, dominate defensively. But Harvey did them first, particularly rushing the puck, which was not in the defenseman's canon at the time. Asked to choose between Orr and Harvey last month, Tom Johnson, the former Bruins coach and executive who played with Harvey in Montreal, said he simply couldn't. G | Patrick Roy | Montreal Canadiens (1984-95), Colorado Avalanche (1995-03) If I had to pick one player at his peak to win one game, it would be Dominik Hasek. Hasek's best was better than anyone else's. If I wanted the greatest goalie in the broadest sense of the word, it probably would be Jacques Plante -- the superb, albeit quirky, netminder who did not invent the mask but popularized it. Although he has a losing record in Game 7's, however -- there's a wonderful bar bet -- Roy's career-record 551 wins (all prior to the shootout era), generally stellar work in the playoffs (three Conn Smythe Trophies) and role in making the butterfly the foundation for future generations ultimately swayed me. COACHES Head Coach | Scotty Bowman | St. Louis Blues (1967-71), Montreal Canadiens (1971-79), Buffalo Sabres (1979-87), Pittsburgh Penguins (1991-93), Detriot Red Wings (1993-2002) Bowman was not merely the best coach in hockey. I argue that he was the best coach in North American professional sports. (Sorry, Red. My apologies, Vince.) Bowman won nine Stanley Cups with three different teams in different eras, proving his versatility and flexibility are the trademark of the most vibrant minds. He evolved with the times, starting in St. Louis in the 1970s when a coach's authority was absolute and ending in Detroit in a day when the players often demanded explanations. He won with Canadians. He won with Russians. He juggled line combinations like one of those cheesy acts on the old Ed Sullivan Show. Bowman always says his mentor, Toe Blake, was the NHL's best coach. For once, Bowman was wrong. Asst. Coach | Roger Neilson | Toronto Maple Leafs (1977-79), Buffalo Sabres (1979-81), Vancouver Canucks (1981-84), Los Angeles Kings (1983-84), Chicago Blackhawks (1984-87), New York Rangers (1989-93), Florida Panthers (1993-95), St. Louis Blues (1995-98), Philadelphia Flyers (1997-2000), Ottawa Senators (2001-03) Neilson, who worked as Bowman's assistant in Buffalo, was a coaching vagabond (eight head jobs in his 10 stops) who pioneered the use of video. He might have been the nicest man to do a job that isn't always nice. (He never cursed, for example.) He was also the most creative. Take your pick of Neilson stories: I like how he used to have someone set his dog free to gambol of the ice during junior games when his team needed a break. Through his coaching clinics and his numerous friendships, Neilson influenced more coaches than any man in the history of the sport. Goalie Coach | Francois Allaire | Montreal Canadiens (1984-96), Anaheim Ducks (1996-97) Maybe Allaire wasn't the first goalie coach -- the late Warren Strelow filled that role for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team -- but Allaire has been the most influential in what is still a developing subset of coaching. The man who helped Patrick Roy in Montreal and later guided J-S Giguère in Anaheim essentially established the Quebec goaltending dynasty while influencing goalies throughout Europe with his annual schools in Switzerland. Of course, his biggest contribution was taking the butterfly from a technique and codifying it. RESERVES POSITION PLAYER C Mario Lemiex, Jean Beliveau, Steve Yzerman LW Mark Messier, John Bucyk, Ted Lindsay RW Maurice Richard, Jaromir Jagr, Mike Bossy D Eddie Shore, Nicklas Lidstrom, Denis Potvin, Larry Robinson G Terry Sawchuk Weigh in with your comments and selections at FanNation.

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