NHL’s Team Big Brother vs. Team Little Brother: Who wins a battle between star players? Fitnessnacks

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Sunday was Mother’s Day, which was hopefully a pleasant day for you and your family and/or explains why your wife seems like she’s mad at you today. It also seems like as good a day as any to honor all those hockey moms out there by tackling a simple question sent in by a reader.

Pekka L. wants to know: Who’d win, a team made up of NHL big brothers or little brothers?

Sounds fun. But first, a few ground rules™:

• We’re building 21-man rosters with four lines of forwards, three defense pairings and three goalies. We’ll try to slot in wingers with centers, but won’t get too hung up on position.

• To be eligible, a player must have a brother who played in the NHL for at least 100 games.

• I’m only going back to the Original Six era because otherwise we’ll wind up with a bunch of guys a lot of you have never heard of. Apologies to the Cooks, Conachers and Cleghorns.

• In cases where three or more brothers all played in the NHL, the middle children will be ignored, which they should be used to.

You may have noticed that 100-game limit that we slipped in there. That takes out some big names like Wayne Gretzky (whose brother Brent played only 13 games), Gordie Howe (whose brother Vic played 33) and Patrick Roy (whose brother Stephane played 12). Maybe that feels arbitrary, or like it violates the spirit of the thing. But here’s the deal: If we don’t put that limit in, we’re not going to have a contest. Team Big Brother would destroy Team Little Brother. It wouldn’t be a contest. There are a ton of NHL stars who had younger brothers show up for a cup of coffee and then disappear.

Why? I have two theories. The first is that older siblings are clearly superior to their coddled, snot-nosed little wannabes. But more importantly, I think there’s some clear cause-and-effect here, with teams over-drafting or signing younger brothers of star players in hopes that genetics will kick in. If you see a guy like Sergei Fedorov or Paul Kariya tearing up the league, why not roll the dice on their kid brother? It works sometimes, usually it doesn’t, and it screws up our contest if we don’t account for it. So yeah, a 100-game limit is in play.

This will be fun because athlete brothers always enjoy a spirit of friendly competition and oh no it’s started already. Let’s build from the net out and see where this goes.

Goalies

Team Little Brother is going to get out to a great start here, leading off with Ken Dryden. Ken was famously the younger sibling of fellow goalie Dave, with the two goalies facing each other in the 1970s. They can also claim Tony Esposito, although that comes with some worrying foreshadowing of what the forwards section will look like. And they can round out their trio with a third Hall of Famer in Billy Smith, whose older brother Gord was a defenseman who played 299 games in the ’70s.

By comparison, Team Big Brother is in tougher shape. That makes sense because what self-respecting older sibling is going to volunteer to go into the net themselves instead of blasting slapshots at their kid brother? We’re going to have to use a bit of a technicality to find our starter, as we’ll tap Henrik Lundqvist, who qualifies by a few minutes over twin Joel. Team Little Brother can protest if they want because they’re always crying about something, but the ruling stands.

The other goalies will be a bit more straightforward, as we can go to Ryan Miller as the backup. The third spot is a bit tougher to find, but let’s go with Martin Biron, who won 230 games and had a younger brother named Mathieu who played defense for six NHL seasons.

One position in, and the young punks are pretty clearly ahead. But we’d expect that given the whole “you’re in net or you can’t play” dynamic, so let’s see what happens when we get to the skaters.

Honorable mentions: Miikka Kiprusoff just misses out on Team Younger Brother, as older brother Marko played just 51 games in two NHL seasons, six years apart. And if you’re wondering about Roberto Luongo, there’s no relation to former blueliner Chris.

Rangers legend Henrik Lundqvist is minutes older than his twin brother Joel, a forward who played 134 games in Dallas. (Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)

Defense

Team Older Brother gets off to a solid start here, claiming Scott Niedermayer, who famously got to hand the Cup to his baby brother Rob in 2007 even though we all swear it was Teemu Selanne who got first handoff. We’ll pair him with a fellow Hall of Famer in Marcel Pronovost, who was 15 years older than brother Jean.

That’s an impressive first pairing, but Team Younger Brother isn’t too worried. They can build around Denis Potvin, thanks to his brother Jean. And while we said Gordie Howe wouldn’t be eligible, that doesn’t mean his kids can’t team up to get Mark Howe on this team, thanks to older brother Marty.

With the first pairings a close draw, we start to see some separation on the second pair. Team Older Brother turns to Seth Jones, a veteran of four All-Star games who got to play a few seasons with his younger brother Caleb in Chicago. His partner will be Chris Tanev, who can take a break from being one of the 2024 deadline’s most important pickups to thank his kid brother, Brandon, getting him on the team.

Jones and Tanev make for a solid pairing, but Team Younger Brother is going to take a lead here thanks to another Hall of Famer. Doug Wilson has a big brother named Murray who was a winger in the ’70s; Murray didn’t have much individual success but did win all three of the family’s Stanley Cup rings. Wilson can play with Glen Wesley, whose older brother Blake played almost 300 games while bouncing around between four teams in the early ’80s.

For the third pairings, let’s start with Kevin Hatcher and Derian Hatcher. Team Older Brother can claim Kevin, a one-time 34-goal scorer, while Team Younger Brother gets Derian, a nasty physical player who captained the 1999 Cup winner in Dallas. Kevin will play with Barclay Plager, the longtime Blues legend, while Derian will work with Tomas Kaberle, who followed in the footsteps of older brother Frantisek by winning a Cup ring in 2011.

I think that’s another edge for Team Younger Brother. But that’s OK because the old guys are saving their biggest names for the forward ranks, as we’re about to see.

Honorable mentions: Team Older Brother loses two former Devils to our eligibility requirements, as Scott Stevens and P.K. Subban don’t get enough games out of Mike and Malcolm. The elders also could have gone with Luke Schenn. And then there’s Quinn Hughes, who could have made Team Younger Brother last year but falls into the dreaded middle child void thanks to Luke’s NHL debut. See Canucks fans, Quinn at least makes it to Tier 2 in something.

Forwards

After biding their time through the goaltenders and defensemen, Team Older Brother comes out swinging here. How does a first line of Rocket Rickard, Phil Esposito and Bobby Hull grab you? Think they’d score a few goals?

And whenever that group needs a breather, Team Older Brother can turn to a second line made up of Marcel Dionne, Pavel Bure and Frank Mahovlich. Yeah. Good thing those younger brats have three Hall of Fame goalies because they might burn through all three of them in the first period of Game 1.

Team Younger Brother doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of depth of elite talent, but there is some good news: They can at least call on the single best player in this entire exercise. While Alain Lemieux was a fifth-round pick whose NHL career lasted just 119 games, that nudges us just past the eligibility requirement and means we can put Mario Lemieux on the younger brother roster.

Mario was able to turn guys like Rob Brown and Warren Young into threats, so he doesn’t need a ton of talent around him. We can still offer him a pair of Hall of Fame wingers, though, in old-timers Henri Richard and Max Bentley. OK, they’re not exactly Hull and Esposito, but they’ll do.

Team Younger Brother’s second line can start with another HHOF alum in Pierre Turgeon, whose older brother Sylvain had posted a pair of 40-goal seasons before his kid brother arrived on the NHL scene. We’ll give him a couple of current-day captains to play with, as Jamie Benn and Mark Stone join the squad thanks to Jordie and Michael.

Team Big Brother isn’t too worried, because they’ve still got some big names left in the holster. Their third line will feature a current star between two Hall of Famers, as Jack Hughes will center Marian Hossa and Joey Mullen, with thanks to Quinn, Marcel and Brian.

The kids can’t match that, and their roster is starting to show some holes. Let’s grab Kevin Dineen and Chris Drury here; Dineen was the youngest of three NHL brothers, including Gord and Peter, while Drury’s older brother was a center named Ted. At centre, let’s add the sort of playoff winner every front office craves in Ryan O’Reilly, whose big brother Cal played 145 total games for five teams.

For our fourth lines, let’s have a little fun and really lean into the family feuds. Down the middle, we can go with Saku Koivu for Team Older Brother and Mikko Koivu for Team Younger Brother. On one wing, let’s go with Matthew Tkachuk lining up against Brady Tkachuk. And for our last spot, we can make sure that Lundqvist isn’t the only twin in this battle. Yes, it’s finally time to get to the Sedins, who won’t be able to play together on these teams. This one comes down to just six minutes, but rules are rules: Henrik Sedin is the older brother, while Daniel Sedin is the young one.

Honorable mentions: Despite being part of one of hockey’s most famous families, we lose Peter Stastny to the middle child void. Team Older Brother had additional options, like Claude Lemieux and Steve Larmer. Meanwhile, the kiddos lose Mark Messier to the eligibility cutoff because Paul only played nine games, while Griffin Reinhart would need a comeback to get 50-goal scorer Sam into the lineup. The old guys aren’t shedding any tears there, since we’ve been talking about all the players they lost to the cutoff without even mentioning Bryan Trottier. And of course, the Sutter family could pretty much put together its own team to challenge whoever wins this series.

The final rosters

Here’s where we ended up:

Team Big Brother

Team Younger Brother

Who you got? Let me know in the comments which team you’re taking. (And no whining to Mom if your side doesn’t win.)

(Photo of Brady Tkachuk and Matthew Tkachuk at the 2023 NHL All-Star Game: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

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Courtesy : https://theathletic.com/5488761/2024/05/13/nhl-teams-brothers-tkachuk-lundqvist-sedin/