Amid reports of a European “All-Star” team making up a seventh team at the 2016 World Cup Of Hockey, which would be comprised of players from nations not already fielding full teams (Sweden, Finland, Russia and Czechia), much speculation has already begun about what that potential team would look like. Matt Larkin of The Hockey News took the speculation a step further, setting a full projected roster for 2016, which brings up a very unique and interesting looking squad.

While Slovakia dominates the roster with seven of 25 projected spots, the rest of the lineup shows quite a diversity amongst hockey nations. Switzerland has five players, Denmark four and Germany three, and six other nations (Austria, Belarus, France, Latvia, Norway and Slovenia) field one player each. While this experiment may not yield the best result for international hockey purists (such as this writer) in terms of “best on best” competition between countries, it cannot be disputed the major impact of hockey across Europe and the globe in the last twenty years.

The thought of top NHL players coming from the likes of Slovenia, Denmark or Switzerland would have been unthinkable not long ago, yet now a roster such as this, with ten different countries represented, could not only be assembled, but would field a serious contender in a World Cup tournament.

The projected “Euro All-Stars” 2016 World Cup roster, with the players’ current NHL squads in parentheses, is as follows:

Photo Credit: Zimbio – IIHF – HHOF – IOC