​How Would a Canada B Team Do at the World Cup of Hockey?

Every Olympics, Canadians from as far west as Caribou Falls and as far east as Fisherman's Bluff will tell you that Canada can send two teams to the Olympics and they would meet in the gold-medal game because, "Beaver tails and hockey! That's what Canada does!"

With the NHL's version of the World Cup set for September, that refrain exists again. A national team so good that it doesn't need PK Subban and Kris Letang? Surely, that second team would be a force, wouldn't it? (Honestly, as an American, it's fun to mock that idea but when you leave Subban off your team for Shea Weber, it makes a lot of sense to think the other Canadian team would be the second-best one at the World Cup)

Using advanced scientific and game-simulation methods (the website What if Sports), I decided to test the theory that Canada Lite would be just as competitive as Canada Original.

First, I named myself general manager of Team Canada B. My credentials include several fantasy league championships and years of watching Team USA pick the wrong players. I know we can learn from watching others screw up national teams just as well as watching smart GMs put together good teams.

Here is the Team Canada B entry into the 2016 World Cup of Making The NHL And Its Players A Whole Bunch Of Money™:

Taylor Hall — Jason Spezza — Corey Perry
Mike Hoffman — Ryan Johansen — Wayne Simmonds
Patrick Sharp — Ryan O'Reilly — James Neal
Andrew Ladd — Adam Henrique — Mark Stone

Mark Giordano — PK Subban
TJ Brodie — Kris Letang
Dougie Hamilton — Tyson Barrie

Roberto Luongo
Brian Elliott

My extras are Derick Brassard, Dion Phaneuf and Marc-Andre Fleury. This is the part where I'd explain the picks, why I chose one player over the other, but as a GM of an international powerhouse, I don't have to explain myself to media types. This is the team we feel that can win in September. No further questions.

Now, this is how the simulations work.

• All the World Cup teams are entered into the simulator at What If Sports, a website that lets you run simulations for any team in any sport. The World Cup teams play 20 simulated games against each other and then a winner is crowned based on overall record.

• For the teams that have non-NHL players, I plugged those holes with what I feel are comparable or slightly better players in order to keep things honest.

• The Young Guns team for North America doesn't get a simulation because What If Sports only has players that were in the league through 2014-15, so Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid don't have player profiles. The same goes for Auston Matthews. But just know that this Canadian B team would throttle these kids.

• What If Sports allows you to draft 23-man teams from any era, so you can add 1988-89 Wayne Gretzky or 1998-99 Wayne Gretzky. What If Sports' database doesn't have 2015-16 versions of players yet, so everyone used here is the 2014-15 version of themselves. If you're wondering if this hurts the integrity of an online simulation between fantasy teams, buddy, you need to relax and enjoy fun things like this.

So how did Team Canada B do? To borrow a content headline strategy… the results may surprise you!

Team Canada B vs. Team North America
Canada B record: 20-0
Average final score: Canada B 6.9, North America 1.1

The emergence of Matt Murray during the Stanley Cup playoffs makes North America a more intriguing option, as John Gibson would have all but guaranteed the Young Guns getting killed like Pat Garrett in the forgettable sequel. But there's a big difference between being a goaltender behind the best team in the NHL and one of the worst teams in a best-on-best tournament. The kids will be fast and fun but they probably won't win more than one game.

If you're an American, though, get on the kids' bandwagon because Team USA is going to get stomped. North America has "America" right there in its name so this should be an easy transition for us.

Team Canada B vs. Team Europe
Canada B record: 14-6
Average final score: Canada B 3.35 (67 goals), Europe 1.95 (39 goals)

This was an aggregate bloodbath. Marian Gaborik, Zdeno Chara and Nino Niederreiter were Europe's best players but a slew of communication breakdowns prevented the team from being any real threat. Europe, a.k.a. The Island of Misfit Boys, clearly didn't have the chemistry of this elite Canadian squad that was put together by a tactical genius.

Europe scored two goals or fewer in 15 of the games. And in the interest of full disclosure, I had Fleury in net for the first five games by accident and Canada B went 4-1 with its third-string goaltender in net. Roberto Luongo took over the rest of the way and will be the goaltender of record throughout this undertaking because when you think big-game goaltender, you think Roberto Luongo.

Team Canada B vs. Team Czech Republic
Canada B record: 17-3
Average final score: Canada B 3.6 (72 goals), Czech Republic 1.6 (32 goals)

There were a few roster issues here but nothing that matters when you consider the unbelievably terrible quality of these Czech defensemen. There are no available versions of Radek Faksa, Jakub Nakladal and Michal Kempny but their absences don't really matter too much. Vladimir Sobotka hasn't played in the NHL in two years so the 2013-14 version is on this team.

So for the purposes of filling out the roster, I added Mikhail Grigorenko (Faksa), Mark Barberio (Nakladal) and 1970-71 Bobby Orr because Kempny has zero NHL experience and I thought it would be funny to see what Orr could do.

As you can see, it was still a massacre. Petr Mrazek stole three games but overall the Czechs and Robot Bobby Orr were no match for my squad. We will not be stopped in our pursuit of simulation gold.

Team Canada B vs. Team Finland
Canada B record: 15-5
Average final score: Canada B 3.85 (77 goals), Finland 2.3 (46 goals)

Just like with the Czech Republic, there are a few marginal depth players from overseas that aren't available that don't really matter, like Mikko Koskinen, the third-string goaltender who will never play. But what about Patrik Laine, who is very good and has yet to be drafted into the NHL?

For fun, Laine's role was played by 1992-93 Calder Trophy winner Teemu Selanne. Why not? We're having fun here and why not use an amazing rookie Finn season to represent Laine? Joonas Donskoi is another solid, young player not in the database, so I made him 1998-99 Jere Lehtinen.

Even with one of the greatest rookies in NHL history, Finland was still no match. Selanne did really well, too, so maybe 15-5 doesn't truly indicate how far apart these teams truly are. There is still time for an NHL team to hire me as its GM.

Team Canada B vs. Team Russia
Canada B record: 11-9
Average final score: Canada B 3.2 (64 goals), Russia 2.4 (48 goals)

Sergei Makarov, who won the Calder Trophy as a 32-year-old in 1990, takes the spot of the unavailable Artemi Panarin, who probably wins the award this year as an "old" 24-year-old.

Slava Voynov is on the roster as of now, so he's on the roster for the simulation.

This was Canada B's first tough matchup and it was all because of the goaltending of Semyon Varlamov. That's odd to say when Canada B scored 64 goals but Varlamov held my wonderful team to two goals or fewer seven times and Russia won all seven of those games.

That feels representative of real life, as Russia will likely need goaltending heroics if it wants to win gold. Alas, the dream would not be a reality if my Canada Castaways are allowed to play. Please file a petition on my behalf with the NHL immediately.

Team Canada B vs. Team USA
Canada B record: 11-9
Average final score: Canada B 2.2 (44 goals), USA 2.3 (45 goals)

For the purposes of this experiment, each team has iced an optimal lineup no matter what a team's dumb coach may do in real life. But since Team USA left off Phil Kessel, it's impossible to assume this team will do the same when the games count, which means Jonathan Quick is going to play over Cory Schneider.

But what a matchup! USA wins on aggregate but lost 11 times. There was one six-goal outburst that tilted the total scoring for the Americans but otherwise these teams played low-scoring hockey in every game. Only seven times did a team score as many as four goals, otherwise this was the type of hockey Team USA wants to play with a team built for 1996.

And it still was only good enough to be competitive with Team Canada's rejects but still lose more than it won. Good luck against the real Canadians, Dean Lombardi. My team can't be stopped and won't be stopped.

Team Canada B vs. Team Canada
Canada B record: 14-6
Average final score: Canada B 3.2 (64 goals), Canada 2.4 (48 goals)

The margin of victory was small but the heart of the team I put together was too big for Canada. These were simple computer simulations but you could just tell Subban, Letang and Hall wanted it more. Canada B defeated Canada in 10 of the first 11 matchups before getting bored during the second half of the simulations.

As a general manager, it's very satisfying to put together such an incredible team with Canada's castoffs. The fact that we were able to storm through this World Cup field with such ease speaks to both the talent in Canada and my ability to put together an elite team.

Wait. Hang on. Canada B beat Canada… isn't that it? What have I forgotten?

Oh, damn it.

Team Canada B vs. Team Sweden
Canada B record: 10-10
One-game playoff: Sweden 5, Canada B 1
Average final score: Canada B 2.5 (50 goals), Sweden 2.5 (51 goals)

This was a 20-game simulation that would go down in history if anyone was taking it seriously. It would be an amazing ESPN 30-for-30 documentary in 2028 in which a graying Henrik Lundqvist would talk about how taking 11 out of 21 from a team picked hours before Game 1 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final gave him the toughest test of his handsome career.

In the 21st and final matchup, Perry gave Canada B a 1-0 lead late in the first period. Then Sweden scored five unanswered and Lundqvist made 32 saves in all. When asked about his team's performance in this classic, I said, "You are all losers and you have let me down by losing to a team that picked Niklas Kronwall over John Klingberg. No one in this locker room is fit to look me in the eye."

This is a tough break for the nation of Canada, as two of its teams failed to win gold. But it's funny for the rest of us.