Which team makes the best lineup with no repeated initials? Slow news summer returns

It’s summer and nothing is happening. Let’s play some weird roster games.

This one comes from reader Darryl F., who tweeted it at me five years ago. Yes, the “weird ideas” list goes back that far. Much further, actually. Look, you probably don’t want to know some of the stuff that’s been sitting there for going on a decade, but I can’t guarantee you won’t find out by mid-August.

For now, the game is simple: Make the best six-man starting lineup possible for your favorite team, without repeating any initials. So if you want to use Joe Smith, that’s your J and your S spoken for, meaning you can’t also use John Williams, or Tommy Simpson.

Easy enough, right? But first, a few ground rules™:

- We want three forwards, two defensemen and a goalie. No other positional requirements.

- You get credit for whatever that player did on that team. If the Blues want to use Martin Brodeur, they get seven games, not four Vezinas.

- In cases where there’s confusion over what a player’s actual name was, we’ll go by whatever hockey-reference uses. So it’s Maurice Richard (not Rocket), but Gump Worsley (not Lorne).

As always, we’ll do about a dozen teams and then hand it over to you in the comments to fill out any others. We’ll start with the team that’s become our unofficial leadoff hitter for these sorts of things…

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