The reality is that nobody has a crystal ball. Every year, three outstanding U20 forwards crack the IIHF World Junior Championship all-star team. Yet who’s to say in any given year whether that trio from the media-voted squad will go on to greatness as adult pros?

With the 45th World Juniors in Edmonton coming up, we decided to look back and rank the 5 top WJC all-star trios, based on the combined totality of their careers, including NHL, Olympic, and IIHF World Championship play.

It’s a tough challenge. Most years, at least one or two all-star forwards don’t live up to their long-term potential. Many simply fall closer to “good” than “great.” For instance, the 1995 all-Canadian trio of Jason Allison, Eric Daze, and Marty Murray suited up for a combined 1,414 NHL games, but never won NHL trophies or IIHF senior medals.

Canada’s Jonathan Toews and the U.S.’s Patrick Kane, who led the Chicago Blackhawks to their recent Stanley Cup dynasty and have dazzled internationally, would have a strong case as 2007 WJC all-stars. However, we excluded their trio since the third member, Russia’s Alexei Cherepanov, tragically passed away at age 19, and we’ll never know how far he could have gone.

Forwards who debuted before the 2010’s have a distinct advantage since we can make solid judgements about their careers. For later trios, questions linger.

Can Max Domi and Sam Reinhart, members of 2015’s all-Canadian threesome, ever rise into the 100-point stratosphere that fellow all-star Connor McDavid occupies? Looking at the 2016 trio, will Jesse Puljujarvi (Finland) rejuvenate his NHL career in his second tour of duty with the Edmonton Oilers and match the potentially Hall of Fame-worthy scoring pace of Patrick Laine (Finland) and Auston Matthews (USA)?

The debates and guessing games will go on for years. Right now, let’s dive into IIHF.com’s 5 greatest IIHF World Junior Championship all-star forward trios.

1) 2005: Patrice Bergeron (CAN), Jeff Carter (CAN), Alexander Ovechkin (RUS)

The 2005 World Juniors in North Dakota featured, by broad consensus, the greatest Canadian U20 roster of all time, and gold medalists like Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry didn’t even make the tournament all-star team. That tells you a lot about the caliber of this crop.

Here, we’ve got a Triple Gold Club member with four Selke Trophies in Patrice Bergeron. We’ve got a 2014 Olympic gold medalist and two-time Stanley Cup champion in Jeff Carter – and even in the twilight of his career, if the 35-year-old L.A. Kings veteran was healthy and wanted one more shot at Worlds gold, Hockey Canada would have to look at it. And we’ve got a 2018 Stanley Cup champion and three-time World Champion with nine Rocket Richard Trophies in Alexander Ovechkin.

How do you top that? Answer: you don’t.

2) 1978: Wayne Gretzky (CAN), Mats Naslund (SWE), Anton Stastny (TCH)

Simply put, it would be a travesty to exclude Wayne Gretzky as the greatest forward of all time and a member of the IIHF’s Centennial All-Star Team, voted by 56 hockey experts from 16 nations in 2008.

Mats Naslund made his mark as just the second Swede – and the last Montreal Canadien – to top 100 points in 1985-86 prior to winning the Cup that season. The “Little Viking” also excelled in IIHF tournaments on Nordic ice, winning World Championship gold in Finland (1991) and Olympic gold in Norway (1994). The latter win made him one of three founding Triple Gold Club members.

And although Anton Stastny had to share the Quebec Nordiques spotlight with his older brothers Marian and Peter (the highest-scoring NHLer in the 1980’s after Gretzky), this proud Slovak forward – who earned World Junior and World Championship silver medals with Czechoslovakia in 1979 – had a strong NHL career. He racked up 636 points in 650 career games, and remains one of just 13 NHLers ever to score eight points in a single game (1981).

3) 1980: Vladimir Krutov (URS), Igor Larionov (URS), Hakan Loob (SWE)

Our third-ranked trio of World Junior all-star forwards was short in stature, but they always stood tall for their countries and clubs.

Hakan Loob, along with Naslund and Tomas Jonsson, kicked off the Triple Gold Club at the Lillehammer Olympics (1994). The perfect Calgary Flames partner for Joe Nieuwendyk, this two-time World Champion (1987, 1991) also potted 50 goals in 1987-88. Loob is still the only Swede to achieve that feat. He added a Stanley Cup the following year.

IIHF Hall of Fame inductees Vladimir Krutov and Igor Larionov formed two-thirds of the legendary KLM Line with Sergei Makarov, dominating the Olympics and Worlds in the 1980’s. (In the “it’s a small world” category, Makarov was brought in to replace Loob when the Swede went home to raise his family and play for Farjestads BK again.)

Although Krutov struggled in his lone NHL season with the Vancouver Canucks, Larionov wrote another legendary chapter in North America, winning three Cups with the Detroit Red Wings (1997, 1998, 2002).

4) 1993: Peter Forsberg (SWE), Paul Kariya (CAN), Markus Naslund (SWE)

Entering the NHL in the mid-1990’s was no picnic for skilled players, who faced a barrage of bodychecks, crosschecks, and bear hugs nightly. Under today’s less-punishing conditions, Paul Kariya, Markus Naslund, and Peter Forsberg might all have played one or two more productive seasons. Still, they each left a special legacy.

Kariya, a 989-point NHLer who won two Lady Byng Memorial Trophies, formed one of the league’s most dynamic duos with Teemu Selanne on the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. The speedy left wing also helped Canada break two big IIHF gold medal droughts at the 1994 Worlds in Italy (33 years) and the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake (50 years).

At the ‘93 World Juniors, Forsberg (24 assists, 31 points) and Naslund (13 goals) teamed up to set single-tournament records that may never be toppled, and they didn’t stop with their silver-medal performance in Gavle, Sweden.

Professionally, Naslund peaked with 48 goals and 104 points as the captain of the Vancouver Canucks in 2002-03. The Ornskoldsvik native earned three consecutive NHL First Team All-Star berths.

Forsberg’s unique blend of physicality and playmaking is a story unto itself, but suffice it to say that the 2003 NHL scoring champion with the Colorado Avalanche could theoretically have been welcomed into the Triple Gold Club twice. He won two Olympic gold medals (1994, 2006), two World Championships (1992, 1998), and two Stanley Cups (1996, 2001).

5) 1990: Dave Chyzowski (CAN), Jaromir Jagr (CZE), Robert Reichel (CZE)

This is where it gets dicey. We need to talk about some honourable mentions first.

In 1988, the World Junior all-star forward trio included Canada’s Theo Fleury (who won World Junior gold in Moscow), the USSR’s Alexander Mogilny, and Czechoslovakia’s Petr Hrbek. Fleury and Mogilny became two of the NHL’s most prolific scorers in the 1990’s. Both topped the 1000-point mark. Both won a Stanley Cup and Olympic gold medal apiece, with Mogilny adding World Championship gold in 1989 just before defecting to the West. All that is tough to overlook.

In 1989, the USSR’s Pavel Bure and the U.S.’s Jeremy Roenick thrilled fans in Anchorage, Alaska with their electrifying, reckless blend of speed and scoring. According to QuantHockey.com, Bure’s career NHL goals-per-game (0.623) is third behind only Mike Bossy and Mario Lemieux among modern-day NHLers with 200-plus goals. Roenick sits 44th in all-time NHL scoring with 1,216 points. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Niklas Eriksson was the third World Junior all-star forward.

However, even though we’ve just listed four renowned NHLers, and even though Hrbek amassed four career IIHF bronze medals and Eriksson appeared on the golden 1994 Swedish Olympic team, the 1990 all-star trio stands out with its unparalleled contribution to the golden age of Czech hockey.

There’s a caveat. Obviously, Chyzowski was not Czech, and he struggled to meet NHL expectations after winning World Junior gold in 1990. Drafted second overall in 1989 by the New York Islanders, the power forward played 126 NHL games and finished his pro career in Germany and Austria.

That said, Jagr and Reichel propelled the Dominik Hasek-backstopped 1998 Czech Olympic team to gold at the inaugural “NHL Olympics.” Jagr tied Pavel Patera for the team scoring lead (5 points), while Reichel was the only player to score in the apocalyptic semi-final shootout against Canada, beating Patrick Roy.

And of course, Jagr – the second-highest scorer in NHL history (1,921 points) after Gretzky – is a five-time Art Ross Trophy winner and a Triple Gold Club member (2005), still active at the advanced age of 48 as an owner-player in his native Kladno. Reichel, a 630-point NHLer, made the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2015 largely on the strength of his international leadership, including three World Championship gold medals (1996, 2000, 2001).

Let’s hope the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship in Edmonton puts more forwards with legendary futures on the hockey world’s radar.