For the defence pairing, my picks are easy: Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin. Both were the main engine behind two of the greatest PP units ever. Unbelievable offensive talent, but also good enough defensively that they wouldn't get burned for a SH breakaway the way someone like Ozolinsh would. Another thing about those Bruin and Islander PP units was that they wouldn't spend the entire two minutes passing it around waiting for a perfect chance that never came. They weren't afraid to take a shot. What a concept.
For forwards, I would actually take Esposito as the centre over 99 or 66 because he was better on faceoffs than those two, to go along with his goal-scoring prowess. If I was to keep the wing spots to players who were usually wingers, I`ll take Lafleur at RW and Hull at LW.
Now for statistics; I was curious what team had the best PP mark ever. The list ended up almost entirely 70s teams. So I decided to rate them by how much better their PP% was compared to the league median for that season. I also deducted shorthanded goals against from their PP goal totals. The list still ended up being almost all 70s teams, but the results were a little interesting. The top 10 teams, with the five players that usually comprised their PP unit:
1. NYR 1974 (Park, Rousseau, Gilbert, Ratelle, Hadfield)
2. PHI 1973 (Bladon, Barber, Clarke, MacLeish, Flett)
3. BOS 1974 (Orr, Vadnais, Esposito, Bucyk, Hodge)
4. BOS 1972 (Orr, Stanfield, Esposito, Bucyk, McKenzie)
5. NYI 1976 (D. Potvin, J. Potvin, Trottier, Harris, Gillies)
6. BOS 1971 (Orr, Stanfield, Esposito, Bucyk, McKenzie)
7. BOS 1973 (Orr, Stanfield, Esposito, Bucyk, Hodge)
8. DET 2003 (Lidstrom, Larionov, Fedorov, Shanahan, Hull)
9. MON 1978 (Robinson, LaPointe, Lafleur, Lemaire, Shutt)
10. NYR 1971 (Park, Neilson, Ratelle, Gilbert, Hadfield)