If you were tasked with putting together the best power-play unit in the NHL this season, who would make the cut? That's a question we decided to tackle, and with so many players who put the fear of goals in penalty-killing units and goaltenders across the league, it's a genuinely difficult question to answer.

After all, would you put together a unit of shooters that can bury shots in the blink of an eye, a group of passers that could make defenders dizzy with their ability to make passes all over the ice, guys who could take a goalie's eyes away by parking down low or one of everything? After all, we're talking about picking five players, and finding the right mix is nigh impossible.

Impossible or not, we're going to give it a shot here. The criteria we're going with takes into account the raw numbers. Goals and assists count for everything because that means you're able to pile them up.

We're also considering primary assists on the power play because, yeah, it's the pass that leads directly to the goal. Secondary assists are cool and all, but we're going with primary helpers as the definitive choice.

We'll also look at how much time a player is on the power play. Playing a lot of minutes with a man advantage means their team trusts them in those situations to get results.

There's also the reputation factor. If an opposing team goes out of its way to ensure that one player isn't the one that beats them, that's about as complimentary as it gets. Although that could be inferred by the stats they put up.

We are positive there will be disagreements about the five players we run with, especially because we're not factoring in positions. We could go with a five-forward setup, and you'll just have to let us know in the comments how much your favorite defenseman needs to be involved.

Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers

Let's get the easy choice out of the way first.

Connor McDavid gets the call for the ultimate power play because having the best scorer in the league, the best player in the league, on the ice when you've got the man advantage is the easiest decision to make in hockey.

McDavid has the most power-play points and assists this season as well as the most primary assists in the NHL. McDavid has 63 power-play points, and the next closest is teammate Leon Draisaitl with 55. Twenty-seven of those were more than likely set up by McDavid in some way. For what it's worth, McDavid is seven power-play goals behind Draisaitl for most in the league.

McDavid is the ultimate weapon on the power play. He can score, he can set up anyone else on the ice and he can control the puck. What's wild is he's played the ninth most minutes on the power play in the league, and he's played 79.4 percent of the Oilers' power-play minutes, third most in the league behind Alex Ovechkin and Draisaitl.

The Oilers have the No. 1 power play in the NHL, and when they can roll out McDavid for basically one minute and 40 seconds out of every two minutes, opposing penalty kills are in big trouble because of it.

McDavid is almost certainly going to be the MVP this season, and if you took away his power-play points, he'd still be in the top-25 in the NHL in scoring. Heck, just by his power-play points, he'd be in the top-65 in scoring.

If Connor McDavid wasn't on your ultimate power-play unit I want to know why, and the reasons have to be better than, "I don't like him."

Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche

It was really tempting to put a power-play unit together without a defenseman, and I'm not saying it can't be done and be incredible. However, some players make it impossible to ignore them. Case in point: Cale Makar.

Makar is tied for second among defensemen in power-play scoring with Rasmus Dahlin and one point behind Quinn Hughes. Pretty good, right? He's also played 12 fewer games than both of them. That changes the view quite a bit.

He's tied with six other defensemen for fourth in power-play goals and tied with Dahlin and Dallas' Miro Heiskanen for second in assists, but he's first in primary assists on the power play.

He won the Norris Trophy for a boatload of reasons last season, and his power-play prowess was certainly part of that. Despite dealing with some injuries recently, his production has been elite among defensemen around the league.

Every great power play needs to have someone to control the game from the point, and having an elite power-play defenseman to play quarterback on it makes the goal-scoring machine run efficiently.

Would it be more fun to have another shooter at the top of the zone to rip slap shots? Sure, it would, but why take big shots from that far out when you can have a guy pass it to players who are closer to the net and can do the same thing?

Makar is as good as it gets on the blue line in general, but on the power play, he turns into an even more dangerous player on the ice. Sign us up for that every day of the week.