Joe Sakic is used to playing with some great players, but even he probably shook his head in disbelief when he looked at his wingers during training camp.

Standing to his left was Paul Kariya, the speedy and crafty forward who had carried the Anaheim Mighty Ducks for nine years.

To his right was Teemu Selanne, a seven-time 30-plus goal scorer who will rank as one of the best Finnish players in league history when he retires.

Never in the summer, when he was thinking of his team’s first-round exit in the playoffs, did Sakic ever think that he would centre probably the most fearsome line in the NHL this season.

It’s only the pre-season, but Sakic – who rarely shows emotion in an interview i was absolutely giddy after the Colorado Avalanche’s intrasquad game in training camp last week, a game that saw that line pot five goals.

But, then again, it’s easy to see why Sakic would let his emotions get the best of him. With coach Tony Granato promising his Avs would play an up-tempo, aggressive game, the Kariya-Sakic-Selanne line has the potential to do some significant damage to opposing goaltenders.

Of course, it’s hard to predict anything but a lot of success for linemates who have combined for 1,295 goals during their careers.

It’s not as if there’s going to be a long adjustment for these three. For a period of time, Kariya and Selanne were the most fearsome duo in the league. Playing together with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks from 1996 to 2001, the two were nearly unstoppable, leaving fans breathless with their creativity and brilliance on the ice.

It was this urge to play with his former teammate – and win the Stanley Cup after falling one game short last season – that forced Kariya to stage the biggest surprise of the summer.

After spending his first nine years with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, being the public face of the organization through some good and bad times, the 28-year-old forward decided to make a change in his life.

Unwilling to pay his $10 million US salary, the Ducks did not issue him a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent.

The Ducks assumed they could re-sign Kariya at a lower rate. They were wrong.

Suddenly finding himself on the open market, Kariya and Selanne concocted a scheme to sell themselves as a bargain-basement package to the Avs.

It was an offer general manager Pierre Lacroix could not refuse: two of the top players in the game for just $7 million US.

Kariya, for his part, took the biggest pay cut in league history and will get paid just $1.2 million US this season. The benefit of this deal is that he will be an unrestricted free agent in the summer.

So thanks to a little creative deal making, two of the league’s most talented players joined an already-talented Avs team.

The thinking is this burgeoning scoring juggernaut – one that boasts Peter Forsberg, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay as its other scoring line – could conjure up memories of the high-flying days of the Edmonton Oilers back in the 1980s.

After playing under a restrictive defensive system in Anaheim, Kariya would love to play a more entertaining style.

“That’s what everybody enjoys playing and that’s what everybody enjoys watching,” he told the Globe and Mail. “When I was a kid growing up, I was in love with the Oilers and Gretzky and those guys and a big reason why was the style they played.

“Hopefully, we can bring some of that back into the game.”