Sochi 2014 - The Players Canada Have Left Behind

There has been a lot of debate lately about who should have been included in this Canada team. I have taken the top 10 most popular names left out and given opinion as to why. You can’t take everybody, no matter which combination of players was selected, a number of elite-level skaters were going to be left behind whom you could have put on the roster without blinking. It speaks to the depth within the nation. The fact is, whichever attributes you think a certain snubbed player would have brought to the team, the roster isn’t missing it without him. Want passing, speed, scoring, defense and size? Well, this roster has all those in spades. Still, most people are going to be surprised or disappointed in at least a couple of players being left off. After all, you could make a competitive Olympic team of Canadian leftovers.

As the man most responsible for assembling Canada’s Olympic team, Steve Yzerman faces more pressure than any hockey executive in the world. And unless and until Canada wins a gold medal in Sochi, his selections for the team will be questioned and parsed and debated. It comes with the territory. But it’s crystal clear by his choices that the one thing you cannot question about Steve Yzerman is his integrity. Yzerman and his management team picked the 25 players they believe give Canada its best chance to win a gold medal and that group did not include his own player, Martin St-Louis. It would have been very easy for Yzerman to overrule his management group and take St-Louis for the team. He could have easily justified it, saying that it was all about duos. After all, the team has Jay Bouwmeester and Alex Pietrangelo, who patrol the blueline together in St. Louis. It has Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Sharp. He could have easily pointed to the tandem of St-Louis and Steven Stamkos, who is expected to be ready to play for Canada. But there were very real concerns among the group about what kind of impact St-Louis would have on the big ice in Sochi. St-Louis, you’ll remember, was a part of the disaster that was the Canadian team in Turin and there were doubts he would be able to contribute the way he does at the NHL level. Yzerman did not have to listen. He could have taken his own player and compromised his management group. By not selecting St-Louis, he risks losing the player. Yzerman will be the executive director of Canada’s Olympic team for another two months, but he’ll be GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning for a long, long time. And you could tell the decision has weighed heavily on him, he was cut twice from Canada Cup teams himself so he knows what it’s like to be an elite player in the NHL and be rejected by your country.

“I’m hopeful that we can get through this and continue,” Yzerman said. “(St-Louis) is a guy who I want to finish his career (in Tampa) and I’m hopeful that somehow we can be fortunate enough to win a Stanley Cup. There’s not much I can say. I can’t apologize. We’ve got to make these decisions. To be perfectly honest, I was bitter. Extremely bitter. It took a while to get over that, but you know what, it’s hard but we recover. I recovered from getting cut from Team Canada twice and in the ’96 World Cup I was virtually the 13^th forward. But in 2002 I was on a gold medal team.”

At the age of the 38, St-Louis doesn’t have that kind of time. His legacy as an NHL player is secure, but would contributing to a gold medal Olympic team make him a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame? Quite likely. So there is no minimizing the stones Yzerman had to have to make this decision. But St-Louis was not his only difficult decision. Will the team be better off with Jeff Carter, Rick Nash, Kunitz and Patrick Marleau than it would have been with the likes of Joe Thornton, Claude Giroux, James Neal, St-Louis and Logan Couture? Well, the only way to find out is to drop the puck and see how this team does. The problem is that depending on how this team does, Yzerman has either the best or the worst job in hockey. Having this many elite players can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing for Hockey Canada. There are countries in this tournament where the talent pool is very clear and straightforward and there is little or no controversy surrounding their decisions. But having this depth of talent often causes paralysis by overanalysis.

Consider what Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland, a key member of the management committee, had to say about things they considered during the selection process: “We went through it all again (on Monday), who can slide over on defense, who can slide over and play the opposite side, who plays with whom, who’s on the power play, who can penalty kill? If we’re down by a goal with a minute to go, who’s on the ice? If we’re up by a goal with a minute to go, who’s going to be on the ice? If we’re having a draw in our own zone on the penalty kill, who’s going to be out there? We went through all those scenarios with (coach) Mike Babcock.”

That’s an awful lot to consider. And even more for Yzerman to digest as the man with the final say. St-Louis is the ultimate professional and it’s unlikely he’ll hold this against his GM, but Yzerman must have considered somewhere along the line the ramifications of leaving him off the team. Too often in this game people make decisions based on putting their interests ahead of the collective good. Yzerman could have done that and guaranteed never losing the allegiance of his star player. But instead he listened to his coaches, swallowed hard and made a difficult, cold-blooded decision. For that he should be applauded.

10. Claude Giroux - Simply not good enough right now, despite posting great numbers just two seasons ago. There is no way Grioux would get onto this Canada team ahead of Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Patrice Bergeron or Ryan Getzlaf. There was no space left for him, therefore I have no complaints about his omission. In fact Tyler Seguin of Dallas would get the vote over him for me. A player who works great with Jamie Benn and who can also move to the wing. He used to play on a line with Bergeron at Boston, so just imagine for a second what a line of Benn/Bergeron/Seguin could do.

9. Eric Staal - It doesn’t take much for commenters to start criticising Eric Staal. He’s on pace for about 70 points, which is the same total he got in 2011-12. For the past eight seasons, a good year for Staal would be if he put up five or six more points than what he’s currently on pace for. Yet, all you hear about is how poorly he’s been playing. More accuratally, Staal made another slow start, but has bounced back much the same way he did in 2011-12. He has 26 points in his past 26 games, which is exactly what you can expect from him. He also gets a fair amount of shorthanded time, can play the wing, skates fast, has size, and has 35 points in 42 games? However like Giroux, just where would you put him?

8. Dan Boyle - An elite puck-mover still pulling in 21:24 of ice per night for the San Jose Sharks, Boyle was bumped off by the next generation of Canadian blueliners. A member of the 2010 team, the 37-year-old was a bubble player throughout this whole process.

7. Mike Richards - This guy is a winner up and down and someone you can rely on in any situation. The Canadian team’s desire to have a speedy roster likely played against him (and the fact his offense is down), but he would have fit in nicely at the same time.

6. Corey Crawford - Crawford can count himself unlucky being kept out of this team. His save percentage is similar to Mike Smith’s, he won the Stanley Cup last June and regularly gets the job done behind a stacked team of his own. An injury recently might have played a factor into leaving him out, but I’d rather turn to Crawford than Luongo. The current form of Mike Smith leaves a lot to be desired too. Smitty has won points for Phoenix this season when they scarcely deserved them but right now his form has dropped and has even been benched in favor of Thomas Greiss.

5. Brent Seabrook - Let’s get this one out of the way: Seabrook can get on this team even without Duncan Keith. This isn’t a Kunitz scenario. It seems Seabrook was done in by the desire for a lefty-righty split on the blueline and was pushed off by the much more controversial pick of Dan Hamhuis. Surely the biggest name, along with Pittsburgh's Kris Letang missing from the D.

4. James Neal - In his past 77 NHL games (regular season and playoffs), Neal has 43 goals. Not many guys can do that. He doesn’t usually play on Crosby's line at Pittsburgh as often as Chris Kunitz, but he has played with him. All this, makes him a better option on Crosby’s wing, if you were looking for chemistry. Not many players can hit 40-plus goals in fewer than 80 games. Also had his Penguins team-mate, Pascal Dupuis been fit, he should have gone too.

3. Joe Thornton
The NHL’s assist leader is one of the most marvelous hockey players on the planet, but, kind of like what happened with Boyle, Canada moved on to a younger generation of centers. Skating and speed were being touted as major factors for building this team in the weeks and months leading up to the roster release, attributes that just so happen to be weaknesses for Thornton. It’s so hard to leave a player off who has so much left to give, but that’s part of picking Team Canada.

2. Martin St-Louis
The fact St-Louis’ NHL GM was also the one with the final say in picking Team Canada was expected to have some, although minor, influence on his fate, but a case for his inclusion cuts much deeper than that connection. St-Louis just won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer last season, is a speedster, a determined player and plays regularly with Steven Stamkos, when he’s in the lineup and is having a very productive season. St-Louis did not make Canada’s 2010 entry, so it would have been quite the story had he made it in 2014 as a 38-year-old.

1. Logan Couture - Talk about bad timing: it was announced Wednesday Couture would have surgery on an upper-body injury that would keep him out three-to-four weeks. Sharks GM Doug Wilson said he had been playing through the pain for a couple weeks, but when it didn’t heal, this was the best course of action. Had the injury not happened Couture would have been a shoe-in.

With the best players left-over, here is what team you could have taken to Canada:

Forwards - Claude Giroux (Philadelphia), Joe Thornton (San Jose), Martin St-Louis (Tampa Bay), Eric Staal (Carolina), Logan Couture (San Jose), James Neal (Pittsburgh), Milan Lucic (Boston), Taylor Hall (Edmonton), Tyler Seguin (Dallas), Jordan Eberle (Edmonton), Mike Richards (Los Angeles), Jeff Skinner (Carolina)

Defense - Brent Seabrook (Chicago), Dan Boyle (San Jose), Kris Letang (Pittsburgh), Mark Giordano (Calgary), Francois Beauchemin (Anaheim), Marc Staal (NY Rangers)

Goalies - Corey Crawford (Chicago), Jonathan Bernier (Toronto)

And here are players from other countries who should have been considered.

Forwards

Bobby Ryan, Ottawa (USA), Kyle Okposo, N.Y. Islanders (USA), Jason Pominville, Minnesota (USA)

Jiri Hudler, Calgary (Czech), Radim Vrbata, Phoenix (Czech), Tomas Fleischmann, Florida (Czech)

Alexander Semin, Carolina (Russia), Nail Yakupov, Edmonton (Russia)

Patric Hornqvist, Nashville (Sweden), Marcus Johansson, Washington (Sweden)

Sean Bergenheim, Florida (Finland), Saku Koivu (Finland)

Miroslav Satan, Bratislava (Slovakia)

Defense

Keith Yandle, Phoenix (USA), Dustin Byfuglien, Winnipeg (USA), Erik Johnson, Colorado (USA)

Dmitry Kulikov, Florida (Russia)

Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay (Sweden), Jonas Brodin, Minnesota (Sweden), Tobias Enstrom Winnipeg (Sweden)

Goalies

Ben Bishop, Tampa Bay (USA), Cory Schneider, New Jersey (USA)

Pekka Rinne (Finland)