Steve Yzerman has a lot of talent to choose from. Everyone knows that. The Team Canada General Manager has the task of putting together a team that can win on the bigger, Olympic ice surface that will be used in Sochi — at least, that is the narrative being pushed. Canada’s gold medals in 2002 and 2010 in Salt Lake City and Vancouver came on NHL-sized rinks. With Canada, there is a lot of handwringing over who should be included and who should not. Well, that is why IH is here. Here is Intelligent Hockey’s Canadian roster that would win gold.
Note: All statistics used are from ExtraSkater.com and ESPN.com.
Forwards
John Tavares-Jonathan Toews-Patrick Sharp
Tavares is a center, but as of this posting, he is under 50 percent in faceoff win percentage. Even if he raises it a point or two, Tavares’ faceoff acumen is just not good enough to garner his own line on the Olympic team. Too much talent. Too many right-handed centers. Plus, Tavares would fit awesomely on this line as a left winger.
Jonathan Toews is not a puck-dominant center; he is a benevolent puck-supplier. He does a fantastic job finding Sharp and Marian Hossa on his wings on the Chicago Blackhawks. Tavares can be a sniper, but on the Islanders, he carries the burden of moving the puck forward, a burden he will not have on Team Canada.
And that is a good thing. Tavares can sometimes try to do too much, and simplifying his assignment is advantageous because he is a heck of a scoring-chance producer. He has a great release on his shot, a very powerful stride, and protects the puck well. He is elite at using his strength and puck-protection ability to create separation.
Tavares also has the stickhandling creativity to make very difficult plays in tight spaces. He is a great skater, perfect on his edges. Tavares does get very favorable zone starts, and his Relative Corsi and Fenwick are very good, but not great (as noted by Hockey Prospectus, these factors were a significant blemish on Tavares’ candidacy for the Hart Trophy last season). However, he also is matched against the highest Quality of Competition on the Islanders. His macro stats for the season are 16 goals and 29 assists, and once again he is the beacon of light on a very bad team.
Jonathan Toews is having another ridiculous season. The consummate captain has 15 goals, 26 assists, and a 56.9 faceoff win percentage. Toews is eighth in the NHL in Corsi for percentage, and fifth in Fenwick for percentage. Toews does all of the little things while doing the big things extremely well. He is a puck possession monster, an annual Selke Trophy candidate, and a brilliant playmaker.
Patrick Sharp is not just a goal scorer – he is a really, really good hockey player. He is fast, smart, and grossly underrated for his passing ability. He has an awesome shot, and has also developed other facets of his game. Sharp applies force and might on his backpressure, has the vision to make the stretch pass to a cutting forward or defenseman who sees a seam open up, and he can lay a hard hit as well.
These attributes are acknowledged in Toews, but just how much of a complete player Sharp is often gets overlooked. Statistics like Sharp being 10th in the NHL in points per 60 minutes and sixth in goals per 60 minutes obscure his other talents. Sharp’s game is aesthetically beautiful all 200 feet of the ice. And it will be when he plays on the Sochi rink, which is wider by 15 feet.
This line would crush it, and Toews would have a blast feeding Tavares and Sharp as they streak down the suddenly-less-congested lanes on the wing.
Matt Duchene-Sidney Crosby-Steven Stamkos
IH was not going to include Stamkos because human beings do not recover from a broken tibia in less than six months. But Stamkos is like an X-Men mutant, so that method of thinking does not apply. Seriously, after reading this NHL.com article it was just a little too frightening not to include him. And if this line does come to roost, it would be comically awesome.
Stamkos has as many tools as the Home Depot. Stammer has explosion and speed, and possesses exceptional hands. His shot is a rocket, and most importantly, he is the type of complete player who no longer fits the sniper/goal scorer label. He has worked extremely hard to become a complete player, and his work ethic is reaping the benefits. Similar to Crosby, he is surgical in his comprehension of the details and how to slip into slivers of space in the layers of the defense.
In the Olympics, teams with less talent will try to play a tight defensive game that concentrates on reducing the amount of shots as much as possible. This is why Stamkos is so essential. He is a game-changer. He can break through the chains of a defense and create space for himself and his teammates where there is none being given. With the puck, he has freight-train momentum, which allows him to pull ahead of defenders out wide, and the grace and power to cut inside.
Inside, outside, in the middle, or in Gretzky’s office, Stamkos is dangerous and a threat to score or set up a scoring chance. He is an elite player who has generational offensive skills. Hockey Prospectus had him worth an additional six to seven points over a full season versus a replacement-level player. He is that good.
Getting to watch Stamkos play in Sochi would be a pleasure. But because he is so good and so talented, IH does pray that he does not rush himself back too early and injure himself in a way that compromises his career.
Matt Duchene is faster than a speeding bullet, and is a wizard at stickhandling. He is also deceptively strong and explosive, and can handle a defensive zone start. His quality of competition is tied for the best on the Avalanche – with Gabriel Landeskog, who will be playing for the Swedish team, and Paul Stastny, who IH put on the US team – and his Corsi and Fenwick Relative are strong. For those who do not know how good this guy is, just wait until Sochi. He will be newly 23 years of age and is nearly as dynamic and talented as his linemates. Which is insane because Crosby and Stamkos are the best of the best.
What else is there to say about Crosby? He is a hockey genius, a master of his craft who draws maximum defensive attention and understands what he needs to do on and off the puck to advance the play offensively. He is pretty much the perfect hockey player. He dominates every inch of the ice, and he is the best player in the NHL. He is at the apogee of hockey caliber right now, and Hockey Prospectus ranked him as the frontrunner to win the Hart Trophy if he stays healthy.
This line would “put a dent in the universe,” but if Crosby and his idiosyncrasies do not gel with these linemates, Kunitz will be on the roster as a specialized Crosby fail-safe.
Patrick Marleau-Patrice Bergeron-Claude Giroux
Patrice Bergeron is a 61.8 percent faceoff center and takeaway specialist, Giroux is an assist savant, and Marelau is a consistent and underrated scorer. This line would be so entertaining! Bergeron is truly the NHL’s premier fill-in-the-blanks player. He is ruthlessly efficient. He does it all, and his subtle brilliance is reflected in his Corsi relative and Fenwick relative percentages — best in the NHL.
After a slow start, Giroux has once again become a top-flight player and is on a tear. It should matter that the players selected are not just great, but are trending upward. Admittedly, things could change between now and February, but Giroux’s game has only gone upward. This process of thinking applies to Marleau as well. Marleau has been a steadier force this season than Logan Couture and has a better first-step and sniper touch than Joe Thornton. Thornton, Couture, and Marleau are all lefties, and all “natural” centers, but Marleau fills the need. Thornton is a distributor, but this squad is filled with distributors. Logan Couture is a crafty, two-way threat who can score – but his scoring has been icy cold lately. That will assuredly change by the Olympics, but Mareleau just chugs along.
Sometimes a known quantity is a good thing. Marleau can produce, and the stories of his shortcomings in the postseason are apocryphal. Giroux does what Thornton does, but has the quickness and foot speed more preferable for the bigger ice. And Bergeron does what Couture does, but is better at it. Marleau adds the Patrick Sharp/Stamkos/Corey Perry dimension. The dude can score, and has been doing so for over a decade.
Players who step up on the biggest stage are the players you want representing your country in a short tournament like the Olympics. All three of these guys will do anything it takes to win, and have been catalysts for teams that are enormously successful. Bergeron and Marleau were both on the team in Vancouver when Canada won gold, and all three players have experience playing in the postseason. Having a winning pedigree should matter, and while the importance of leadership is difficult to measure, all three of these players have letters on their sweaters for their respective teams (Bergeron and Giroux are both the captains and Marleau was previously team captain). This line has a little of everything: skating, speed, passing, hitting, defensive acumen, and scoring. A team’s third line needs to have accountability, and it does not get a lot better than this trio.
Jamie Benn-Ryan Getzlaf-Corey Perry
While all three of these players do not have the smooth born-on-skates image of a Crosby or Stamkos, all three are tremendous athletes who can dominate the puck with their size and speed. Corey Perry has been fantastic this year. He is a natural scorer who can shred a defender one-on-one or slither his way to the front of the net for a shot around the paint. He is quite literally an inventive scorer.
Ryan Getzlaf is tall, has a long reach, and can gouge the face of a defense with his passing and overpowering strength on and off the puck. He is a willing and gifted distributor and, on the Anaheim Ducks, is excellent at feeding Perry and their linemate, Dustin Penner.
With Benn, you have a player who has deceptive speed and is adept at evading defensive coverage with the puck. He can charge to the net, or grab the puck and play point guard – with Tyler Seguin and Valeri Nichushkin being the benefactors. The Stars’ captain is one of the shining stars in the NHL, and his quick feet, puck skills, and cannon for a shot are unreal.
Getzlaf is shooting more this year, and he should, because he has a hard, heavy shot. These three can play physically, and they can play a strong puck possession game. Speed and quickness will undoubtedly be important in the Olympics on the slightly bigger ice, but this is still hockey. Size helps, and these three are as good as any at using their size to impose their will on the opponent. To wit, Getzlaf got ranked third by Hockey Prospectus’s Hart Trophy rankings. Also, do not sleep on the edge this line would play with. These guys can all get nasty.
A lot will be made on the tactical usage of players and systems in the Olympics by their country’s coaches. But with Ryan Getzlaf centering a fourth line with Corey Perry and Jamie Benn, defensive game plans get spoiled.
Reserves: Jeff Carter and Chris Kunitz
Defense
Duncan Keith-Shea Weber
This pairing would be so much fun to watch also! Weber adds what Seabrook does, only better. And Keith can do Duncan Keith things: skating the puck into space and finding the streaking forward for a stretch pass; using his stickhandling and balance to buy time so that he can open up the chessboard for his teammates to cut and dive into open squares of ice. Weber has the slapshot, the mobility, and the mean streak to physically dominate his opponent. He is a Paul Bunyan-sized man who also uses his powers for good. You do not mess with Weber, and you sure as hell do not mess with Keith.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic-Drew Doughty
Drew Doughty is a favorite of Team Canada coach Mike Babcock and brilliant at his job. He is interesting to watch because his talent is more nuanced. He has offensive skill — he can shoot and pass with the best of them – and is also proficient at puck retrieval and making the first pass on the break out. His mobility is all-world, and he has the ability to side-step and escape pressure on the forecheck like the best who have ever played the game.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic is a defenseman whose best attributes are being skilled in the fundamentals. He plays a simple game, and his label is closest to shutdown defender. The matching of Doughty and Vlasic would mean the puck would be tilted in Canada’s direction a lot, and establishing zone time for the opponent would be extremely difficult.
Jay Bouwmeester-Alex Pietrangelo
These two are flush in size and skill and were compared by Brian Engblom this season to Serge Savard and Larry Robinson. They have active sticks, prolific instincts, and knowledge of what to do in every situation. All the defensemen above play the crunch-time minutes for their clubs and have significant impacts on special teams, and these two are no different. They just happen to man the back line for the St. Louis Blues, one of the best defensive teams in the NHL.
P.K. Subban-Brent Seabrook
There are still power plays in the Olympics right? Even on the bigger ice? Okay, cool. Then why exactly would Subban not be selected? He is a supernova on the man advantage, and his ability to carry the puck makes him the Canadian version of Erik Karlsson. Hockey Prospectus has him first in its Norris Trophy rankings at the midway point. Subban is a monster of a player. Put him out with a super-line of two-way players, like Toews-Crosby-Bergeron, for all IH cares to insure his mistakes are mitigated. Just make sure he is out there. Subban can change the outcome of a game with his skill and overwhelming talent.
Brent Seabrook is a little overshadowed by Keith, and that can have bad Olympic implications as the insane omission of Saad on the U.S. team displayed. But Seabrook is a gamer, sort of like the defensive version of Jeff Carter. When a player plays well in enough big moments you want him on your team. Seabrook fits that profile.
Goaltender Starter: Carey Price
After being canonized by Sidney Crosby as the best goaltender in the NHL to start the season, Price has burned the forest to the ground so far. Blessed with size, athleticism, agility, and reflexes, Price offers the full package. His inconsistency year-to-year is a product of the volatility of the position of goaltending, but Price in many ways is groomed for this role. After all, the guy plays in Montreal; he will not be fazed by the international lights.
Backups: Roberto Luongo and Mike Smith
Luongo, The Old Hand, will get a look before Smith, but really it will be a shock if Price does not start-to-finish this tournament. Chemistry is not achieved overnight, and Canada and its stars frequently seem to struggle to coalesce. But there is so much freaking talent on this team that, if they do not win, it will not be because Price lost it for them. It will be because the skaters underachieved.
No Rick Nash?