Choices

Selecting Team Canada is an onerous task and I don't envy Steve Yzerman and his assistants. If their team fails to deliver a gold medal on home soil, the backlash from not only the hockey community, but Canadians as a people, will be tremendous. If one of the players has a poor game, his selection to the team will be questioned. If Canada fails to medal, the Prime Minister will have to come out of hiding to declare a state of emergency. There is a lot at stake for them, let's leave it at that.

I think that, for the most part, Stevie Y. has done a good job. The three goalies were clear choices, so I won't even go over them here. The top 9 forwards were also fairly obvious, and he seems to have chosen correctly:

Nash - Crosby - Iginla
Heatley - Thornton - Marleau
Staal - Getzlaf - Perry

Those would be my combinations, though I think you could put the names into a randomizer and still come out with three dominating forward lines. The theoretical fourth line, to me, would be:

Morrow - Richards - Toews

Those seem like good choices to me. Mike Richards is debatable, and maybe the other Richards deserved it more, but I like Toews and Morrow quite a bit. It's certainly a whole lot better than the Kris Draper selection, or my personal favourite, the immortal Rob Zamuner. I bet you'd forgotten about that one. In 1998, Rob Zamuner played for the Canadian Olympic team. Let's pause to consider that one, friends.



[Pause]



Okay, pause over. Also, in that famous shootout against the Czech Republic, the Canadian shooters were Theoren Fleury, Raymond Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan. While Wayne Gretzky sat on the bench, those five were charged with scoring on Dominik Hasek at the pinnacle of his powers. RAYMOND BOURQUE! Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. BOURQUE! As you can imagine, it's still a touchy issue.

Back to the subject at hand. I think the only questionable forward selection is Patrice Bergeron, and since he's probably the thirteenth forward, that shouldn't be a big deal. The person that should be up in arms over this is Marc Savard. How do you look at those numbers and choose Bergeron? Or the best part, how do Team Canada executives go to scout Bruins games, and then miss Savard? How does that happen? Did he somehow offend Yzerman personally? I am flabbergasted.

The choices on defense are a little stranger:

Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Drew Doughty, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber and Dan Boyle.

I think that Duncan Keith, Dan Boyle, Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger are locks. I am not a big Pronger fan, but he's played well so far this year. He's +11 on a Philadelphia team that's only scored three more goals than it's given up. Weber is certainly a defensible choice, but the Seabrook and Doughty choices are a little weird. The conventional choice would have been Jay Bouwmeester. He's soaking up almost 27 minutes per game, mostly against the opponent's top line, and he's a solid + 9.

However, I think the real missed opportunity was Mike Green. Okay, I know he is not super defensively. Well, maybe I know he's mediocre.... okay, okay, he's not good, alright? Everyone knows that. He's also a point a game player with an outrageous level of skill. No one makes a better breakout pass in the NHL. No defenseman carries the puck better than him. And no one, no one, runs a power play better than him. How does Brent Seabrook and his magical .37 Career Points/Game average get the nod over Mike Green? Yes, Rick Nash dangled him that one time. Yes, he had a bad run in the playoffs last year. But if Canada's power play goes bad, Green will be sorely missed.

On the whole, I do respect the fact that they didn't go for old veterans that had more experience than some of the youngsters that were chosen. Any of the forwards is markedly better than say Ryan Smyth or Shane Doan. And resisting the temptation to create a true checking line is a stroke of genius in my mind. Even the hypothetical fourth line will be able to generate offensive chances. So, on the whole, kudos Steve Yzerman. You did a very credible job. Now, if this teams mucks it up, none of it will matter, you'll still get kicked out of Canada.

NB