Team Canada Snubs & Team Canada 2

I am sure Ovechkin would love to play with St. Louis, if he were Russian that is

Tuesday, we saw to what lengths this country is willing to go to when it comes to making Hockey announcements. A full on spectacle complete with boring speeches (thank you Marcel Aubut for that) and all the pomp and circumstance that went along with the announcement of the 25 man roster for the Canadian Men’s Olympic team was nothing short of overkill to some people. Nevertheless, for “puckheads” like me, it was not the end of the debate, but rather the start of another as I, like many others around the hockey world, will now try to figure out why these 25 guys (or more like 4 or 5 specific players) were chosen and other notable players were left off the team. Let the official 2^nd guessing season begin!

I have no idea how you can justify Jeff Carter and Ric Nash over Claude Giroux and Martin St. Louis. Actually, to be fair, I CAN see what they were thinking and why but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.

His inclusion on the 2010 version of Team Canada made sense, not this time around

Nash has done absolutely nothing this year to warrant being on the team. He has been injured which is part of the reason for that but even when he has played, his level of play is severely below what we have come to expect from someone who has all the tools to be one of the most dominant power forwards in the game, yet he isn’t. If you put St. Louis’ passion for the game in the body of Ric Nash, you might just have the greatest hockey player alive today but since we can’t pull a “Freaky Friday” or “!8 Again” on the two of them we are stuck with each player as they are.

St. Louis is short, yes, we have all heard the nay-sayers for years about him pointing out his defects. Well, why don’t they shut up for a minute and look at his positive attributes; Stanley Cup champ, World Hockey Champ for Canada, Art Ross Trophy winner, Hart Trophy winner, top 5 in scoring for the last 7 years, top 10 for the last 10 years. He has had to work for every single thing he has ever gotten in the game and yet somehow, simply because he isn’t 6 foot 2, he continues to get overlooked and underrated.

I am shocked that Steve Yzerman, the guy who looks at the standings everyday and should thank his lucky stars he has St. Louis playing as well as he is or HIS team, the Lightning, would be floundering badly with Steven Stamkos out with a broken leg, did not select St. Louis for this team. He now has a crushed superstar on his own club team which is never a good thing. If I were St. Louis, I might consider actually asking for a trade because of his omission from the team again (he was overlooked in 2010 as well). I don’t think I could look my own team’s GM in the eye again after being essentially told by him twice that I wasn’t good enough for Team Canada despite everything I do.

Another shocking omission to me is the fact that Flyers captain Claude Giroux was left off this team. He has only been absolutely on fire since his team dumped former coach Peter Laviolette after losing the first 3 games of the year, and he has seen his point totals skyrocket up the scoring leaders in the process. Again, one can point to the fact that he isn’t 6 feet tall (5 foot 11 last I checked). But that should not matter, especially on big, Olympic sized ice where speed and quickness are more important than brute strength (Nash) and height (Jeff Carter). 

Just like Nash, he would have made more sense 4 years ago, not this time around

Yes, Carter may have speed but he is a one dimensional player (with his goals to assists ratios throughout his career, he looks like he is a starting pitcher in MLB) who only scores goals, which is not a bad thing but Giroux scores goals AND has great vision on the ice to help out his teammates. Clearly he is the more well rounded player and could fill a void on any of the top 3 lines if there were an injury in game to one of the top players. Carter got in because of how he handled himself in 2010 as he was willing to be on standby while Team Canada waited on Ryan Getzlaf and his wonky ankle. Politics should not be playing any part of picking this team but it obviously did.

There were several other players that one could make a case for being part of the team. In fact, there are SO many great Canadian players out there, I thought it would be fun to create a 2^nd Team Canada roster out of the cast offs and blatant omissions of players who were/are having great seasons. Here is a taste of a team I honestly think would win a medal as it is constructed here;

Yes, he is older and not "speedy" but leaving off the top assist man in the league may come back to haunt Yzerman

Tyler Seguin – Joe Thornton – Martin St. Louis

Claude Giroux - Eric Staal – Taylor Hall

Jeff Skinner – Logan Couture – James Neal

Jordan Eberle - Mike Richards – Milan Lucic

I know I could have used another pic of Phaneuf but given our recent Arctic cold snap, and the fact Alisha is in that pic, your welcome

Brent Seabrook – Mark Staal

Kris Letang – Mark Giordano

Dan Boyle – Dion Phaneuf (in a role that suits his current standing, 6^th Defenseman)

Mike Green as your 7th

He may be aging, he may be playing in his final season but it never hurts to have the greatest goalie ever to play the game at least as your #3 on your depth chart

Cory Crawford Starts

Mark Andre Fleury is the back up

Martin Brodeur as the veteran presence and 3^rd stringer.

When you look at this team, there is depth, experience, speed and youth. I'm not saying my Team Canada 2 is equal on talent as he current 25 men going to Sochi but it may be time to consider being allowed to send 2 teams like we do in Bobsled, instead of letting teams like Norway, Italy and Slovenia into the tournament just to see them get obliterated by everyone of the powerhouses in the  world. Some would say that when the minnows play the bigger teams, they get to see exactly how far away they are from becoming powerhouses themselves. All I am asking is wouldn't it be a better tournament if you were to have 2 Team USA's, 2 Russia's and 2 Canadian teams then those 3 teams in it? I think so.

Regardless of the fact,this team Canada selected by Yzerman has a very good chance to win a medal. Gold is within their reach and hell, if one of his starters from his 25 man roster gets hurt between now and the start of February, he has an opportunity to correct one of his glaring errors and ideally, his first choice should be St. Louis. The question is would he say yes...