2022 Team Canada Thread

[OldTimeHockey]

The two questions I always wrestle with for Team Canada at these things are "Do you care about positions? Or do you just take the strongest group of Forwards?" and "Do you ever reach a point where you say the team has enough scoring and look more towards role players".

For the first one I'm always torn. I feel like caring about the winger/centre split always results in bringing a markedly worse team on paper but I can't deny that it's frequently some of the guys who might not make the team if they weren't wingers who make some of the biggest contributions.

I think you basically have to ignore positions but handedness still comes into play. Canada has like 8-12 legitimate top line centres who can make the team and you obviously can't cut them off at 4 or 5. I think generally speaking the last few Olympic teams have done a really good job at moving centres to wing.

I think handedness only comes into play for me on defense. Forwards don't skate lanes anymore. Forwards are all over the ice after the face off.

[Peter D.]

Huberdeau, yeah. I think if I had to re-do it I'd put him on the team over Hall.   

Barzal over Couturier I think doesn't make much sense. Over the last three years Couturier has scored 211 points and won a Selke(and finished top 10 in voting the other two years). Barzal has 207 points with significantly fewer goals, obviously not as good a defender and significantly worse in face-offs.

Honestly, Barzal's not really on my radar. There are some guys nobody has talked about(Schenn, Couture, Monahan) who I'd probably put above him.

Yeah.  Each will have varying opinions on which players should occupy and round out the roster.  I'm particularly bullish on Barzal as a whole, so I'd have him higher up on my list than others like you would.  But, at that point, it's splitting semantics when you have that many options including those other guys you mentioned. 

As long as it's not like a Zamuner-esque addition such as Tyler Bertuzzi or something to muck things up, you really can't go wrong with all the players at the country's disposal.

[Bullfrog]

I'm having a hard time not having Mark Stone on there. not sure who comes out though.

And for some reason, I thought Slavin was Canadian. Learn something new every day.