Canadian and US Olympic Teams Begin to Take Shape

[Sausage in Section 17]

That has been the speculation with Subban all along. Basically, they chose him as a PP specialist, or an O-minded D-man. Much of the criticism of him in the Canadian media centered on him not being a reliable, stay-at-home guy who handles the puck too much and is prone to costly turnovers. His offensive pedigree is off the charts, but as a D-man, he is susceptible to huge lapses, though he's better than he used to be in this regard.
 
As a Habs fan, I'd say these are fair assessments of him..

 

[scotian1]

I don't know about any other Olympians but ever since it was announced at the Winter Classic, JVR and Kessel have been dreadful. Are they playing not to get hurt? They have been invisible and as a Leaf fan, it is really annoying.

 

[veritas]

That has been the speculation with Subban all along. Basically, they chose him as a PP specialist, or an O-minded D-man. Much of the criticism of him in the Canadian media centered on him not being a reliable, stay-at-home guy who handles the puck too much and is prone to costly turnovers. His offensive pedigree is off the charts, but as a D-man, he is susceptible to huge lapses, though he's better than he used to be in this regard.
 
As a Habs fan, I'd say these are fair assessments of him..

 
With a minimal amount of situation management, his overall value would be huge to that team. I can't stand his bullshit or the team he plays for. But he's easily one of the top 6 Canadian D-men.
 
And as a fan of the US team, I hope they don't play him

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Does he need that much man-management? He can be pretty frank, he sometimes slewfoots a guy, and he occasionally has a lapse of concentration, but the Canadian media constantly paints Subban as a Bad Guy, and as a Habs fan I'm asking "Where's the meat?"
 
It reminds me a little bit of how the national media used to paint Pedro as a divisive clubhouse influence and flake when that wasn't really true.

 

[veritas]

Does he need that much man-management? He can be pretty frank, he sometimes slewfoots a guy, and he occasionally has a lapse of concentration, but the Canadian media constantly paints Subban as a Bad Guy, and as a Habs fan I'm asking "Where's the meat?"
 
It reminds me a little bit of how the national media used to paint Pedro as a divisive clubhouse influence and flake when that wasn't really true.

 
By situation management I was referring to avoiding defensive zone draws vs the other teams top line, etc.

 

[MoGator71]

 
By situation management I was referring to avoiding defensive zone draws vs the other teams top line, etc.

Yea my concern would be that he's a bit of a gambler. Over the course of a full season the positives he brings far outweigh the occasions when he gets burned, but in a short tournament and especially in the one-and-done medal round it's hard to be comfortable relying on Subban.

 

[sachmoney]

Crosby captain, Toews and Weber alternates.

 

[Dan to Theo to Ben]

Let's not leave out, on the broadcasting US roster, host Kathryn Tappen!
 
http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/bio/kathryn-tappen/

 

[Greg29fan]

Stamkos is not going

 

[ForceAtHome]

Stamkos is not going

 
I wonder who will replace him... and am simultaneously jealous of Canada's awesome options.
 

• Joe Thornton: 8+48=56 ... Jumbo has the most points of any Canadian not on the team.
• Tyler Seguin: 24+31=55 ... He's second in goals and points among non-team members and has obvious chemistry with Benn.
• Claude Giroux: 18+37=55 ... A pre-season favorite to crack the roster, he was derailed by a slow start but has 48 points in last 42 games.
• Martin St. Louis: 25+29=54 ... Last year's Art Ross winner is producing as usual.
• Eric Staal: 14+30=44 ... Not producing at the same level as the others, but a 2010 Team Canada member.
• James Neal: 18+24=42 ... His totals lag behind, but he's put them up in just 35 GP.  He trails just Stamkos and Crosby in points per game and has familiarity with Crosby and Kunitz.

I would guess they're leaning St. Louis or maybe Giroux, but would be intrigued by a Seguin inclusion, especially on the big ice.

 

[MoGator71]

I really have no idea where they'll go since they seem to be big on filling roles rather than taking best available players. If they want to fill Stamkos' role then it probably makes sense to go St. Louis or Seguin, rather than a playmaker type like Giroux or a 2-way center like Staal. 
 
Shitty break for Stamkos, he seems like a good guy and he was apparently working his ass off to get back. Probably good for Tampa that he gets the break to keep recovering. Tampa has to be the dark horse Cup contender, they're already top-3 in the conference and they're about to add probably the best goal scorer in the league outside of Ovechkin. But all the attention is focused on the Pens, Bruins, and 4-5 Western teams.

 

[cshea]

Marty St. Louis it is.

 

[RedOctober3829]

Love it.  As a former Catamount, I follow his career pretty close.  He deserved this honor.

 

[MoGator71]

Good for MSL, he should've been there to begin with.

 

[brienc]

The Islanders FB page is getting lit up by pissed off Slovaks venting in broken English at Garth Snow for not letting Visnovsky play in the Olympics. Good times...
 

 

[RedOctober3829]

Here are 3 of the lines from today's Canadian practice.
 

Kunitz-Crosby-Carter; Sharp-Toews-Nash, Tavares-Getzlaf-Perry.

 
Here are the D pairings.

 

Pierre LeBrun ‏@Real_ESPNLeBrun 51s
Keith-Weber, Vlasic-Doughty, Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo
 

 

[TheRealness]

I was looking up the rosters and previews today, and was going over some of the rosters and felt that pretty much every team has weaknesses that could lead to a USA gold. Canada has goaltending issues, and has historically struggled on the larger ice surface. Russia's defense has a bunch of question marks, and if anything happens to King Henrik, Sweden is fucked. 
 
Outside of their weak center depth, the USA boasts six 20 goal scorers, while I believe Russia has one and Canada has only one. They also have a much more mobile defense in years past, and that could really benefit them on the larger ice. Add in the quality goaltending, and I would now rank the USA just behind Canada and Sweden, and then Russia 4th. 
 
This is going to be a fun tournament. I think it's more wide open than I originally thought. 

 

[PedroSpecialK]

Not disagreeing with your overall point, but Canada has the following 20 goal-scorers this year:
 
Crosby - 28
Perry - 30
Getzlaf - 29
Sharp - 28
Kunitz - 27
St. Louis - 25
Tavares - 24
Marleau - 23
Benn - 22
Carter - 20
 
Toews and Duchene each have 19. Russia however does indeed only have one.
 
IMO with H. Sedin out for Sweden and the addition of St. Louis for Canada, Canada becomes the favorites for the gold, even with the bigger ice. It could realistically go to any of Sweden/Finland/Canada/US/Russia though.

 

[TheRealness]

Not disagreeing with your overall point, but Canada has the following 20 goal-scorers this year:
 
Crosby - 28
Perry - 30
Getzlaf - 29
Sharp - 28
Kunitz - 27
St. Louis - 25
Tavares - 24
Marleau - 23
Benn - 22
Carter - 20
 
Toews and Duchene each have 19. Russia however does indeed only have one.
 
IMO with H. Sedin out for Sweden and the addition of St. Louis for Canada, Canada becomes the favorites for the gold, even with the bigger ice. It could realistically go to any of Sweden/Finland/Canada/US/Russia though.

 
Yep, I went back and looked at the article, and it said Sweden and Russia have only one 20 goal scorer. 
 
EDIT: Here is the quote from the article I butchered:
 

3. In theory the U.S. forward group is not as deep as say Canada's (let's face it: No one ices a group of forwards as dangerous as Canada's) or Sweden or Russia, but a closer look shows the Americans' forward group is deceptively balanced and dangerous. As of this writing, six Americans had at least 20 goals: Joe Pavelski, Patrick Kane, Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Max Pacioretty and James van Riemsdyk. By comparison, the Swedes have just one (Alexander Steen), as do the Russians (Alex Ovechkin), although half the Russian roster plays in the KHL. Given the evolution of players such as Kessel, van Riemsdyk, Wheeler and Pacioretty, this is a much more potent team than the '10 squad. There is also the experience factor with nine forwards returning from the silver medal squad. That will help counterbalance the inexperience along the blue line and should help the squad ride out whatever bumps there may be in the road to the medal round.
 

 
http://espn.go.com/olympics/winter/2014/icehockey/story/_/id/10384537/2014-sochi-olympics-team-team-hockey-breakdown-us

 

[cshea]

Bylsma's lines

JVR - Pavelski - Kessel
Parise - Backes - Oshie
Brown - Kesler - Kane
Callahan - Stastny - Pacioretty

Not loving having Kane skate with two grinders. Would prefer him in a top 6 spot.

 

[TheRealness]

Bylsma's lines

JVR - Pavelski - Kessel
Parise - Backes - Oshie
Brown - Kesler - Kane
Callahan - Stastny - Pacioretty

Not loving having Kane skate with two grinders. Would prefer him in a top 6 spot.

 
Kane is their best offensive player, IMO. He should be skating with Parise. I'd also prefer to see Pacioretty on the LW with Kesler, and have Oshie on that wing, and Brown down to the 4th line RW. 
 
Not sure what they are going for there, other than balance. I'd also seriously consider putting Kane and Parise around Pavelski, and then have Backes centering the Leafs combo. 

 

[cshea]

He kept the 2 Leafs together, as well as the two Blues. Seems clear he's hoping the chemistry and familiarity between the players will carry over. Not a bad strategy, but you have to be quick to adapt if it doesn't work right away.

FWIW, I kind of like Sweden in the tournament. Their lineup today:

Landeskog - Zetterberg - Steen
Sedin - Backstrom - Eriksson
NyQuist - Berglund - Alfredsson
Hagelin - Kruger - Ericsson

OEL - Karlsson
Kronwall - Ericsson
Oduya - Hjalmarsson

Lundqvist

That's a very deep and balanced team, even without Henrik Sedin. If Hank gets hot, look out. Can't figure out how Brodin didn't make it though.

 

[PedroSpecialK]

Agreed - my only concerns with Sweden are that I don't know how Berglund/Kruger down the middle will stack up against US/CA/RU, and taking a pylon like Ericsson over Brodin on the big ice is a huge gaffe. 

 

[ForceAtHome]

IMO with H. Sedin out for Sweden and the addition of St. Louis for Canada, Canada becomes the favorites for the gold, even with the bigger ice. It could realistically go to any of Sweden/Finland/Canada/US/Russia though.

 
It's impossible to write off a team that has Rask/Lehtonen/Niemi in net, but I am just not convinced that Finland is a serious threat for gold. I know it's a short tournament and they may have the best goaltending in the Olympics, but I am a huge skeptic of their skaters. They're without Mikko Koivu, Valtteri Filppula, and Saku Koivu. That was quite possibly their top 3 centers (certainly top-2), and it's not like they have a super deep corps of forwards.
 
Their top line has an 18-year-old (Barkov) centering a 21-year-old (Granlund) and a 43-year-old (Selanne). Does a second line of Lauri Korpikoski, Olli Jokinen, and Tuomo Ruutu scream scoring against elite teams? Aside from their goalies, I think their main talent is either too old (Selanne, Timonen, Jokinen, Salo) or too young (Barkov, Granlund, Maatta).
I think the tournament is just a four horse race for gold: Canada, Sweden, US, and Russia.
 
 

Bylsma's lines

JVR - Pavelski - Kessel
Parise - Backes - Oshie
Brown - Kesler - Kane
Callahan - Stastny - Pacioretty

Not loving having Kane skate with two grinders. Would prefer him in a top 6 spot.

 
It's hard to find reliable sources from four years ago, but I want to say that I recall Kane playing with Kesler (at least some) in Vancouver. I don't recall how much, which games, and how they produced, but it's possible there's some previous chemistry between the two. I view Bylsma's lines mostly as an indication that he's planning on really rolling three top lines to start the tournament. Didn't Pittsburgh ease Crosby back from injury by putting him as the "3rd line center" with Cooke and somebody? I'd imagine that really forces defenses to pick their poison. Do you want to match up with Kessel, Parise, or Kane? I also like keeping JVR/Kessel and Backes/Oshie together. If those pairs are set in the top-2, there isn't room in the "top-6" for both Parise and Kane. I view it as a "top-9" as of now though, and I'm not too worried about the lines. The the number of skill players having to play special teams roles and the superior ability of depth players, I'm sure there will be a greater emphasis on spreading minutes.

 

[cshea]

As far as I can tell, the 2010 lineup was

Parise - Stastny - Kane
Malone - Pavelski - Kessel
Ryan - Backes - Callahan
Brown - Kesler - Langenbruner
Drury

Kane may have double shifted for the corpses of Jamie Langenbrunner and Chris Drury in the medal rounds. Some carry over from the 2010 team- Brown/Kesler and Pavelski/Kessel.

 

[Greg29fan]

just be glad Dan didn't make the practice optional

 

[ForceAtHome]

As far as I can tell, the 2010 lineup was

Parise - Stastny - Kane
Malone - Pavelski - Kessel
Ryan - Backes - Callahan
Brown - Kesler - Langenbruner
Drury

Kane may have double shifted for the corpses of Jamie Langenbrunner and Chris Drury in the medal rounds. Some carry over from the 2010 team- Brown/Kesler and Pavelski/Kessel.

 
I don't think that's accurate, at least not for the duration of the tournament. There's no way Kesler served as a true fourth liner the entire time. Looking at his two goals, they were assisted by Kane and Parise respectively. That Parise-assisted goal was the diving ENG against Canada, so it may have been more of an end-of-game shut down creation than a true pairing, but the Kane goal was mid-game during the gold medal game.
 
I don't think there is any publicly accessible TOI info, but one measure I can use to roughly gauge playing time is faceoffs. After Michael Handzus (79 faceoffs), Kesler, Crosby, and Plekanec tied for the second most faceoffs taken in the 2010 Olympics with 70 a piece. Kesler and the Americans also played one fewer game than Crosby and Canada, so Kesler was at least used in the faceoff circle as much as anyone in Vancouver. Certainly his high faceoff percentage and defensive proficiency would play a role here, but I am virtually certain that Kesler played important minutes and certainly was skating with Kane some in the gold medal game, if not more.
 
Edit: Just opened video of the 2010 gold medal game and Brown-Kesler-Kane certainly are starting the game for their first few shifts as a line. Considering Kane assisted on a Kesler goal with Brown on the ice as well over half way through the game, they appeared to have at least played together for the majority of the game (if not all). The lines appeared to have been:
 
Parise-Stastny-Langenbrunner
Brown-Kesler-Kane
Kessel-Pavelski-Malone
Callahan-Backes-Drury/Ryan

 

[Stanley Steamer]

Yes. Getting pretty excited. I was just reading an excellent piece on ESPN about the 2010 gold medal game-- sorry my feeble mind can't figure how to link it from this tablet. Check it out.
It really seems open to me, but I agree with the four main players outlined above. CZE, SVK and FIN could be spoilers, but it seems unlikely any could make a final. The US roster looked strong at first glance, and I see no reason they can't continue to play neck and neck with the Canadians. Sweden is too solid not to be in the reckoning, especially on international ice. And Russia is the wild card-- perhaps less assured than in years past, but now playing finally in the motherland.
If I have to reach for a prediction, I'll go with a Russia-USA final with a different ending from 1980. More great TV.

 

[RedOctober3829]

New lines today
 

Forwards
Chris Kunitz – Sidney Crosby – Jeff Carter
Patrick Marleau – Ryan Getzlaf – Corey Perry
Rick Nash – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Sharp
Jamie Benn – John Tavares – Patrice Bergeron
Extras: Martin St. Louis, Matt Duchene
 

Defence
Duncan Keith – Shea Weber
Jay Bouwmeester – Alex Pietrangelo
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Drew Doughty
Extras: P.K. Subban, Dan Hamhuis
 

Goalies
Roberto Luongo
Carey Price
Mike Smith
 

 

[cshea]

Random question...anyone one know of a good place (or any place, really) that sells player jersey tee shirts for the Olympics? I found some USA ones on NHL.com but none for the red of the world. I would like to see of I could find some for the other teams.

 

[ForceAtHome]

Random question...anyone one know of a good place (or any place, really) that sells player jersey tee shirts for the Olympics? I found some USA ones on NHL.com but none for the red of the world. I would like to see of I could find some for the other teams.

 
IceJerseys has some Canada stuff available.
 
Dick's Sporting Goods has some USA stuff.
 
I've definitely heard reports of local arenas carrying their players' merchandise. I have read that PNC Arena has Justin Faulk shirts, for example. I know for a fact that Verizon Center has John Carlson shirts. Pittsburgh has Crosby. New York has/had Stepan/Callahan/McDonagh. Some teams (Slovakia for sure) are selling Olympic jerseys and possibly shirts as well, but you'd have to check on that team by team.
 
Hockey Canada typically sells player shirts I believe, but I don't see any this year so far. They have some replica jerseys up, as well as some other countries (Finland, Russia, Sweden).
 
Nobody seems to have any authentic jerseys at a remotely reasonable price so far which is not surprising.

 

[cshea]

Thanks, Force. I'll check those out. 
 
I don't feel like spending a few hundred on an authentic jersey, but I was kind of hoping to find a Tuukka Rask Finland tee shirt but I haven't been having much success. 

 

[twothousandone]

 
 
It's hard to find reliable sources from four years ago, but I want to say that I recall Kane playing with Kesler (at least some) in Vancouver. I don't recall how much, which games, and how they produced, but it's possible there's some previous chemistry between the two. 

You aren't saying this, but if they are relying on chemistry from four years ago, they are making a mistake. There are many reasons Kane and Kesler may be together. If that is one of them, it's stupid.

 

[ForceAtHome]

You aren't saying this, but if they are relying on chemistry from four years ago, they are making a mistake. There are many reasons Kane and Kesler may be together. If that is one of them, it's stupid.

 
You are correct in thinking that I don't believe 30 minutes of ice time together four years ago makes Kane and Kesler a great fit. The fact that they're rolling the same line out there as the gold medal game (Kane, Kesler, and Brown) seems like more than just a coincidence* though. I suspect the coaches watched film and liked something they saw with that line. They also know these players, their skill sets, and even likely opponents -- and again, likely have a reason to match them up as they feel they'll compliment one another.
 
* - However, I do this it's partly coincidental. I think part of it boils down to believing in the chemistry between JVR/Kessel and Backes/Oshie. If you're playing those guys together, which I do think is smart due to chemistry, there's only room for one more "top-6" wing and it's no surprise that it's Parise. Pavelski over Kesler as your other top-6 center also makes sense, leaving Kesler in the obvious 3C spot. Brown on the 3rd line is the most curious decision to me, a place where I think Pacioretty may fit better while Brown and Callahan can form a fierce checking line. The consolation is that you get a 3rd line that could easily play up to 1st/2nd line standards and Bylsma can really roll lines.
 
As an aside, am I the only one drooling over the Parise-Backes-Oshie line?
 

Thanks, Force. I'll check those out. 
 
I don't feel like spending a few hundred on an authentic jersey, but I was kind of hoping to find a Tuukka Rask Finland tee shirt but I haven't been having much success. 

 
No problem. I have some Finnish friends connected in the jersey world, so I'll ask them if they know of anything on the t-shirt end.
 
Quick edit: RCS just got in Canada authentic jerseys for the ridiculous price of $450. The only US authentic I've seen hit the market went for $300+, which in retrospect looks like a bargain. They haven't been retailed yet, either.

 

[Dropkick Izzy]

double post

 

[Dropkick Izzy]

Quick named the starter for the US.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/goalie-jonathan-quick-gets-surprising-starting-nod-for-team-usa-in-sochi-games-102428588.html

 

[scotian1]

Carey Price will play in Canada's first game, Luongo in game 2.