Well, well, well. Guess we can call this Team Surprise.
How about Joe Thornton, for starters, being recognized for his excellent play? Few prognosticators, if any, had Jumbo Joe as part of Team Canada’s entry for the World Cup of Hockey 2016.
Then there’s defenceman Kris Letang — whose Pittsburgh Penguins will meet Thornton’s San Jose Sharks in the Stanley Cup Final next week — being left off the team.
That’s a real stunner.
Anaheim Ducks star winger Corey Perry, who recently captained Canada to a gold medal at the IIHF World Championship in Russia, also didn’t make the final national team roster for the first time in many years.
But Claude Giroux, coming off an unproductive playoff season which was immediately followed by surgery, did make the roster.
My goodness. This will fuel quite the debate, particularly if Canada — horrors — doesn’t go on to win the tournament in September.
All in all, the team announced today by general manager Doug Armstrong and Co. carries as many surprises as any Team Canada squad preparing for a best-on-best competition has in many years.
We knew the final seven selections would be very, very difficult for the Canadian brass to make, and that there would be controversy. We also knew that since the first 16 players were named, more than a few things have changed on the NHL front — and that Armstrong and his group were intently watching and piecing together the various parts that could make a good team.
In some cases, team success seemed to boost a player’s status. Thornton and Brent Burns, for example, have had strong seasons for a Sharks team that has made it to the Cup final for the first time in team history, and that has lifted them to roster spots on Team Canada.
At 36, Thornton’s time seemed to have passed. (He wasn’t part of Canada’s Olympic team in 2014 for the Sochi Games.) If there wasn’t an under-24 North American team for the World Cup that will take about a dozen young Canadian players, he probably wouldn’t have been able to make this team.
But there is, and so Canadian team organizers have brought Thornton back for this World Cup — quite an achievement for him, with the only question now being if he’ll shave that miraculous beard after the Cup final, or keep it for the fall as a lucky talisman.
In other cases, however, team success didn’t seem to matter. Letang’s shocking omission from the final roster, for example, seems to fly in the face that he’s been such an important player for a Pittsburgh club that’s been the best team in hockey for three months.
Along with Thornton, Giroux and Burns, the other four Canadian roster additions made on Friday were Los Angeles Kings defenceman Jake Muzzin, St. Louis Blues blueliner Alex Pietrangelo, Colorado Avalanche winger Matt Duchene and Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand.
The fiery Marchand is probably the player who has come the farthest to be a viable candidate for a national team. The combination of a 37-goal season that highlighted his skill and his efforts to pull back on his reputation as one of the game’s mouthiest — and at times, dirtiest — players made the difference for the 28-year-old.
Muzzin has been one of the more underrated players in the game for some time, and a darling of the analytics crowd. It seems to make sense he and teammate Drew Doughty, one of the original 16 roster choices, will be paired in the World Cup.
Pietrangelo, meanwhile, was part of the Sochi team, as was St. Louis teammate Jay Bouwmeester. (Bouwmeester did not make the World Cup team.) The Blues lost to San Jose in the Western Conference but beat the Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars along the way, and Pietrangelo was a tower of strength on the St. Louis defence.
Snubs and surprising omissions? Where to start?
There was the aforementioned Letang, of course, as well as the Montreal Canadiens‘ P.K. Subban, who was on the Sochi team but seems to have suffered individually for being part of Montreal’s disastrous season.
Perry just didn’t score in the playoffs or the world championship, and while it seems surprising Canada won’t again use the Perry-Ryan Getzlaf combination at the World Cup, it seems Perry just played himself out of a roster position with inconsistency and a lack of production.
The Calgary Flames‘ defence pairing of Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie — some thought they should make the team as a tandem — was also completely ignored. Edmonton Oilers winger Taylor Hall, the first overall pick at the 2010 NHL Draft, and versatile Buffalo Sabres forward Ryan O’Reilly also didn’t make it despite playing well for Canada at the worlds. Hall lost out to Marchand, while Giroux and Thornton, clearly, got the nod ahead of O’Reilly.
The reality, of course, is that one or more of these snubs may get unsnubbed by the time September rolls around.
Steven Stamkos, of the first 16, returned from blood clot issues to play in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final Thursday night, and we’ll see how his health situation shakes out over the coming months. Montreal goalie Carey Price is supposed to be ready for camp, but that will be monitored.
All in all, however, it’s a new-look Team Canada, with at least nine different faces from Sochi. Ever since Canada took most of the roster of the 2004 World Cup championship team to the Torino Olympics two years later and flopped, there’s been a belief that there needs to be some significant degree of change from one major international event to another in order to add energy to the team as a whole.
In Burns, Muzzin and Marchand, Canada has three players who have simply never before been considered to be among the very best the country has to offer, and they’ll be revved to play. In Thornton, there’s a symbol that performance does matter, and that players who play themselves off the team one year can play themselves back on.
Despite who’s been left off and all the debate that will generate, Canada will be the favourite going in, with Sidney Crosby leading the way and the entire tournament to be played in Toronto, making it one big home game for Mike Babcock’s squad.
But the debate is always fun. Canada could easily have picked seven different players today to add to the original 16. Or Armstrong et al could have stuck with more proven performers from 2014.
But change was wanted and welcomed. Surprises, too.
Team Finland:
Official 23-player roster
Team Russia:
Official 23-player roster
Team Czech Republic:
Official 23-player roster
Team Sweden:
Official 23-player roster
Team Europe:
Official 23-player roster
Team U.S.A.
Official 23-player roster
Team North America
Official 23-player roster
