Canada's Sweeney, Cooper break down thought process behind roster selections

The projections and prognostications have given way to proclamations, Team Canada’s brass announcing their 23-man roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off on Wednesday and backing their group to win the whole thing come February.

The debate that’s surrounded Canada’s roster selection hasn’t subsided much since the names were made public earlier this week. While the usual game-breakers up front were tabbed, along with a versatile collection of depth pieces behind them, the biggest question mark for the red-and-white — the goaltenders — remains. 

Heading into the final months before the tournament, a number of names were thrown out by fans and pundits alike. In the end, the three named to the team were Adin Hill, Jordan Binnington, and Sam Montembeault — a trio some fans don’t seem to be fully behind, particularly given the play of fellow Canadian netminder Logan Thompson this season.

Speaking to the media Thursday to break down the Canadian braintrust’s thought process, general manager Don Sweeney said the squad’s management group isn’t buying into the chatter around their goaltending trio.

“I think there was a lot of outside noise in terms of the goaltending. We looked at it completely differently,” Sweeney said Thursday. “We looked at it saying, ‘We’ve got players in our goaltending pool who have won the Stanley Cup. That’s an awfully good place to start. Goaltenders that are highly, highly competitive — another good place to start. That have played in those high-leverage situations, and have won.’ We all used our own internal goalie departments to comb through any type of analytics — how a player was playing in front of his own team, what situations, all the stuff that we look at, put together on our own teams, and applied on a much wider scale. We were a lot more calm picking the goaltenders than maybe what the outside world was viewing. I think we had a tremendous amount of choices, and some guys that have played really well. 

“Injuries aside, moving forward, would you like to have access to a guy who’s on an absolute heater for the next two months? Possibly. But we had to pick our rosters now. We feel very comfortable where they are, and where we are. And they’re going to provide us the backbone that we need to win this tournament.”

Veteran defender Alex Pietrangelo — who will suit up for Canada again, after earning gold medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics, 2016 World Cup of Hockey, and 2009 World Championship — has won Cups in front of both Hill and Binnington.

“I’m looking forward to playing in front of both guys,” he said Thursday. “They’re both very competitive. … They’re a little bit different in the way they play, and extremely competitive in the way they approach the game.”

Key to how well Canada’s goaltending holds up over the week-long tournament will come down, in part, to the success of the defence corps in front of them. On that front, Pietrangelo said the red-and-white are well-positioned.

“Obviously, Cale (Makar) is a once-in-a-decade kind of player. That will be fun to watch, being on the same team as him,” Pietrangelo said of the squad’s blue-line leader. “You’ve got to find everyone a slot and a certain position, and they took the guys that haver certain roles. We had a couple big right-handed shots in Sochi, with myself, Drew (Doughty) and (Shea) Weber — now you’ve got myself and (Colton) Parayko on the back end on the right side, and Shea (Theodore) is obviously versatile playing right or left. 

“The big thing in these kinds of tournaments, with the capabilities of the forwards, you’ve just got to be able to move the puck, defend well, and let the forwards do the work. I think if you look at us — we’re all long, we’re all big, we can all move the puck.”

Up front, there was less debate about who would crack the roster, Canada’s pool comprised of more than a few past champions and future Hall of Famers. But the task was to create a roster that looked more like an actual team, and less like a crew of high-flying all-stars, said Jon Cooper, who will serve as the team’s head coach.

The squad eventually named has no shortage of big dogs, surely, with Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby leading on that front. But it’s also well-stocked with depth pieces who can fill more specific roles.

“It’s about building the best team,” explained Cooper. “You need the guys that are going to play the power play, obviously. You need guys that are going to kill penalties. You need guys that are going to play five-on-six, six-on-five. All those things go into it. The other thing is there’s going to be guys that play (big) minutes, and then there’s going to be guys that are used to playing minutes on their NHL team that may not play minutes — and they have to be able to perform if they’re playing less than they do in the regular season. You know, there are certain mentalities and certain players that have skill-sets for that.”

Flexibility was key, too, said Cooper, with so many of Canada’s best playing down the middle for their NHL clubs.

“As for the centremen, you can never enough of them. But you have to have centremen, too, that have the ability to play the wing if they can,” Cooper said. “We do have players on our team that can do that, that will have to do that. … There’s no doubt that went into it — can players play their off-wings, can centres play the wing? We felt we have a great group that checks all those boxes.”

Much has been made of the amount of championship pedigree dotted among Canada’s roster, the team housing 20 Stanley Cup rings among them, and a fair number of gold medals won on the international stage, too. 

For Cooper and his coaching staff, that experience is an immensely important piece of the path forward.

“You can’t put a price tag on experience,” the coach said Thursday. “I truly believe this is a tournament where you’re basically playing three Game 7’s. There’s no margin for error. You have to win these games to be able to put yourself in a position to get to the Final. And the more experience these players have, to be in those situations, it can do nothing but help them. Is it the ultimate determining factor? No. But it’s sure pretty cool to know you’ve got a Cup winner here, a Cup winner here, an Olympic winner here — guys that have been in these big games, that understand what it’s like not only to win a Stanley Cup, but to play in a Final, or to be in a gold-medal game of an international tournament.”

It’s not simply about the general big-picture understanding of what it takes to win a trophy, Cooper explained — it’s the proven ability to rise to the moment, to perform when the lights are brightest, that he sees value in.

 “You can never underestimate how much that matters — when the game’s on the line, when there’s 20,000 people on the edge of their seat, who’s under control in those situations? When maybe a game is sliding, the ebbs and flows, the ups and downs of a hockey game, who are the players that have proven able to excel in those situations, and calm the waters in those situations, have been able to lift guys up in the room?”

It’s that experience in the big moments that gives the players themselves confidence going into the tournament.

“I think the roster speaks for itself,” said Mark Stone, who claimed a Cup ring himself just a year-and-a-half ago. “I mean, you’ve got Stanley Cup champions, Olympic gold medallists, world champions. You look at the leadership at the top, with Sid — it bleeds down to all the guys who have been there before. It’s a pretty special roster. Hall of Famers all over it. So, I’m pretty excited to get into that locker room and get this team assembled.”

“Everyone who’s at that tournament is playing at a high level for a reason — they can think the game at a high level,” added Pietrangelo. “I feel like our hockey IQ that we have on this roster should put us ahead of everybody.”

It starts, of course, with Nos. 97 and 87, two historic phenoms getting the chance to team up for the first time, with the maple leaf on their chest. It’s something even the players who will soon share a bench with them are looking forward to witnessing.

“Obviously, generational talents,” said Pietrangelo of McDavid and Crosby. “Playing with Sid first-hand, it’s pretty cool to watch. You play against guys, but when you’re in the fight, you don’t really see everything. When you get into practice with these guys, and talk to them, it’s pretty special. … You get two of the best players, if not the two best players, playing with each other … that’s a pretty fun thing to watch.

“It’s a great thing for the game. And that’s why we do these tournaments.”