For as much as negotiations between sports leagues and their respective players’ unions have been fraught with awfulness and the need as a fan to weigh my desire for sports against my conscience telling me that peoples’ lives are being risked for my entertainment, the NHL’s has worked out fairly well. In the latest stage of COVID-19 testing, no players tested positive. And not only is there relative labor peace at least in the short term in the ways that return-to-play was codified, but a ripple effect is that the NHL agreed on a return of the league’s players to the Winter Olympics in 2022.
The Olympic men’s hockey tournament is by far my favorite event in either Summer or Winter Olympics. Basketball is great, but it is generally anticlimactic—the same country has won the Gold Medal in men’s basketball in six of the last seven years, since NBA players joined the fold, and the one time the United States didn’t win, we had a long and boring National Conversation about it. Hockey, when NHL players are involved, does produce a clear favorite in Canada, but it’s not nearly as dynastic. It’s the biggest sport in which the United States team are not prohibitive favorites but also have a percentage chance worth mentioning. And after the 2018 Olympic tournament was dominated by an informal team made of Russian players, at an advantage because the Kontinental Hockey League stopped play while the National Hockey League did not, it’s going to be fun to get the actual best players back in action in 2022, if COVID-19 is curtailed, which, um, here’s hoping.
The 2013-14 St. Louis Blues were well-represented in Sochi, but even though the 2019-20 team is objectively better, they are also a far more Canadian team. The 2013-14 squad was diverse, which allowed the Blues to have a player on five different teams. The Blues’ current roster only includes players from five different countries, and most of the high-end talent comes from our neighbors up north, who, again, have preposterous depth. A player like Tyler Bozak, who has absolutely no shot of making Team Canada, would be a prominent part of a majority of the teams in the tournament.
But if a best-on-best tournament were held today, which Blues would be the most likely participants?
I believe #1 is a fairly easy choice—Russian winger Vladimir Tarasenko. Tarasenko has been a mainstay on the Russian international men’s hockey team for the better part of a decade, and is an even more renowned player now than he was in 2014, when he featured prominently for the Olympic team. He is no worse than the fourth-best Russian winger in the NHL (Nikita Kucherov, Alex Ovechkin, and Artemi Panarin are probably a touch ahead of him, but Tarasenko is a clear fourth) and while the KHL is the second-strongest league in the world, unless Tarasenko truly hasn’t recovered from his early-season injury, Tarasenko is a must-have.
#2 is a fellow Olympic veteran—Alex Pietrangelo. Canada’s defense is very deep but isn’t quite as high-end as its unfathomable forward group. While Petro’s reputation had diminished somewhat in the several years after the 2014 Olympics, during which he paired with Blues teammate Jay Bouwmeester on a Gold Medal-winning team, he bounced back substantially in the season following his hoisting of the Stanley Cup—he ranked tied for fourth in Point Shares for defensemen when the 2019-20 regular season concluded, but first among Canadian defensemen. Even if Canada opted for a bit of a youth movement, opening things up for the Cales Makar of the world, Pietrangelo would seemingly be the front-runner for an elder statesman, medals-in-the-room kind of role. He is the safest right-handed defenseman Canada has—seemingly, this would make him a contender for first place, but the existence of guys like Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, and Brent Burns, all of whom are diminished from their peaks but have enjoyed illustrious reputations at one point or another, is enough to scare me ever so slightly off.
#3 is every bit the player of the top two, and is arguably slightly better, but Ryan O’Reilly, as a Canadian forward, is up against a gauntlet for playing time. Honestly, I don’t think he would play that many minutes. Let me list off the top Canadian forwards in the NHL by the highly scientific methodology of “overall rating on NHL 20”—Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Steven Stamkos, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, John Tavares. That’s seven names ahead of O’Reilly. Here are the guys tied with O’Reilly, who is tied for eighth—Tyler Seguin, Taylor Hall, Claude Giroux, Mark Scheifele, Mitch Marner, Brayden Point. I’ve listed 14 total players, and Canada would only dress 12 forwards (while bringing 1-2 more as depth). I think O’Reilly would still make it because he would make an impressive fourth-liner, given his defensive acumen (I also think this is why Mark Stone would make the roster even if NHL 20 criminally underrated him), but it’s possible they’d opt for the similarly skilled Patrice Bergeron and call it a day. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that, given Ryan O’Reilly’s past life as a left winger for the Colorado Avalanche, Canada could opt for a fourth-line of last year’s entire Selke finalist crop of O’Reilly, Bergeron, and Stone. My God.
There is a bit of a gap from #3 to #4, but incredibly, my pick for the fourth-most likely to crack a best-on-best roster is another Canadian—Jordan Binnington. And this is less a reflection on Binnington, a player who has simultaneously been impressive in relatively keeping up his 2018-19 Cinderella run but also has clearly not been as good as he was during that run, and more one on the relative dearth of Canadian goalies. Of the three from the 2014 team, one is retired (Roberto Luongo), one is outright bad (Mike Smith), and even the third, starting goalie Carey Price, isn’t what he was six years ago. That said, I think Carey Price is still probably the correct choice as starting goalie. But as for the next two slots, it’s an open field. Sandwiched between Price and Binnington among Canadian goalies in 2019-20 in Goalie Point Shares is Mackenzie Blackwood, who is even less seasoned than Binnington, and really, any argument against Binnington is a body-of-work one and not an NHL rate basis one. Ironically, by save percentage, the top qualified goalie from Canada is Binnington’s (Canadian) backup, Jake Allen. A few years ago, Braden Holtby was the obvious #2, but he regressed heavily this season. Old guard Quebecois Marc-Andre Fleury and Corey Crawford are both reasonable veteran picks, but neither is a shoo-in. Other young guys like Carter Hart or slightly older guys like Darcy Kuemper also have a case, but how many of these guys are definitely ahead of Binnington? You might as well throw some darts to decide.
But then comes #5, and the gap is jarring. Here are a few candidates.
- Colton Parayko is a very good player, but Canada. Even though Parayko looked every bit as good and often better than Alex Pietrangelo by the end of 2018-19, he scored at barely half the rate of Petro throughout the 2019-20 season. Parayko’s path to making Team Canada would involve beating out some of the Doughty/Weber/Burns generation (note: these players are absolutely not of the same generation), Kris Letang, Dougie Hamilton, Cale Makar, Ryan Ellis, and Aaron Ekblad on the right side—of all of these names, only Doughty trails Parayko in 2019-20 Point Shares. Parayko is a terrific player who would make most international teams. Just not Canada’s.
- The three leading goal scorers for the Blues in 2019-20 were David Perron, Brayden Schenn, and Jaden Schwartz. These are all terrific players. They are also all Canadian forwards. With the possible exception of Claude Giroux, there isn’t a single player I listed in the “Ryan O’Reilly” section I would consider excluding in favor of any of these guys. But just for giggles, here are a few other Canadian forwards—Jonathan Toews, Jonathan Huberdeau, Reilly Smith, William Nylander, Mike Hoffman, Mathew Barzal. I haven’t even mentioned potential Canada Legacy Picks Jamie Benn or Matt Duchene. These guys are all wonderful and I love them very much. They would all merit consideration for any non-Canada team in the field. They also might not make an alternate Team Canada.
- Two 2014 medalists are still on the Blues, but Alex Steen and especially Jay Bouwmeester are well beyond being able to play for high-level international teams, even ignoring health issues.
- Ivan Barbashev and Oskar Sundqvist have become solid rotational players for the Blues and have the great privilege of not being Canadian. If they were from, say, Austria, I’d have them at #5 no problem. But, in addition to competing with terrific Russians and Swedes in the NHL, these two would face stiff competition from KHL and SHL stars for roster spots.
- Nathan Walker is the single-best player on his international team, which would seemingly make him a shoo-in for this list. But unfortunately, that team is Australia, the 35th ranked men’s ice hockey team in the world. Australia has minimal chance of making the tournament, though if they did, Nathan Walker would easily crack the roster, so there’s that.
- Justin Faulk is a much better player than he let on in his first season in St. Louis, but as far as American right-side defensemen go, he would have absolutely no chance of beating out John Carlson, Seth Jones, or Charlie McAvoy for a spot in the lineup. Even as a potential healthy scratch, he has likely been passed for his 2014 role by Jeff Petry, Neal Pionk, and Jacob Trouba.
It seems crazy, but I’m picking another Canadian—Vince Dunn.
Canada is even weaker on the left side defensively than the right side (while left vs. right isn’t an absolute, Team Canada has adhered fairly religiously to this convention, and it’s generally a positive all other things being equal), which means at least mentioning Vince Dunn seems worthwhile. Defending Norris Trophy winner Mark Giordano had a down season but still probably makes the team. Going down the Point Shares list leads you to Shea Theodore, Ryan Graves, Darnell Nurse, and Giordano before arriving on Vince Dunn. Other notable names include Josh Morrissey and Thomas Chabot. Among this group, the best defensive metrics belong to Ryan Graves, the best offensive numbers belong to Thomas Chabot, and Dunn lands somewhere in the middle on both. My trio would likely be Giordano, Theodore, and Chabot, but given the sheer strength of Team Canada, this feels a tad underwhelming. Ultimately, Vince Dunn seems like a semi-rational pick, and given my struggles coming up with a number five, that’s good enough for me.
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