so the canadian olympic team will be announced in an hour and therefore this is my last shot at throwing in my two cents before the deadline. my selections make up a bit of a frankenteam, but i think they belong together and could win a gold.... so when yzerman goes a different direction (and no doubt he will), i'll spend two weeks in february arguing that MY team canada includes shane effing doan and i still think he's got captaincy potential....
realistically, i'm not sure i've really thought about it enough to be attempting this with any kind of respectable authority, but here goes:
1. brodeur, luongo, fleury
way too easy. if the goalies actually deviate from this list, my jaw will hit the floor. i would've said cam ward over fleury in the summer but a terrible start to the season, coupled with the truly unfortunate thigh laceration. make the selection for team canada's netminders wayyyy obvious.
2. heatley - thornton - marleau
i'm not a big fan of heatley as a person, and i'm not a huge fan of the other two as players.... but as a trio i have to admit that these three just work. they work the way that iginla doesn't work with nash and crosby, and the way ovechkin works with semin and will also probably work with malkin or kovalchuk.... so i say bring the sharks' top line as a unit.... annd DONE.
3. nash - iginla - crosby
look. all these three dudes are gonna be in vancouver in february so you might as well put'em on a line together and just hope they don't get scored on.
4. getzlaf - perry - ????
this is tough cause there are so few natural lefts in the league that heatley and nash would both probably look pretty good on this line. and hey, if you take heatley off the top line then there's really no need to buy marleau a ticket to vancouver. so i get a little stuck on this one.
5. j.staal - doan - d.cleary
call me crazy but i had my eyes open at the olympic camp and these three made up the best line out there. it's a grind line that can score, in my opinion. sign me up ---i wanna watch these guys play together every night.
6. keith - seabrook
(see #1) ... i actually think that there's something to be said about keeping defensive pairings together cause there has to be an innate sense of where your partner is/is gonna be in order to keep pucks out of nets. for the same reason, i would probably name both shea weber AND dan hamhuis to this team but since it's such a longshot, let's just presume that stevie Y is smart enough to keep AT LEAST these two together. as a side note, i realize now why i so often refer to brent seabrook as keith seabrook (and it's not ONLY because his little bro is a baby flame).
7. jaybouw - pronger
this is tough for me cause i cannot STAND "elbows" but i figure i should get used to it now cause he's gonna be on this team and he's admittedly not a terrible defender. jaybouw's been struggling as of late but he'll be fine. to imagine stevie Y continuing without either of these two is a joke.
8. boyle - weber
i take boyle over mike green and i take shea weber over pretty much everyone else: niedermeyer and regehr included.... i still maintain that if dan boyle had subbed in for an injured chris pronger in the 06 olympics, we would've medalled....
alts: mike green
ps: if dion makes the team, i will be wicked upset with everybody hockey-canada related.
REACTION :
16/23 isn't TOO bad. 70%.
eric staal scares me a bit, his stats haven't been great this year (but admittedly i haven't had a chance to see him play much).
i guess if i really sit and think about it, jordan staal is a poor man's mike richards --so stevie Y did the right thing there.
as they were announcing the team it occurred to me that if heatley or thornton gets injured, team canada is now carrying patty marleau for no reason.
i realized at 10am that i'd totally overlooked niedermeyer (the guy i'd favoured as the captain back in the summer, being that he's the most decorated hockey player of all time) but i didn't notice the omission of toews until they called his name. meh... at least the oversights were made by ME and not stevie Y.
i'm a bit surprised at the selection of doughty over jaybouw, mind you. i'm not saying it was a mis-step (not yet, anywasy) but i'm definitely suggesting that it made my face screw all up and my brow furrow. on the other hand, boyle over green (in my humble opinion) was the right choice and i was overjoyed when they announced the shark's name..... i seriously WOOHOO'd. like.... LOUD. after further consideration, i realize that doughty is kindof a nice combination of green's offense and jaybouw's puck moving.... so maybe stevie Y actually put some thought into it and didn't select doughty at 9am this morning with the stand-by paper-and-hat method...
this team will take some getting used to.
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it's obviously ridiculous that i didn't pick niedermeyer.
i'm bang on so far except sub doughty for jaybouw (!!!?!) and mike green becomes niedermeyer....
well, i did pretty good on d. i picked boyle, weber, pronger, keith and seabrook.
No j-bo is craziness. I am completely shocked.
Also I'm quite surprised to see Bergeron's name on the list.
*word verification* - lumbers
bergeron and eric staal really surprised me, as did doughty.... but nothing surprises me more than no jaybouw. he must feel pretty blindsided for a shoo-in.
I was saying to a friend of mine, Jbo always seems to me as someone who does everything he does in a pretty low key way.. he's a great passer, a good skater, doesn't hit BIG but plays physically enough.
I could totally see Stevie Y saying "he's safe, if no one is lighting it up right now" but Doughty has been playing lights out, and if an injury happens, I think Jbo gets the call... Overall, I really like the team.
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