SpinPlus: Canadian Olympic Team

Monday Morning Considerations

Take solace, Toronto hockey fans, in the struggles of others.

Nobody expected the Maple Leafs to be a top Eastern Conference team, or one of the better NHL clubs overall. So when you look around for underachieving clubs, there are a few that, while better in the standings than Ron Wilson's crew, are just as much or more under the microscope for their results this season.

You can certainly start with Carolina, a conference finalist last year and a loser of nine straight to begin this season. Boston and Philadelphia are two clubs many mentioned as  teams capable of coming out of the east next spring, but neither has had a great start. The Bruins, at least, are dealing with multiple injuries.

Out west, the struggles of Detroit have been well-documented. St. Louis, which began the season in Europe with the Red Wings, have won only two of seven games at home. Many believed this would be an improved year for the Blues with Erik Johnson healthy and the team buoyed by a playoff appearance last spring, but not so far. Anaheim had a strong playoff last spring but can't seem to get it rolling this fall, at least partly because Ryan Getzlaf is having problems bouncing back from off-season surgery.

So while fans in this market tend to navel gaze a fair bit, there are a half-dozen or more other NHL cities in which the locals are getting restless.

* * * * *

That sound you hear is Steve Yzerman shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

After all, it's going to be tough enough to choose an Olympic team from the 46 players that were in Calgary in late summer for an orientation camp. What Yzerman doesn't need is players who weren't at the camp suddenly injecting themselves into the discussion.

That, however, is exactly what Steve Stamkos is doing. With 10 goals in 11 games, the Richmond Hill product is off to a sizzling start for Tampa Bay, with the Lightning in town tomorrow to face the Leafs. Stamkos may benefit in some way from the memories of '06 when Sidney Crosby was left off the Turin team because, basically, he was young.

If Stamkos continues at this pace, or has 25 goals by Christmas, it's going to be hard to keep him off the team. And one of his Tampa teammates, Vinny Lecavalier or Marty St. Louis, might be the player who gets bumped.

* * * * *

Poor Mother Russia. Its Olympic stars are falling like flies.

First Andrei Malkin Markov is lost for 3-4 months with a severe tendon injury. Then Ilya Kovalchuk suffers a broken foot. Then Evgeny Malkin falls to a shoulder injury. Then last night Alex Ovechkin leaves the game against Columbus with an "upper body" injury.

There's time for most, if not all of these players, to get healthy. But that's not always easy to do amidst the grind of an NHL season.

* * * * *

Awful to see Oakville's Ben Fanelli injured as he was on the weekend after a vicious hit by Erie Otters forward Mike Liambis, a native of Woodbridge. All thoughts and prayers are with the 16-year-old Fanelli as he deals with awful injuries in a Hamilton hospital.

But now OHL boss David Branch has a very difficult issue to deal with; should Liambis be suspended, and for a very long time?

All I've seen is some grainy TV replays of the incident, which occurred behind the Kitchener net. As Fanelli carried the puck in one way Liambis had the bomb doors open coming the other way.

Those hits never turn out well.

But it didn't look to be a charge or an elbow or a high stick. At the last moment, Fanelli turned to pass the puck the other way and the impact of the blow seemed to be from Liambis' right shoulder to the back of Fanelli's left shoulder. Fanelli's helmet popped off as though it was the cork from a champagne bottle, and that may have contributed to the injury.

It didn't look like a dirty play. But the injury is so severe it's hard to ignore.

This might be the most difficult such incident Branch has ever had to deal with as a junior hockey commissioner.

* * * * *

Funny that the NHLPA gang that orchestrated the ouster of Paul Kelly all essentially quit in concert last week after it was announced a committee would be investigating their activities.

Scared of a few questions, gentlemen? 

* * * * *

It was a perfect example of Brian Burke's Joe Schwartz theory.

Partway through Saturday's Leafs-Habs game, Jaroslav Spacek delivered a perfect suicide pass to teammate Glen Metropolit, and predictably Mike Komisarek delivered a very hard but clean check.

Now Metropolit is a good guy, a great story and a hardworking veteran. But he doesn't quite qualify either as one of Montreal's top skill players or core athletes.

Yet Komisarek, after delivering the hit, was immediately confronted by Kyle Chipchura and Travis Moen of the Habs.

Once upon a time, it was just the elite players who received this kind of support from teammates. Now it's anyone, or, as Burke says, everyone including Joe Schwartz.

Those who endorse fighting often accuses opponents of pugilism of trying to take the physical element out of the game.

However, it's becoming more and more evident that fighting is being used as a tool to eliminate hitting.

Team Canada Camp Wrap Up

Lecavalier at Olympic camp: Feeling good after surgery

Ouches Mounting

CALGARY

Good thing they got all that insurance stuff worked out.

Team Canada lost a third player to an injury concern today when Simon Gagne left camp after aggravating a groin problem during Monday's workouts. The Philadelphia forward had surgery during the summer.

He joins Ryan Getzlaf, who hasn't practiced because of hernia surgery, and goalie Cam Ward, who is dealing with ongoing back problems.

New Leaf Beauchemin has tough competition

Extras Or No Extras?

CALGARY

Patrick Kane isn't the only would-be Olympian with taxi issues.

All the competing teams, as it turns out, are still uncertain whether they will be permitted to carry a three-man taxi squad for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next year. Those extra players were allowed in Turin in 2006 but were supposed to have been eliminated for 2010.

Not so fast, says Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson. Now, he said yesterday, some of the European countries are suggesting they'd like to have that comfy cushion for the hockey competition in Vancouver, and so the rules may yet change again.

Good idea or bad idea?

In Turin, Canada had Jason Spezza, Eric Staal and Dan Boyle along for the ride as taxi squad players, but none of the three were used. With 13 forwards and seven defencemen on a 22-man roster - two more than the NHL uses on a nightly basis - plus a No. 3 goalie who doesn't dress, there seems to be less need to have that kind of player insurance against insurance.

All the countries have to have their rosters submitted by Dec. 31st, but if a player is injured between Dec. 31 and the beginning of the tournament - happened to Ed Jovanovski last time - he can be replaced.

It's hard on coaches to have taxi squad players around who are either grousing that they deserve to play or looking at the coaches with hopeful eyes every time their name is called. You can't run an effective practice, either, with 26 players, so the taxi squadders are really left on the outs.

Finally, for a country like Canada, it allows coaches to hedge their bets rather than make the tough decisions before the tournament starts. 

So better off without the taxi squads. But better off this was already decided with less than six months to go. 

Let the Analysis Begin

At first, the name Andy McDonald jumps out at you on the list of players who will take the ice tonight in Calgary at Team Canada's orientation camp.

What's he doing there?

Not that the pride of Strathroy, Ont. is any slouch, exactly. In fact, he's a very good NHL player.

FREDERICK BREEDON/AP

Andy McDonald has wheels and that's got him on the radar.

But when you peruse the rest of the names on the roster, and if you were there in Turin three years ago when Canada couldn't score and finished seventh in the men's hockey competition at the Winter Olympics, McDonald's inclusion begins to make more sense.

Speed, man. Speed to burn.

The Canadian team looks to have loads of size and skill at every position, and oodles of forwards who are big-time NHL attackers.

But is there enough speed? In Turin, many things didn't quite gel, and part of the reason was that so many players hadn't played at all the previous season due to the NHL lockout and still had rust on their skates when the Olympics rolled around. But Wayne Gretzky clearly emphasized big, skilled players over smaller, skilled players, so Sidney Crosby sat at home while the odious Todd Bertuzzi played and Bryan McCabe was given shifts while Dan Boyle watched as an alternate.

Teams with industrious and quick players like Finland and Switzerland were able to shut Canada down. The blazing fast Russians did the same.

For this camp, McDonald would probably be the fastest Canadian candidate followed by Patrick Marleau, Marty St. Louis and Eric Staal. Crosby, like Wayne Gretzky and Joe Sakic, has the ability to appear very fast because of his anticipation and hunger for offence.

The fastest Canadian defenceman in the world would be Brian Campbell of the Chicago Blackhawks, but he's not even at this camp.

The caveat to all this, of course, could be that because the 2010 tournament will take place on an NHL sized rink rather than the larger European surface, speed might not matter quite as much while size and strength could be critical. If you keep Robyn Regehr on defence and send Mike Green packing, maybe that's why.

But what's the correct formula?

McDonald, clearly, is in Calgary because of his wheels. Obviously, speed is something Steve Yzerman and Co. are already thinking about.

Yzerman Already Making Tough Choices

LONDON -The news is good - very good - on the early Olympic decisions of Steve Yzerman.

Yzerman's already making the tough choices that Wayne Gretzky felt he couldn't make back for the Torino effort in 2006, at least partially because Gretzky was hamstrung by the 2004-05 lockout that gave him little evidence upon which to pick a roster.

This time around, Yzerman has shown some good decisiveness and a willingness to say farewell to some fine old warriors. From the '06 team, defenceman Rob Blake, Adam Foote and Wade Redden have not been invited to the Calgary orientation camp, and the same goes for Ed Jovanovski, who was originally named to the Torino team but didn't play because of injury. Bryan McCabe, who did play, was also not invited this time around.

Up front, Kris Draper, Brad Richards and Todd Bertuzzi weren't brought back. Neither was third-string goalie Marty Turco or alternate forward Jason Spezza. Yzerman didn't invite Detroit goalie Chris Osgood, unfortunate but a demonstration he won't favour any Red Wings, nor was centre Marc Savard asked to attend the Calgary camp, probably the biggest name player not to make the grade. 

By contrast, Yzerman did invite veteran Joe Sakic despite the fact he missed last season with an injury, knowing he may well need Sakic in a leadership capacity that he himself filled for Team Canada at the '02 Salt Lake City Games.

That's quite a bit of change in three years.

On the other hand, Yzerman did make some interesting choices of players to invite, including defenceman Francois Beauchemin and Stephane Robidas, and forwards Dan Cleary, Andy McDonald and Milan Lucic.

Meanwhile, you've got to love the invitations that went out to all three Staal brothers. What a story that would be if Eric, Marc and Jordan all made it.

Olympic Conundrum

So I look at available Canadian hockey players and I see no fewer than 11 centremen worthy of serious Olympic consideration.

That's just the centres.

AP FILE PHOTO

Savard and Green: Teammates in 2010?

Sidney Crosby, Vinny Lecavalier, Joe Thornton, Mike Richards, Ryan Getzlaf, Marc Savard, Patrick Marleau, Travis Zajac, Jason Spezza, Jonathan Toews and Eric Staal. If you want to make it an even dozen, anyone who saw Andrew Cogliano skate at the all-star game in Montreal might argue you cannot leave that kind of speed off this team. Oh yes, there's also Derek Roy and Brad Richards.

See how quickly 11 became 14? And that's just the centres!

How, with a year to go before what may be the biggest hockey competition in the history of the country, will Steve Yzerman sort this out? Sure, you can shift one or two to the wing. Marleau for sure, maybe Staal.

But you can also get yourself in a lot of trouble by just putting a team together of seven or eight centres and expecting some to magically become solid wingers in both ends of the ice.

The choices won't be as hard among wingers, nor among the goaltenders, if only because nobody has stepped up to take a job away from Martin Brodeur or Roberto Luongo, and Brodeur hasn't even been playing.

On defence, we know it will be a transition time for Canada, with as many as five rearguards from the 2006 Olympic roster not on the squad this time. Which among the younger group are truly ready for this pressure-packed stage will be a tricky guess, and don't forget a couple of the twenty-something defenders froze in the spotlight at the world championships gold medal game in Quebec City last spring.

This we know. Some of the guys who look great now won't look so good next November, and some of the players who don't appear to be strong candidates now will be next fall. Also, while everyone loves change, you need that significant level of experience to win a competition like this.

So instead of saying this is the projected team, let's say these are the leading candidates for the 2010 Canadian Olympic team as of February, 2009. I'm not going to chicken out by taking a bunch of centres either. I'll only move one to the wing.

Here goes. And don't worry, I know you'll disagree:

GOAL: Brodeur, Luongo, Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fleury gets the nod as No. 3 because at least he's played in a Stanley Cup final. This should have been Carey Price's job to lose. Steve Mason? Not taking a sophomore who by the time this team is selected won't have 75 NHL starts on his resume.

CENTRE: Crosby, Lecavalier, Getzlaf, Savard, Mike Richards.

No Thornton? Are you kidding? Well, somebody has to be left off, and I want Richards on this team for his gritty attitude and leadership. Savard? He's the No. 1 centre on the best team in the league. I would worry with my group, however, that there isn't enough big-time international experience. But it's a heckuva group nonetheless, wouldn't you say?

LEFT WING: Rick Nash, Ryan Clowe, Simon Gagne, Eric Staal.

Great size. Staal is the only centre to shift over. Gagne, if healthy, is still among the best two-way forwards in the game. Apologies to Ryan (Captain Canada) Smyth, Milan Lucic, Mike Cammalleri and Scott Hartnell.

RIGHT WING: Jarome Iginla, Jeff Carter, Shane Doan, Marty St. Louis.

Came close to picking Devin Setoguchi over St. Louis. That may happen in the end. Dany Heatley currently on the outside looking in.

DEFENCE: Mike Green, Robyn Regehr, Dion Phaneuf, Shea Weber, Dan Boyle, Jay Bouwmeester, Chris Pronger.

Pronger gets to stay for now because of the experience, but he's on the bubble. Just never been that impressed by Bouwmeester in these big internationals and would be prepared to look hard at Brent Burns, Duncan Keith and Brian Campbell. Braydon Coburn and Dennis Wideman very, very close. But somebody has to stay home