It's not too often that you are told that line pairings or defensive pairing are bad, only to see the other person put out something this bad. Blake was not very good defensively at this point, which is why I cut him after some thought, and yet you put him on the top pairing. the At least he had international experience. You have a defensive trainwreck in Coffey and Murphy. You put the two worst skating defencemen on the same pairing in MacInnis an Stevens. Tinordi was picked as a role player to basically just kill penalties from the seventh spot, possibly not the optimal pick but Canada lacked depth (and Duchesne was hurt).
McLean has no place on the team, so I have to assume that with his inclusion (and Linden's) you are a Vancouver fan. If not then it's just mystifying, as Belfour was clearly better having just won his second Vezina and having a fair amount of experience with the Canadian national team.
Nolan only played six games that year, yet you put him on the first line. Gretzky is left without a defensive conscience and Yzerman is playing out of position (when he played wing it was right wing) on the second line. Recchi and Lindros is a good pairing and Kariya is a defensible pick, but even with his strong performance in the 1994 Olympics I am not certain. Linden was a strange fit for the larger ice and wasn't having a great year at the time, but Clark was worse in that regard and I'm somewhat shocked to see him there over a winger like Robitaille who actually played well at the 1994 World Championship or even some extra centres like Francis or Oates. All that said it's still a team more than good enough to win.
