Olympics: 2022 Slovakia Roster Talk

[Eye of Ra]

Lunacy is A LOT of other things that you've said. Regarding this particular point, it's not clear to me:
1) why would you rate the USA roster so low then?;
2) even if I were to agree with your rating, 5-7th roster is exactly mediocre, isn't it? Mediocre means "average", you know. If you are in 2/3 of competitors, you probably are fairly average. If you are in the bottom third, you are kinda bad. I don't know how ratings work for you but that's how it is for me;
3) Once again not really sure, what does Slovakia have (or Germany, for that matter or even Swiss) that would separate them from the USA, for example. You have also labeled Denmark as "very good" during the Olympics so I'm hella confused.

USA roster is mostly made of young NCAA guys. They could had field a much better team than they did.

I think if we look at the slovakian roster is far from mediocer. Even if its "only" 5-7 the roster can still be good. Do you think its by chance that Slovakia outshoot Finland and won the bronze?

Take a look at Denmarks forwards and tell me with a straight face its not good for a tournament like this. The danes have impressed in this tournament.

 

[SoundAndFury]

USA roster is mostly made of young NCAA guys. They could had field a much better team than they did.

I think if we look at the slovakian roster is far from mediocer. Even if its "only" 5-7 the roster can still be good. Do you think its by chance that Slovakia outshoot Finland and won the bronze?

Take a look at Denmarks forwards and tell me with a straight face its not good for a tournament like this. The danes have impressed in this tournament.

Yes, the USA could have fielded a better team but how does it make the team they have worse than the Slovak one? With all due respect to the Slovak league, most of the guys on that team will end up playing at a way higher level than that.

Yes, "by chance" is exactly right. It can also be called team spirit, intangibles, sacrifice, buying in, gelling together, peaking at the right time, whatever. Point is, it was not by quantifiable quality. And Rybar's example is the best proof. If you can, "with a straight face", tell me you expected .904 KHL goalie to go .966 in the Olympics, you must be clairvoyant or something.

And yes, that's exactly what I mean. The fact that Denmark's forward look just as good, it's really hard to find a quantifiable difference between them and Slovaks (or Germans) is what makes those teams mediocre. Because if none of them are, if none of those teams are average, who is? China - bad, Latvia - average, all others - good? That's how it works?

 

[Eye of Ra]

Yes, the USA could have fielded a better team but how does it make the team they have worse than the Slovak one? With all due respect to the Slovak league, most of the guys on that team will end up playing at a way higher level than that.

Yes, "by chance" is exactly right. It can also be called team spirit, intangibles, sacrifice, buying in, gelling together, peaking at the right time, whatever. Point is, it was not by quantifiable quality. And Rybar's example is the best proof. If you can, "with a straight face", tell me you expected .904 KHL goalie to go .966 in the Olympics, you must be clairvoyant or something.

And yes, that's exactly what I mean. The fact that Denmark's forward look just as good, it's really hard to find a quantifiable difference between them and Slovaks (or Germans) is what makes those teams mediocre. Because if none of them are, if none of those teams are average, who is? China - bad, Latvia - average, all others - good? That's how it works?

Well i cant see into the future, but i doubt more than 2-3 of the NCAA guys on the US roster ever turns out to be NHLers. Most of those guys would be lucky to ever become as good as Hrivik and Cehlarik is.

Of course, Intangibles and stuff like that matters. But its not like its China who took the bronze. Slovakia is in the group of nations that have a chance on medals, even before the tournament started. Ever heard of dark horses? And with all the talents coming up, and they turn out as good as advised, then Slovakia will be named in the same breathe as Finland, Russia, Czechia, USA just like in 90s - 2010 when Slovakia had Satan, Pallfy, Bondra, Demitra, Hossa etc.

As i said, Rybar was great in Liiga. He is not doing terrible in KHL. Its hard to have better procent the he has with those defenders he have infront of him in Minsk.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Well i cant see into the future, but i doubt more than 2-3 of the NCAA guys on the US roster ever turns out to be NHLers. Most of those guys would be lucky to ever become as good as Hrivik and Cehlarik is.

It's like a conversation with USA fans in reverse. They had 15 best NCAA players were, including 2 top-5 picks and you think only 2-3 of them will turn out to be NHL players? Again, you are just pulling numbers out of thin air without any justification. The USA currently has 230 players in the NHL, where do those come from if top NCAA talent evidently has like 15-20% chance to make it? If history is of any indication, that number should be around 10, rather than 2-3.

Also, what's wrong with Minsk's defenders?

And let's make one thing clear. This is not a discussion about "talents they have coming up". Never was.

 

[CutOnDime97]

Awesome to see them get the Bronze. Congrats Slovakia.

 

[slovakiasnextone]

Personally I hope we field a lot of rather mediocre teams in the years to come if they play this well.

One of the main struggles watching Slovak teams over the years has been seeing the coaching stuff not being able to get the best out of players / rosters that looked better on paper.

So as long as we can get 150% out of the players on a rather mediocre team, I will not care how mediocre they are. Main thing is we get some of them magic beans.

 

[kudla]

It's like a conversation with USA fans in reverse. They had 15 best NCAA players were, including 2 top-5 picks and you think only 2-3 of them will turn out to be NHL players? Again, you are just pulling numbers out of thin air without any justification. The USA currently has 230 players in the NHL, where do those come from if top NCAA talent evidently has like 15-20% chance to make it? If history is of any indication, that number should be around 10, rather than 2-3.

Also, what's wrong with Minsk's defenders?

And let's make one thing clear. This is not a discussion about "talents they have coming up". Never was.

The US team had 15 NCAA players, who were on average about 21 and drafted in 4th round. That's including Beniers and Sanderson. For me, they would be the underdog in many olympic games

 

[vlady]

I see a lot of parallels between this team and the 1994 team in Lillehammer. 1994 was also played without NHL players.

1994 could be seen as roughly the starting point of our golden generation. The Lillehammer team contained a 19-year-old Miro Satan who led the tournament with 9 goals in 8 games. There was also Ziggy Palffy who was the top scorer with 10 points in 8 games. Robert Svehla was another player who would forge a strong NHL career. Robert Petrovicky was considered a big prospect at the time and he was on the team as well. All 4 would go on to win medals for Slovakia in the early 2000s.

The 2022 team has Slafkovsky who has basically repeated what Satan did and two more teenagers in Knazko and Nemec.

The 1994 team had solid European based players like Hascak, Kolnik, Jozef Dano and others. The 2022 team has Cehlarik, Hrivik and Hudacek filling those roles.

The 1994 team had to qualify for the Olympics in a qualification tournament in the summer of 1993. The 2022 team had to do the same in 2021. The 1994 team did not win a medal, but they played great hockey and shocked the hockey world as a brand new hockey nation. They won their group after beating Canada, Italy and France and tying Sweden and USA. Canada and Sweden met in the final. Slovakia were eliminated in quarterfinal in OT by Russia.

In 1994 we had 10 players in the NHL (only three of them played more than 40 games). In 2022 we have 11 players in the NHL (only 3 have played more than 30 games so far).

What I'm trying to say is that in hindsight 1994 was a start of something big in Slovak hockey and maybe in another 28 years we will be remembering 2022 as the start of a new golden generation. The signs are there, we are going to have a couple of very strong draft years. There is finally some reason for optimism. I loved watching Hlinka-Gretzky Cup last year, those were the best performances I ever saw from any of our youth teams in the past. It will be interesting to watch these youngsters grow.

 

[DaJackal]

Late congrats to Slovakia for bronze! (I was busy with work the whole Saturday). I was rooting for you guys, because I think the bronze mattered to your nation a lot more than it would have for Sweden.

Slafkovsky is a gem, I hope this sparks many local juniors to train hard and advocates the growth of the sport.

 

[SoundAndFury]

The US team had 15 NCAA players, who were on average about 21 and drafted in 4th round. That's including Beniers and Sanderson. For me, they would be the underdog in many olympic games

Well, no one is saying they were some kind of Olympic favorite but at the same time, your argument kinda contradicts itself. Yes, some of those guys have been picked very late or undrafted at all but their age is exactly the reason why it doesn't matter anymore. Perbix is probably the most sure-fire case. 23, picked #169 but at this point, there is 99% possibility he is going to play at least some NHL games and like 80% he is going to be an NHL regular so how does his draft position matter?

Yes, definitely some of those guys aren't gonna make it, sadly. But even in most pessimistic calculations, it should come to 8-10 players with a significant number of the NHL games out of that group.