WJC: 2025 Team Canada Roster Talk

[landy92mack29]

I’m sorry…. What?!?!

MODLike what to both quotes

 

[SillyRabbit]

Bob McKenzie claiming to criticise the roster selection as hindsight... that's absurd. Plenty of people looked at the roster and wondered if they would have trouble scoring.

Had they lost a bunch of high scoring games, sure, then they could have claimed it was only clear in hindsight. But that didn't happen.

Quite literally every Canadian hockey fan with a keyboard was criticizing this team from the start.

If there was one thing that everyone agreed on, it was that the team was leaving off a ton of talent because the Hockey Canada brass had huge egos and were playing politics.

 

[1989]

I’m sorry…. What?!?!

Maybe he thinks practices are just endless bag skates or something and not skills development opportunities that don't have to go 150% effort.

 

[ORRFForever]

But "tuffness and gwit" is more important than skilled players that can contribute to goal scoring right?

There were plenty of skill players who took a ton of penalties. Easton Cowan spent a TON of time in the box against the U.S..

Tonight : Ritchie, Catton and McKenna were in the box.

 

[JackSlater]

That was a fairly predictable outcome. Realistically even if Canada had won against the Czechs, which was quite possible, it was very unlikely to win two more games to follow. I'll give credit to the players in that they did show the necessary push and took over the game, finally, but on the whole there was far too much listless play, Cameron or not. Yager had jump in this game (and others) and Howe did as well even though he was a waste for most of the tournament. McKenna finally started to handle the puck and show his talent. Catton showed glimpses and Molendyk was usually decent. We all know that some of the players were disappointments too. Dickinson was not good this tournament, the scorers didn't score or generate enough pressure in general. Cowan did have tunnel vision (some go overboard about it though), several players did take stupid penalties, but no one player sunk the team or anything. It was disappointing at a group level. Lack of drive in earlier games is not acceptable, and the boneheaded decisions leading to penalties were unacceptable as well. Still this is not the worst Canadian WJC team ever, even if some think that at the moment. I hope that the players learn from it.

Anyone with a brain already knows what the main issues were. Canada picked its team stupidly, and then the coaching was extremely poor. It is very bad that the vast majority instantly recognized that they made bad picks and then had to be slowly proven more and more correct. There should be people fired/barred from this. There is no excuse for Canada to lose in the quarterfinals at the WJC once, better yet twice. Peter Anholt, who has won nothing in his CHL management career, picked two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. The man is an idiot and it's so obvious that almost everyone knew it right away. It is inexcusable that he was hired in the first place. There need to be consequences for this. Seabrook can go learn somewhere else. If Al Murray was in favour of this team during the discussion phase then he should go enjoy his retirement. Salmond should have been gone long ago. NHL executives run the team at the senior level, he needs to be judged for the WJC and Canada has grossly underperformed. He should be removed tomorrow. But again it bears repeating, Peter Anholt selected two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. And people were not even shocked by those eliminations. Remember, this guy hand waved away the 2024 result and emphasized that he really knows the players this year, really emphasizing that it was his team. He's an idiot. Hockey Canada needs to learn the lesson that you hire proven and successful people to construct the team, not career nothings. Also one quarterfinal exist should preclude anyone from making another team the next year.

Hockey Canada should have kept it simple and gone with its talented players. You can take a small number of role players for special teams or plug in spots, but it was a blatantly obvious error to take all of Howe (who somehow was a lock) and Cataford (also a lock somehow) and Gauthier and Beaudoin and Pinelli. Take two, and Canada could use Yager, Luchanko, Cowan, plus those two in the necessary mucking roles. But for the other three spots Canada could have had three elite players for this level, players who would have made any other country's top six, and just chose not to. Schaefer's injury also exposed that basically everyone was right and the team needed another offensive weapon on the back end. Dickinson was not the answer and obviously Bonk wasn't.

It's not worth it to go over Cameron's failure in detail. Hockey Canada was stupid to hire him in the sense that the majority of people already knew that it was a bad idea right away. Cameron never got this team to play to its potential, not even close. Incredible lack of cohesion and no clear strategy to correct it. He never got them to the point where they could generate scoring chances consistently at even strength, which is impressive as it was still the most talented roster at the event. Special teams were also bad. He told us that he can't work on discipline with the team, and shockingly the team remained undisciplined. He apparently didn't even practice with the team very much. He played Bonk as power play quarterback even though that isn't even his OHL role, he scratched offensive players when the team needed offence, and in the last game he made a completely boneheaded challenge that had no chance but stunningly didn't totally derail the team's momentum. It was a failure. We got lucky to survive him once. I was shocked that they dusted him off for a third time.

I will give a little bit of credit for two things. One, they learned from 2024 and used all of the roster spots. That is a small improvement but I'm glad. Two, they were willing to select draft eligible players and utilize them in prominent roles. Schaefer was the best defenceman on the team, and McKenna was one of the best forwards. Ivankovic got some experience for next year and Martone had a solid final game and should have been better used. It's a positive.

Finally I will say that this was a much more disappointing team than the 2024 team. The 2024 roster was very mediocre and at best one of the pack to win, and the player pool was very lacking. 2025 was a very winnable tournament with Canada having by far the best pool of players to choose from. Very clear lost opportunity. On to next year, and I hope that Hockey Canada learned some very obvious lessons.

 

[tabness]

did they bring over the soccer team or something?

what a bunch of losers these kids were

 

[NyQuil]

Quite literally every Canadian hockey fan with a keyboard was criticizing this team from the start.

If there was one thing that everyone agreed on, it was that the team was leaving off a ton of talent because the Hockey Canada brass had huge egos and were playing politics.

It was an odd moment of comprehensive board unity.

 

[Deep Blue Metallic]

I'd have a shred of respect for Cameron if he accepted at least some of the blame. Seems he wants the players to take the hit.

"We tried everything. They were too tired to practice."

What a clown.

 

[McDrailers]

Is he on the same drugs they're giving Biden??? Like what to both quotes

I read that he coach’s the second to last place Ottawa 67s? Do they practice? Do they have lines or draw names out of a hat for who goes next?

 

[Canada4Gold]

Bob McKenzie needs to wipe his mouth after gargling the balls of Canada management on that segment. Jesus christ. "In Hindsight". People were saying this from day 1.

"Who's to say all the good players they left off would have performed when the high end guys they did bring didn't perform to expectations"

Had me chuckling. If you bring 5 good players and 15 grinders and the 5 good players struggle good luck scoring. If you bring your 20 best players and 5 of them struggle you've got 15 other high scoring talents that probably won't. There's a really good chance some of the 20 guys don't lag an egg. You figure out who those guys are and then rely on them. But we're supposed to see the 5 guys the stupid coaching staff thought were his go to guys struggle and instead of criticizing them for picking a top 6/bottom 6 style roster or even picking the wrong guys to rely on if you were to go that route what we're actually supposed to take away from it is Cowan, Ritchie and others struggled so that means everyone good Canada has would have struggled and so the coaching staff did nothing wrong

 

[ORRFForever]

That was a fairly predictable outcome. Realistically even if Canada had won against the Czechs, which was quite possible, it was very unlikely to win two more games to follow. I'll give credit to the players in that they did show the necessary push and took over the game, finally, but on the whole there was far too much listless play, Cameron or not. Yager had jump in this game (and others) and Howe did as well even though he was a waste for most of the tournament. McKenna finally started to handle the puck and show his talent. Catton showed glimpses and Molendyk was usually decent. We all know that some of the players were disappointments too. Dickinson was not good this tournament, the scorers didn't score or generate enough pressure in general. Cowan did have tunnel vision (some go overboard about it though), several players did take stupid penalties, but no one player sunk the team or anything. It was disappointing at a group level. Lack of drive in earlier games is not acceptable, and the boneheaded decisions leading to penalties were unacceptable as well. Still this is not the worst Canadian WJC team ever, even if some think that at the moment. I hope that the players learn from it.

Anyone with a brain already knows what the main issues were. Canada picked its team stupidly, and then the coaching was extremely poor. It is very bad that the vast majority instantly recognized that they made bad picks and then had to be slowly proven more and more correct. There should be people fired/barred from this. There is no excuse for Canada to lose in the quarterfinals at the WJC once, better yet twice. Peter Anholt, who has won nothing in his CHL management career, picked two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. The man is an idiot and it's so obvious that almost everyone knew it right away. It is inexcusable that he was hired in the first place. There need to be consequences for this. Seabrook can go learn somewhere else. If Al Murray was in favour of this team during the discussion phase then he should go enjoy his retirement. Salmond should have been gone long ago. NHL executives run the team at the senior level, he needs to be judged for the WJC and Canada has grossly underperformed. He should be removed tomorrow. But again it bears repeating, Peter Anholt selected two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. And people were not even shocked by those eliminations. Remember, this guy hand waved away the 2024 result and emphasized that he really knows the players this year, really emphasizing that it was his team. He's an idiot. Hockey Canada needs to learn the lesson that you hire proven and successful people to construct the team, not career nothings. Also one quarterfinal exist should preclude anyone from making another team the next year.

Hockey Canada should have kept it simple and gone with its talented players. You can take a small number of role players for special teams or plug in spots, but it was a blatantly obvious error to take all of Howe (who somehow was a lock) and Cataford (also a lock somehow) and Gauthier and Beaudoin and Pinelli. Take two, and Canada could use Yager, Luchanko, Cowan, plus those two in the necessary mucking roles. But for the other three spots Canada could have had three elite players for this level, players who would have made any other country's top six, and just chose not to. Schaefer's injury also exposed that basically everyone was right and the team needed another offensive weapon on the back end. Dickinson was not the answer and obviously Bonk wasn't.

It's not worth it to go over Cameron's failure in detail. Hockey Canada was stupid to hire him in the sense that the majority of people already knew that it was a bad idea right away. Cameron never got this team to play to its potential, not even close. Incredible lack of cohesion and no clear strategy to correct it. He never got them to the point where they could generate scoring chances consistently at even strength, which is impressive as it was still the most talented roster at the event. Special teams were also bad. He told us that he can't work on discipline with the team, and shockingly the team remained undisciplined. He apparently didn't even practice with the team very much. He played Bonk as power play quarterback even though that isn't even his OHL role, he scratched offensive players when the team needed offence, and in the last game he made a completely boneheaded challenge that had no chance but stunningly didn't totally derail the team's momentum. It was a failure. We got lucky to survive him once. I was shocked that they dusted him off for a third time.

I will give a little bit of credit for two things. One, they learned from 2024 and used all of the roster spots. That is a small improvement but I'm glad. Two, they were willing to select draft eligible players and utilize them in prominent roles. Schaefer was the best defenceman on the team, and McKenna was one of the best forwards. Ivankovic got some experience for next year and Martone had a solid final game and should have been better used. It's a positive.

Finally I will say that this was a much more disappointing team than the 2024 team. The 2024 roster was very mediocre and at best one of the pack to win, and the player pool was very lacking. 2025 was a very winnable tournament with Canada having by far the best pool of players to choose from. Very clear lost opportunity. On to next year, and I hope that Hockey Canada learned some very obvious lessons.

Good Lord...

 

[Knave]

I read that he coach’s the second to last place Ottawa 67s? Do they practice? Do they have lines or draw names out of a hat for who goes next?

Shut up. Teaching players how to play and win hockey games is for losers.

 

[Static]

Every player left off this roster should be counting their lucky stars. What a toxic mess, I feel bad for the players who have to wear this.

 

[SillyRabbit]

Every player left off this roster should be counting their lucky stars. What a toxic mess, I feel bad for the players who have to wear this.

I mean those left off are probably pretty peeved that they missed their shot at representing their country. They probably (correctly) feel like they could've changed Canada's fate here.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Step 1: Anyone involved in selecting the roster should never select another Canadian roster again.

Step 2: Dave Cameron should never coach at the WJC again.

Step 3: Enough already with bringing "roleplayers" over instead of skill. I'd hoped this idiotic trend would have ended after the disastrous Rob Zamuner decision way back the 90's, but apparently the old boys network that runs this organization don't seem to learn.

 

[JackSlater]

I’m sorry…. What?!?!

Must have been exhausted from the country club camp. Which reminds me, they still need to go back to having legitimate camps. The brain trust does not have the ability to identify the best players or even the right players for their roles. Have a camp and let some people who make decisions be uncomfortable when they want to cut a player who seems a lot better than his competition. Sennecke being a good example from this year.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Imagine if Cameron gets an extension.

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

I’m sorry…. What?!?!

 

[landy92mack29]

I'd have a shred of respect for Cameron if he accepted at least some of the blame. Seems he wants the players to take the hit.

"We tried everything. They were too tired to practice."

What a clown.

He's somehow making this worse...

 

[Dominance]

That was a fairly predictable outcome. Realistically even if Canada had won against the Czechs, which was quite possible, it was very unlikely to win two more games to follow. I'll give credit to the players in that they did show the necessary push and took over the game, finally, but on the whole there was far too much listless play, Cameron or not. Yager had jump in this game (and others) and Howe did as well even though he was a waste for most of the tournament. McKenna finally started to handle the puck and show his talent. Catton showed glimpses and Molendyk was usually decent. We all know that some of the players were disappointments too. Dickinson was not good this tournament, the scorers didn't score or generate enough pressure in general. Cowan did have tunnel vision (some go overboard about it though), several players did take stupid penalties, but no one player sunk the team or anything. It was disappointing at a group level. Lack of drive in earlier games is not acceptable, and the boneheaded decisions leading to penalties were unacceptable as well. Still this is not the worst Canadian WJC team ever, even if some think that at the moment. I hope that the players learn from it.

Anyone with a brain already knows what the main issues were. Canada picked its team stupidly, and then the coaching was extremely poor. It is very bad that the vast majority instantly recognized that they made bad picks and then had to be slowly proven more and more correct. There should be people fired/barred from this. There is no excuse for Canada to lose in the quarterfinals at the WJC once, better yet twice. Peter Anholt, who has won nothing in his CHL management career, picked two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. The man is an idiot and it's so obvious that almost everyone knew it right away. It is inexcusable that he was hired in the first place. There need to be consequences for this. Seabrook can go learn somewhere else. If Al Murray was in favour of this team during the discussion phase then he should go enjoy his retirement. Salmond should have been gone long ago. NHL executives run the team at the senior level, he needs to be judged for the WJC and Canada has grossly underperformed. He should be removed tomorrow. But again it bears repeating, Peter Anholt selected two team Canadas and they both got eliminated in the quarterfinals. And people were not even shocked by those eliminations. Remember, this guy hand waved away the 2024 result and emphasized that he really knows the players this year, really emphasizing that it was his team. He's an idiot. Hockey Canada needs to learn the lesson that you hire proven and successful people to construct the team, not career nothings. Also one quarterfinal exist should preclude anyone from making another team the next year.

Hockey Canada should have kept it simple and gone with its talented players. You can take a small number of role players for special teams or plug in spots, but it was a blatantly obvious error to take all of Howe (who somehow was a lock) and Cataford (also a lock somehow) and Gauthier and Beaudoin and Pinelli. Take two, and Canada could use Yager, Luchanko, Cowan, plus those two in the necessary mucking roles. But for the other three spots Canada could have had three elite players for this level, players who would have made any other country's top six, and just chose not to. Schaefer's injury also exposed that basically everyone was right and the team needed another offensive weapon on the back end. Dickinson was not the answer and obviously Bonk wasn't.

It's not worth it to go over Cameron's failure in detail. Hockey Canada was stupid to hire him in the sense that the majority of people already knew that it was a bad idea right away. Cameron never got this team to play to its potential, not even close. Incredible lack of cohesion and no clear strategy to correct it. He never got them to the point where they could generate scoring chances consistently at even strength, which is impressive as it was still the most talented roster at the event. Special teams were also bad. He told us that he can't work on discipline with the team, and shockingly the team remained undisciplined. He apparently didn't even practice with the team very much. He played Bonk as power play quarterback even though that isn't even his OHL role, he scratched offensive players when the team needed offence, and in the last game he made a completely boneheaded challenge that had no chance but stunningly didn't totally derail the team's momentum. It was a failure. We got lucky to survive him once. I was shocked that they dusted him off for a third time.

I will give a little bit of credit for two things. One, they learned from 2024 and used all of the roster spots. That is a small improvement but I'm glad. Two, they were willing to select draft eligible players and utilize them in prominent roles. Schaefer was the best defenceman on the team, and McKenna was one of the best forwards. Ivankovic got some experience for next year and Martone had a solid final game and should have been better used. It's a positive.

Finally I will say that this was a much more disappointing team than the 2024 team. The 2024 roster was very mediocre and at best one of the pack to win, and the player pool was very lacking. 2025 was a very winnable tournament with Canada having by far the best pool of players to choose from. Very clear lost opportunity. On to next year, and I hope that Hockey Canada learned some very obvious lessons.

Excellent post. You highlighted my feelings precisely at the end there. We had - by FAR - the best group of players eligible for this tournament, even subtracting Bedard, Benson, Iginla and Celebrini. We iced a literal “B” team instead, and the players completely failed to gel and drastically underperformed their normal level of play at the junior level to a man, and this national embarrassment resulted. We couldn’t score to save our lives, but this sad sack team still considerably outplayed Finland, the US, and the Czechs.

The team was disappointing but also extremely unlucky with their conversion rates and penalties against. The actual failure lies with the GM and coach, whose decisions and efforts were ludicrously bad to the level of a deliberate sell job. At least 8 selections/omissions were indefensible the moment they were announced, and what kind of dipshit doesn’t hold practices?

Hopefully this leads to changes that see us avoid appointing simpletons in the future.

 

[NyQuil]

"Who's to say all the good players they left off would have performed when the high end guys they did bring didn't perform to expectations"

Had me chuckling. If you bring 5 good players and 15 grinders and the 5 good players struggle good luck scoring. If you bring your 20 best players and 5 of them struggle you've got 15 other high scoring talents that probably won't. There's a really good chance some of the 20 guys don't lag an egg. You figure out who those guys are and then rely on them. But we're supposed to see the 5 guys the stupid coaching staff thought were his go to guys struggle and instead of criticizing them for picking a top 6/bottom 6 style roster or even picking the wrong guys to rely on if you were to go that route what we're actually supposed to take away from it is Cowan, Ritchie and others struggled so that means everyone good Canada has would have struggled and so the coaching staff did nothing wrong

Bob “Damage Control” McKenzie

 

[Jordan Belfort]

McKenna was not utilized nearly enough. Just would not stop playing Cowan, Bonk, Dickenson

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

He's somehow making this worse...

 

[Mathieukferland]

This man is either a master troll or has an IQ of 75

 

[IHaveNoCreativity]

Alright I’ve calmed down, here’s my take:

Goaltending was the bright spot, Ivankovic has potential and Carter George is going to be an NHL goalie. Can’t fault him on the winner, that’s actually such a great shot and very hard to stop coming across.

Defence, I mean I liked Sawyer Maino, don’t think Bonk was bad, he was solid but feel for the guy who could have been on the Czechia team but hey he feels Canadian. Think other than that we couldn’t clear a puck out on the PK, we looked really bad and breakouts were tough. Losing Schaefer hurt but don’t think we wing a medal with him. I don’t think anyone was particularly bad, but it was too Vanilla and you just didn’t think we’d score of a PP and we had a really hard time moving the puck out. In today’s game, you really need one good to elite puck mover, I can’t overstate how hard it is for forwards to get into the zone if they d man can’t feed them and it just showed we didn’t have a good first pass D man. On the PP none of them could QB it and it showed, no one looked cozy and the decisions were baffling. Never once in the tourney did i think, oh I just know we will score.

Forwards: McKenna was the biggest bright spot to me, but our lack of creative forwards really hurt him. Easton Cowan is a 3rd liner on this team in this tourney from what I saw. Tried to do too much and quite frankly was asked to do way too much and played too often for what he is. We cut guys to give him ice time when he should be a bottom 6 player based on what was needed. Thought Martone was really hard done by…. Yager was good no complaints. I actually liked Ethan Gauthier and think he did help us. I’m not sure why Repkohf didn’t get more games and play more. From there, to state the obvious; Cataford and Beaudoin just didn’t belong. For the rest, I mean who else really stood out ? Thought we were average and lacked depth.

Coaching… yeah I don’t see how Dave Cameron can be involved in hockey Canada going forward, there are younger better coaches who deserve a chance.

Others have said and I agree, the game has changed and HC didn’t recognize that for this tourney. 10 years ago I do think this team dominates its way to gold based on how the game was played back then, but also based on the depth of other teams.

The quality of the tournament has improved as have other teams. Having watched since 2005 and literally growing up coaching against players who played at this tourney, or coaching kids who made this team, I noticed how much more skilled and faster the game is.

That being said, Germany, Latvia (really amazing performance) Switzerland have all improved, even Kazakhstan was good. From there, the Czechs are producing again, and Finland had their golden run, the Americans are toe to toe with Canada now except to be honest they have produced many better goaltenders and usually play their best players and pick them.

Usually when Canada loses they’ve left behind a player that is thought to be too young, the biggest change here is that this tournament is no longer one for 19 year olds and it hasn’t been for 10 years.

Anyways, you need depth, coaching bounces and goaltending to win now. A mix or all some years. I think 10-15 years ago, you only really needed one and we always had it. It’s why we were dominant, we definitely got complacent and this year isn’t an exception. It was a weak crop last year and Luneau’s injury stung because he really could have been a top d at the tourney. This year though, simply put hockey Canada got it all wrong.

Anyways, night guys