WJC: 2025 Team Canada Roster Talk

[Divine]

Okay... His penalty in the 3rd shot us in the foot and killed any chance we had of coming back. Then he gave away the puck in our zone when we had an empty net.

Better?

This kind of criticism is so one-sided. Why isn't anyone talking Gibson's penalty that cost Canada the whole tournament? Oh, right, cause he wasn't drafted by the biggest team in hockey.

Sure, let's blame Canada's leading scorer this tournament for their loss and not everyone else who couldn't put up 3 points in 5 games.

 

[Based Anime Fan]

It's hard to really give a shit as, in the end, this tournament means diddly squat.
I watched the first period and realized the hockey was just _bad_.

 

[Namikaze Minato]

so this Cowan kid in our coach point of view is our best foward on our team, and out of what was available to he could have chosen in Canada.

he wasn't even at the selection camp, good f*** in riddance, Team Canada you deserved the loss the entire management and coaching staff needs to be f***in tossed out! hire an american coach next year! these guys know how approach these best of ones !

Yeah, probably no reason for that, eh?

Not worth even looking into before losing your mind about it?

 

[Divine]

so this Cowan kid in our coach point of view is our best foward on our team, and out of what was available to he could have chosen in Canada.

he wasn't even at the selection camp, good f*** in riddance, Team Canada you deserved the loss the entire management and coaching staff needs to be f***in tossed out! hire an american coach next year! these guys know how approach these best of ones !

You realize he was injured during the selection camp right? Let's be honest, of course you don't.

 

[ORRFForever]

This kind of criticism is so one-sided. Why isn't anyone talking Gibson's penalty that cost Canada the whole tournament? Oh, right, cause he wasn't drafted by the biggest team in hockey.

Sure, let's blame Canada's leading scorer this tournament for their loss and not everyone else who couldn't put up 3 points in 5 games.

I dumped on Gibson.

At the end of the day, WE'RE ALL in a BAD MOOD because this team <bleeped> the bed - from Coaching right on down to the guy who cleans the jock straps. It's a shame.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

I'm a modest man and not someone who lives beyond my means. I hope they don't feel this is too much to ask for...

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Those two ladies in the left corner leaning back against the railing are giving me anxiety

 

[NyQuil]

I’ve never seen so much chatter before the tournament with regards to selection process. Everyone knew this team would fail. There’s no hindsight here. This was a major discussion beforehand.

That’s the part that TSN is glossing over.

“Oh well, everyone always has issues with the roster.”

Not with this level of overwhelming consensus of skepticism and amazement.

You realize he was injured during the selection camp right? Let's be honest, of course you don't.

Remember when you were bragging about Canada’s incredible 5 on 5 defence that was the toast of the tournament?

 

[JimmyApples]

I dumped on Gibson.

At the end of the day, WE'RE ALL in a BAD MOOD because this team <bleeped> the bed - from Coaching right on down to the guy who cleans the jock straps. It's a shame.

I think all of the players on the team deserve their fair share of the blame.

With that being said, Cowan came in with a ton of hype, and high expectations. He was supposed to be our top forward and a leader on the team. Someone who could get a big goal when the team needed it the most.

Relative to the hype and expectation, I don’t think anybody had a worse WJC than Cowan. 1 goal, 3 points, QF exit. Seemed to never pass the puck, instead trying to dangle 3 guys and do it all himself. Super selfish on that 2 on 0 with Bonk, wanting the goal for himself and costing us an easy tap in. Brutal penalty vs the USA, and terrible giveaway on the empty net goal. Bullied and pushed around by the US. Viral shootout attempt fail vs Latvia. Viral chirped by the US captain.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

The NCAA absolutely allows import players.

Except if you have the stones to go the NCAA route as a Canadien more often than not you get blackballed by HC.

 

[Canada4Gold]

Cowan was one of our few returning players. One of the guys most heavily relied on, and he and the team failed. He deserves criticism. That being said he never really should have been our go to guy. A month ago I expected him to be a 2nd line winger who would certainly help chip in offense, but also do a bunch of other things. I thought Ritchie, Catton, and McKenna to be the main go to guys with Cowan, Yager, Rehkopf, and Nadeau to be in the middle 6 mix with some other guys who ended up not even being on the team. When a bunch of similar guys end up getting cut, scratched, or underplayed for some reason and Cowan gets put on the go to line and underperforms he's going to get deserved criticism. He didn't have a good tournament, but like most of the roster I don't think he was put in a place to succeed either.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Except if you have the stones to go the NCAA route as a Canadien more often than not you get blackballed by HC.

I was going to list Hage as an example because he obviously should have been on the team, but then you look at a guy like Sennecke who should tick every box for an OHL centric team selection and even he doesn't make it.

I really can't find any explanation for the roster construction. It made no sense from day 1, and has only proven to be worse since then.

Cowan was one of our few returning players. One of the guys most heavily relied on, and he and the team failed. He deserves criticism. That being said he never really should have been our go to guy. A month ago I expected him to be a 2nd line winger who would certainly help chip in offense, but also do a bunch of other things. I thought Ritchie, Catton, and McKenna to be the main go to guys with Cowan, Yager, Rehkopf, and Nadeau to be in the middle 6 mix with some other guys who ended up not even being on the team. When a bunch of similar guys end up getting cut, scratched, or underplayed for some reason and Cowan gets put on the go to line and underperforms he's going to get deserved criticism. He didn't have a good tournament, but like most of the roster I don't think he was put in a place to succeed either.

Cowan would have been fine as an energy 4th liner or 13th forward who can try to play a bit of hero puck from time to time but he never should have been seen as a top weapon on this team, it just doesn't match his talent level.

 

[Divine]

That’s the part that TSN is glossing over.

Remember when you were bragging about Canada’s incredible 5 on 5 defence that was the toast of the tournament?

View attachment 955334

They allowed two 5v5 goals in 5 games. Is that supposed to be bad? So because they allowed 2 5v5 goals in their last game that meant their 5v5 defense sucked?

The defense was good, their PK was bad. Every game they lost this tournament was on a PP goal by the opposition.

Being the most penalized team in the entire tournament doesn't make their 5v5 D no matter how bad you wanted your favourite team's defensive prospect to be on the team. Yam is a minus player and takes a ton of PP's - that is the one thing that Canada didn't need.

 

[Boud]

I think all of the players on the team deserve their fair share of the blame.

With that being said, Cowan came in with a ton of hype, and high expectations. He was supposed to be our top forward and a leader on the team. Someone who could get a big goal when the team needed it the most.

Relative to the hype and expectation, I don’t think anybody had a worse WJC than Cowan. 1 goal, 3 points, QF exit. Seemed to never pass the puck, instead trying to dangle 3 guys and do it all himself. Super selfish on that 2 on 0 with Bonk, wanting the goal for himself and costing us an easy tap in. Brutal penalty vs the USA, and terrible giveaway on the empty net goal. Bullied and pushed around by the US. Viral shootout attempt fail vs Latvia. Viral chirped by the US captain.

He had a bad tournament.

It’s important to remember though that these are young kids and they are under a ton of pressure to perform. There were already a lot of questions with the players picked, so even more pressure was there to win … to prove people wrong about the selection process.

There was also a ton of hype around the kid. He’s a bit of a victim of being a Toronto draft pick. He got way more coverage than other players that are simply better hockey players just because of that.

All in all, yes a very bad tournament but I find it hard to blame him for what happened. The management team should have selected the best players. It would’ve taken all the negative energy around the team out of the equation to begin with. I think that created way more pressure than it should’ve.

Then the team was playing with no identity, which is extremely odd considering they molded the selection process targetting specific players with roles in mind for them.

Overall the management group and the coaching staff has failed Hockey Canada. More importantly, they failed these kids, setting them up for failure and creating a ton of additional pressure. Cowan is just one of the players that had a bad tournament, the vast majority of the players were not playing up to speed which is not normal. A lot of it came down to execution (practice time wink wink). It feels like Cameron just told them let’s go have fun and that was it.

 

[Crosby2010]

Almost no one - if anyone - brings up the fact that the Czech team had more than half of their roster playing in the Canadian Hockey League right now. Basically we keep doing the same tired old boys club things and that is have money change hands and bring in some European teenagers to train and teach how to play our game. And we are stunned when we lose? Among the 100 things that went wrong from roster selection to the final buzzer, this is one of them.

 

[Bobby Holik agent]

I would have given the London Knight players more icetime.
A few more knight players into the team too,
You know they know each others they play together.

 

[Divine]

I think all of the players on the team deserve their fair share of the blame.

With that being said, Cowan came in with a ton of hype, and high expectations. He was supposed to be our top forward and a leader on the team. Someone who could get a big goal when the team needed it the most.

Relative to the hype and expectation, I don’t think anybody had a worse WJC than Cowan. 1 goal, 3 points, QF exit. Seemed to never pass the puck, instead trying to dangle 3 guys and do it all himself. Super selfish on that 2 on 0 with Bonk, wanting the goal for himself and costing us an easy tap in. Brutal penalty vs the USA, and terrible giveaway on the empty net goal. Bullied and pushed around by the US. Viral shootout attempt fail vs Latvia. Viral chirped by the US captain.

Yet he led the team in points. Set up the breakaway on the shorthanded goal. Took 1 penalty all tournament on a team that lacked discipline.

A bad Easton Cowan coming off an injury led Team Canada in points. I really don't get the Easton Cowan bias here. How many players scored for Canada in the shootout on 8 attempts? 0. It's Easton Cowan's fault though because he had a 'bad attempt' versus the 7 good ones that didn't score!

 

[JimmyApples]

Yet he led the team in points. Set up the breakaway on the shorthanded goal. Took 1 penalty all tournament on a team that lacked discipline.

A bad Easton Cowan coming off an injury led Team Canada in points.

3 points in 5 games (1 goal). 37th in WJC scoring.

All of Canada was bad, but let’s not act like Cowan wasn’t brutal. He did more harm for the team than good, honestly.

 

[Svedu]

These tournaments are really strange sometimes. Canada performed best in their very first game and two periods. Against Finland. After that they never seemed to reach the same level.
Finland weren't even close of competing with you guys. And then we luckily won against the US and Canada got handled by the same team.

Question is, Why aren't Misa and others picked? Because I thought you guys were coming out gunning and as a team. Compact and still with pace and high pressure. But not really and that baffled me. If not, then other prospects should've got picked and you guys should've went US style. Skill and ability before everything else.

Two years in a row, and playing in your home country and small rink. And also... Losing this game against Czechia (with all respect) and not the US or Sweden. I'm chocked. And it hasn't anything with Czechia's ability to do or them being weak or anything. But in all honesty, they miss- missed two of their best D's in this tournament... Yeah, chocking to say the very least.

 

[Woodrow]

It's actually crazy that Cowan was put in this position. He was a late 1st round pick that was actually an off the board pick. If you go back and look at the Leafs board you will see they were very lukewarm about it initially. Somewhere along the line TSN hyped him up so much that Hockey Canada believed the hype and basically put him in a position to either be the hero or goat.

 

[iCanada]

Honest question, why was Cameron picked? Even if Hockey Canada wanted an experienced coach, there are betger ones they could have hired. Nothing since the 2011 WJC indicates Cameron should have been hired.

You'd think there would be a lot of potentially great names out there with big CHL or higher levels of success that would have loved the job and wouldn't be leaving their club team high and dry, too.

Boughner and Woodcroft come to mind for me.

 

[Matttheleaf]

3 points in 5 games (1 goal). 37th in WJC scoring.

All of Canada was bad, but let’s not act like Cowan wasn’t brutal. He did more harm for the team than good, honestly.

He was also constantly among the team leaders in ice time so he had the chances to do more but didn't. This is not all on him at all but if you are always put on the time line and play some of the most minutes of course people are going to expect more out of you.

 

[TheDoldrums]

You can have a player literally shove the puck into his own net with his glove and still the only player people want to criticize is Cowan lol

 

[Namikaze Minato]

He was also constantly among the team leaders in ice time so he had the chances to do more but didn't. This is not all on him at all but if you are always put on the time line and play some of the most minutes of course people are going to expect more out of you.

He didn't pick the team and he didn't delegate the ice time. It's not his fault his coach thought he was Mcdavid and gave him PP1 Pk1 and 1st line ice time and rode him like celebrini.

Baffling decision, honestly.

 

[iCanada]

Question is, Why aren't Misa and others picked? Because I thought you guys were coming out gunning and as a team. Compact and still with pace and high pressure. But not really and that baffled me. If not, then other prospects should've got picked and you guys should've went US style. Skill and ability before everything else.

Some mixture of incompetence, arrogance, and politics.

The names left off of this Canadian roster certainly have more draft pedigree, and individual results, that's for sure. Several lines worth of top 10 NHL draft picks and guys on pace to break CHL all time records or leading men's college leagues in scoring just sitting at home.

Bennett Sennecke, Zane Parekh, Andrew Cristal, Michael Hage, Michael Misa, Carter Yakemchuk...

 

[Divine]

3 points in 5 games (1 goal). 37th in WJC scoring.

All of Canada was bad, but let’s not act like Cowan wasn’t brutal. He did more harm for the team than good, honestly.

I disagree he did more harm than good. He was actually noticeable. People were mad at him for not scoring on chances, like you just did in your last paragraph with the breakaway. He at least generated chances unlike most of the forwards. Gave the breakaway pass for the shorthanded goal. Led Team Canada in points.

Canada ties the game against Latvia, assisted by Cowan.
Ethan Gauthier takes a penalty immediately after, Finland ties the game.
Not a single player scored in the shootout vs Latvia in 8 attempts, including Berkly Catton, who had 2 attempts. It's Cowan's fault they lost because his shootout shot didn't look pretty though.
Blame the loss on Cowan.

Canada vs USA:
Game is tied, Sawyer Minio takes a penalty
USA scored to put the team up 2-1
Blame the loss on Cowan because if not for him they win 3-2?

Canada vs Czech
Cowan sets up the breakaway that ties the game at 1-1
Sam Dickinson scores an own goal to put the team down 2-1
Eventually the team ties the game with 3 minutes left in the game
Andrew Gibson takes a kneeing penalty immediately after
Czech scores the GWG on the PP
Blame the loss on Cowan

Yes, Cowan was 37th in WJC which is the top scoring player on team Canada. The same way Stutzle is the top scoring player on Ottawa but 25th in the league. Does that make Stutzle a bad player for Ottawa?