WJC: Canada 2018 Roster Talk

[JackSlater]

I'd like to see Brent Sutter with another chance behind the bench coaching the junior team again.

His team in 2014 looked pretty lost on the European ice, but he would probably be fine in North America. One issue though is that his type of player isn't exactly common anymore.

 

[jj cale]

Doesn't Hunter get a shot soon or does he have too much on the plate with both London and Maple Leaf duties?

I am not even sure what he does with the Maple Leafs but he has some involvement does he not?

I might be mistaken.

 

[JackSlater]

Doesn't Hunter get a shot soon or does he have too much on the plate with both London and Maple Leaf duties?

I am not even sure what he does with the Maple Leafs but he has some involvement does he not?

I might be mistaken.

There are two Hunters. Mark is with Toronto, Dale is the coach in London. I am curious to know if Dale is a legitimately good coach, or just the best owner in the CHL. I don't like his propensity for heavily playing his top players when it comes to the WJC.

 

[jj cale]

There are two Hunters. Mark is with Toronto, Dale is the coach in London. I am curious to know if Dale is a legitimately good coach, or just the best owner in the CHL. I don't like his propensity for heavily playing his top players when it comes to the WJC.

Ah, i thought it was just Dale that was the coach for london and had duties with the Leafs.

Then i guess it comes down to what you are saying, just how good a coach is the guy? I certainly have no clue because I catch very few ohl games or CHL games for that matter. They just don't show that many games here on my t.v and what ones they do show are WHL.

 

[wings5]

Just stick with the French coaches Hockey Canada.

 

[SportsFan94]

I think Jost will be in the NHL next year considering how bad Colorado has been this year and are likely to clean house (Landeskog, Duchene gone likely) and will also probably have Nolan Patrick on the team if they win the lottery.

 

[GetThePuckOuttaHere*]

I needed to make this to distract myself for a bit.
Here's a preliminary list I made for next year, let me know if I'm missing someone important:

Carter Hart, Stuart Skinner, Ian Scott, Michael DiPietro, Dylan Wells, Evan Fitzpatrick

Victor Mete, Nicholas Hague, Logan Stanley, Sean Day, Dennis Cholowski, Dante Fabbro, Cale Makar, Kale Clague, Cal Foote, Jake Bean, Cale Fleury, David Quenneville, Josh Anderson, Samuel Girard, Thomas Gregoire, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Jocktan Chainey, Luke Green

Adam Mascherin, Cliff Pu, Taylor Raddysh, Michael McLeod, Owen Tippett, Gabriel Villardi, Jordan Kyrou, Will Bitten, Givani Smith, Boris Katchouk, Nick Suzuki, Tyson Jost, Shane Bowers, Cameron Morrison, Dillon Dube, Nolan Patrick, Cody Glass, Mason Shaw, Sam Steel, Tyler Benson, Skyler McKenzie, Brett Howden, Kole Lind, Matthew Phillips, Noah Gregor, Michael Rasmussen, Stelio Matheos, Maxime Comtois, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Pascal Laberge, Antoine Morand

IMO Lineup with this roster (thanks for putting it together btw):

Dubois-Steel-Patrick
Vilardi-Jost-Raddysh
Suzuki-McLeod-Tippett
Rasmussen-Howden-Pu
Comtois

Bean-Fabbro
Clague-Makar
Stanley-Cholowski
Hague

Hart-DiPietro

Looks like, once again, a very deadly team on paper. Top three forward lines blend speed, talent, and size, while the shutdown line is impressive in its own right. Defense filled with excellent puck movers + a big, shutdown bruiser in Stanley, who could probably do fairly well in a 5 on 1 penalty kill.

Goaltending situation depends entirely on if Hart can recreate this season next year.

 

[jj cale]

IMO Lineup with this roster (thanks for putting it together btw):

Dubois-Steel-Patrick
Vilardi-Jost-Raddysh
Suzuki-McLeod-Tippett
Rasmussen-Howden-Pu
Comtois

Bean-Fabbro
Clague-Makar
Stanley-Cholowski
Hague

Hart-DiPietro

Looks like, once again, a very deadly team on paper. Top three forward lines blend speed, talent, and size, while the shutdown line is impressive in its own right. Defense filled with excellent puck movers + a big, shutdown bruiser in Stanley, who could probably do fairly well in a 5 on 1 penalty kill.

Goaltending situation depends entirely on if Hart can recreate this season next year.

Doubt very much Dubois and Patrick are there, team starts to look fairly underwhelming at that point.

 

[wings5]

IMO Lineup with this roster (thanks for putting it together btw):

Dubois-Steel-Patrick
Vilardi-Jost-Raddysh
Suzuki-McLeod-Tippett
Rasmussen-Howden-Pu
Comtois

Bean-Fabbro
Clague-Makar
Stanley-Cholowski
Hague

Hart-DiPietro

Looks like, once again, a very deadly team on paper. Top three forward lines blend speed, talent, and size, while the shutdown line is impressive in its own right. Defense filled with excellent puck movers + a big, shutdown bruiser in Stanley, who could probably do fairly well in a 5 on 1 penalty kill.

Goaltending situation depends entirely on if Hart can recreate this season next year.

I would hope Bean is not on the first pairing, I barely want to see him on this team.

 

[jj cale]

I would hope Bean is not on the first pairing, I barely want to see him on this team.

You never know, he might be a lot better a year older on his second go around.

 

[JackSlater]

IMO Lineup with this roster (thanks for putting it together btw):

Dubois-Steel-Patrick
Vilardi-Jost-Raddysh
Suzuki-McLeod-Tippett
Rasmussen-Howden-Pu
Comtois

Bean-Fabbro
Clague-Makar
Stanley-Cholowski
Hague

Hart-DiPietro

Looks like, once again, a very deadly team on paper. Top three forward lines blend speed, talent, and size, while the shutdown line is impressive in its own right. Defense filled with excellent puck movers + a big, shutdown bruiser in Stanley, who could probably do fairly well in a 5 on 1 penalty kill.

Goaltending situation depends entirely on if Hart can recreate this season next year.

It's difficult to say who will be missing outside of probably Patrick and Dubois. On defence, I can't see Stanley or Cholowski making it ahead of Girard and Mete, who both were close to making the team this year and definitely should have done so over Bean.

 

[SpoolCat]

https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/news/2017-18-NJT-coaching-staff-announced

Found this decision very interesting since Canada din't win gold last year. Even though they didn't win gold I thought the coaches did well. We seemed to have had problems during the tournament but the coaches seemed to be able to right the ship. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference from usual, since the coaches will all have prior experience and knowledge about how to work with each other and many of the players.

 

[JackSlater]

https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/news/2017-18-NJT-coaching-staff-announced

Found this decision very interesting since Canada din't win gold last year. Even though they didn't win gold I thought the coaches did well. We seemed to have had problems during the tournament but the coaches seemed to be able to right the ship. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference from usual, since the coaches will all have prior experience and knowledge about how to work with each other and many of the players.

Interesting. I do think that the coaching staff did a good job, though I'm not a fan of having the same person in charge of the defencemen. I was definitely not expecting Ducharme to return so soon.

 

[PecnoTrunk]

Interesting. I do think that the coaching staff did a good job, though I'm not a fan of having the same person in charge of the defencemen. I was definitely not expecting Ducharme to return so soon.

I'm 50/50 on this. Last years team was not an aggressive board game team and that was on smaller ice I hope this time he gets guys like giovani smith to go up against the Americans who don't forget took out Myers with one hit

Not sure I like this pick

I was hoping that people heads would roll at hockey Canada but I guess this is a boys club

 

[JackSlater]

I'm 50/50 on this. Last years team was not an aggressive board game team and that was on smaller ice I hope this time he gets guys like giovani smith to go up against the Americans who don't forget took out Myers with one hit

Not sure I like this pick

I was hoping that people heads would roll at hockey Canada but I guess this is a boys club

While the result wasn't great, the team was still nearly a coin flip from winning. Ducharme did a good job. It's also pretty clear that physicality was not the problem when playing the Americans.

 

[PecnoTrunk]

While the result wasn't great, the team was still nearly a coin flip from winning. Ducharme did a good job. It's also pretty clear that physicality was not the problem when playing the Americans.

We should have won that game

Our goalie let us down

Again

You say that physicality wasn't the cause? Well we didn't win lots of board battles maybe wining 1 or 2 extra board battles might have helped us get us 1 goal or maybe wining an extra or 2 board battles might have stopped a goal. Who knows. But we need players who can skate and who can protect the pucks

We cannot win a competition with a team full of drouin and marner s

Same thing, we cannot win a competition with a team of Perry lucic and crouse s

If you know what I mean

We need a proportion and mix to win

 

[JackSlater]

We should have won that game

Our goalie let us down

Again

You say that physicality wasn't the cause? Well we didn't win lots of board battles maybe wining 1 or 2 extra board battles might have helped us get us 1 goal or maybe wining an extra or 2 board battles might have stopped a goal. Who knows. But we need players who can skate and who can protect the pucks

We cannot win a competition with a team full of drouin and marner s

Same thing, we cannot win a competition with a team of Perry lucic and crouse s

If you know what I mean

We need a proportion and mix to win

I don't really see physicality as an issue vs USA. Myers' injury was mostly just a fluke occurrence, not a result of sustained physicality. Speed was a bit of a problem as well. The inability to clear the zone effectively, even when there was an easy exit option, is what killed the Canadian team. I do understand your point though. Physicality is an effective tool at the junior level, particularly on the smaller ice surface. The issue is that Canada is not producing many top end physical players anymore. In an ideal world Canada can bring along elite players who play a physical game. Most times however the choice is between an elite player who isn't overly physical and a non-elite player who is physical.

 

[PecnoTrunk]

I don't really see physicality as an issue vs USA. Myers' injury was mostly just a fluke occurrence, not a result of sustained physicality. Speed was a bit of a problem as well. The inability to clear the zone effectively, even when there was an easy exit option, is what killed the Canadian team. I do understand your point though. Physicality is an effective tool at the junior level, particularly on the smaller ice surface. The issue is that Canada is not producing many top end physical players anymore. In an ideal world Canada can bring along elite players who play a physical game. Most times however the choice is between an elite player who isn't overly physical and a non-elite player who is physical.

Let's see if I'm able articulate my point

I understand you point

In today's hockey you can't have guys who can hit and score like lindros/ovechkin

I think those days are far and few in between

The game is much faster today and players have to perfect that side of the game

Big physical players cannot keep up. Watch our first round players like tinordi and mcarron omg so slow

We still need these players no matter how slow they are

In order to battle the corners to clear the crease

They are needed to throw the big hits. Last years team was fast but they could have used a body slammer

Not to score goals but to slam bodies and clear the crease. These players are needed as long as they don't make up more than 20% of the team. One or two only

You cannot win with a team with majority body slammers only like you cannot win with a team with only Mitch marners

 

[xxxx]

I agree there has to be a good mix of that. But I'm not worried about that really, there will always be players who can throw a big hit, or play harder, tougher, as I think Hockey Canada surely cares about having that aspect of the game too. And many times players who don't that often can do it if it's needed, or the team as a whole just turns on the beast mode. A great example of this was when the US played us physically atthe World Cup. You suddenly saw Tavares, Stamkos, or Thornton laying some big hits out there, and there was more than that.. Our teams will always be all right in this aspect of the game imo.

 

[JackSlater]

Let's see if I'm able articulate my point

I understand you point

In today's hockey you can't have guys who can hit and score like lindros/ovechkin

I think those days are far and few in between

The game is much faster today and players have to perfect that side of the game

Big physical players cannot keep up. Watch our first round players like tinordi and mcarron omg so slow

We still need these players no matter how slow they are

In order to battle the corners to clear the crease

They are needed to throw the big hits. Last years team was fast but they could have used a body slammer

Not to score goals but to slam bodies and clear the crease. These players are needed as long as they don't make up more than 20% of the team. One or two only

You cannot win with a team with majority body slammers only like you cannot win with a team with only Mitch marners

I'm not really seeing it. It's nice to have a relatively unique facet like physicality on a team, but it shouldn't come at the expense of clearly superior players. You are making the argument that there are diminishing returns to having all skill players, and I agree with that, but this really hasn't been Canada's problem, and if we look at the successful teams in the WJC this decade it isn't as if the winning teams are packed with physical players. Looking at the forwards, if Canada was to add a player to the team in retrospect, it clearly has to be Sam Steel instead of Givani Smith. Looking at the defence and how poorly they moved the puck under pressure you would want to add Girard. I'm not against adding a physical player, but their results tend to be a pretty mixed bag. Far more important is physicality and grit throughout the lineup, even if no one player really stands out. That is lacking in Canadian teams, at least compared to the Canadian teams of the past.

The bigger issue is that the Canadians who used to be physical players, guys like Gauthier or Dubois who are big and physically dominant for the junior level, aren't overly physical anymore. Same with the defence and guys like Myers or Juulsen, though Juulsen does have some grit. That element is lacking in player development, and clearly eventually the junior team feels the effects. Picking inferior players who are physical is like trying to fight the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the cause.

 

[1Gold Standard]

I'm not really seeing it. It's nice to have a relatively unique facet like physicality on a team, but it shouldn't come at the expense of clearly superior players. You are making the argument that there are diminishing returns to having all skill players, and I agree with that, but this really hasn't been Canada's problem, and if we look at the successful teams in the WJC this decade it isn't as if the winning teams are packed with physical players. Looking at the forwards, if Canada was to add a player to the team in retrospect, it clearly has to be Sam Steel instead of Givani Smith. Looking at the defence and how poorly they moved the puck under pressure you would want to add Girard. I'm not against adding a physical player, but their results tend to be a pretty mixed bag. Far more important is physicality and grit throughout the lineup, even if no one player really stands out. That is lacking in Canadian teams, at least compared to the Canadian teams of the past.

The bigger issue is that the Canadians who used to be physical players, guys like Gauthier or Dubois who are big and physically dominant for the junior level, aren't overly physical anymore. Same with the defence and guys like Myers or Juulsen, though Juulsen does have some grit. That element is lacking in player development, and clearly eventually the junior team feels the effects. Picking inferior players who are physical is like trying to fight the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the cause.

Ya, my favorite example of that is Boone Jenner on the 2014 Malmo team running around with his Big Man's game and then in the end sobbing like a 5 year old on the blueline along with a few of the other dolts who were selected on that team for a specific role that had no business being there.

Edit: or was it in Ufa? another disaster. who was the idiot running around playing a Big Man's game in Malmo? I think we brought a trio of idiots to Malmo to not do anything more than play physical.

 

[JackSlater]

Ya, my favorite example of that is Boone Jenner on the 2014 Malmo team running around with his Big Man's game and then in the end sobbing like a 5 year old on the blueline along with a few of the other dolts who were selected on that team for a specific role that had no business being there.

Edit: or was it in Ufa? another disaster. who was the idiot running around playing a Big Man's game in Malmo? I think we brought a trio of idiots to Malmo to not do anything more than play physical.

I don't mind Jenner, as at least he was good enough to make the team with or without excessive physicality. You may be thinking of Anthony Camara and his 31 penalty minutes in six not quite full games during the 2013 tournament. I am also getting memories of big but sluglike Griffin Reinhart, who really never should have made a WJC team, better yet two.

 

[1Gold Standard]

I don't mind Jenner, as at least he was good enough to make the team with or without excessive physicality. You may be thinking of Anthony Camara and his 31 penalty minutes in six not quite full games during the 2013 tournament. I am also getting memories of big but sluglike Griffin Reinhart, who really never should have made a WJC team, better yet two.

Ya, I never had much hope for the 2014 Malmo team. never liked most of the 94s as they were coming up through, and the only ones I did like were in the NHL already (Monahan).

In fact every 94 on that Malmo team is Still in the AHL except for 3 I believe. I remember arguing on several of theses threads that, I'd rather send all 95s + a sprinkle of 96s to Malmo.

and as down as I was on the 94s. The 98s are on that level. maybe even worse. that's a scary thought.



but of course

 

[PecnoTrunk]

Ya, I never had much hope for the 2014 Malmo team. never liked most of the 94s as they were coming up through, and the only ones I did like were in the NHL already (Monahan).

In fact every 94 on that Malmo team is Still in the AHL except for 3 I believe. I remember arguing on several of theses threads that, I'd rather send all 95s + a sprinkle of 96s to Malmo.

and as down as I was on the 94s. The 98s are on that level. maybe even worse. that's a scary thought.



but of course

The 98 s are bad. But they are bad for every country. I think our bad is better than anyone else's bad

In that ain't joking

I also believe our 2017 is better than other countries. I don't think 2017 is a strong draft.

 

[wings5]

Ya, I never had much hope for the 2014 Malmo team. never liked most of the 94s as they were coming up through, and the only ones I did like were in the NHL already (Monahan).

In fact every 94 on that Malmo team is Still in the AHL except for 3 I believe. I remember arguing on several of theses threads that, I'd rather send all 95s + a sprinkle of 96s to Malmo.

and as down as I was on the 94s. The 98s are on that level. maybe even worse. that's a scary thought.



but of course

Yeah the 98s are weak but the 94 forwards were pretty damn weak, they just had a good defence group to makeup for it. Forward wise, 98s are stronger for sure maybe in goal too, since Matt Murray wasn't as heralded in junior.