How is Canada not more dominant?

[Nordic*]

Player for player, no other nation comes even close to Canada. How are they not winning every single best on best tournament, and dominantly so?

I mean, let's view the other top nations to see how many players would make team Canada.

Sweden: 4-5.
USA: 2-3?
Finland: 0
Russia: 2-3?
Czechs: 0
Slovakia: 0
Swiss: 0...or perhaps Josi.

Sweden's team game is pretty horrid compared to Finland(s), who is the best in the world at getting 110% out of their rosters. Is Canada perhaps even worse than Sweden when it comes to this, how else are they not totally dominant?

Thoughts?

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[Conspiracy Theorist]

I'd only take Sweden's defensemen in Finland's roster.

 

[Nordic*]

I'd only take Sweden's defensemen in Finland's roster.

Think you're alone in having that opinion.

 

[JackSlater]

Canada has won 4 of the last 5 best on best tournaments, and 8 of 12 overall. Looks pretty dominant considering most of them were single elimination format. Canada always sends the best roster, but all teams lose sometimes.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Finland's goalies would fit in any team.

 

[Bear12Good]

Finland's goalies would fit in any team.

Nope.
Canadian goalies better)

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Nope.
Canadian goalies better)

They have only Price

 

[Nordic*]

Finland's goalies would fit in any team.

Nope.

Price, Lundqvist, Quick etc. are better.

 

[hockeykicker]

For Russia wouldn't you say that ovechkin, Malkin, tarsenko, datsyuk, kucherov, Panarin and maybe even kuznetsov could make team canada? (Not including goalies)

They would have at least 5 or 6 Imo

 

[habsrule4eva3089]

In regards to population and elite players and forming teams and depth of talent.

India has 1 billion people.

Every child born in that country plays Cricket, yet Australia has won 4 out of the past 5 World Cups.

Luck and a whole other bunch of variables is also involved. A tournament every 4 years in a one game scenario basically decides supremacy in every sport, the consistency of Canada is amazing, but it won't last forever. The luck will run out.

As we see, more and more elite players from being developed in other countries whereas we only saw this in Canada for a short while in the middle part of last decade. The competiveness of international Hockey will pick up, from the next games in 2018 but more so from 2022.

 

[tade]

For Russia wouldn't you say that ovechkin, Malkin, tarsenko, datsyuk, kucherov, Panarin and maybe even kuznetsov could make team canada? (Not including goalies)

They would have at least 5 or 6 Imo

Datsyuk, Panarin, Kuznetsov - no.

Ovechkin, Malkin, Tarasenko - yes.

Kucherov - maybe.

 

[oobga]

Unexpected things happen all the time when a team can be eliminated with 1 loss.

 

[Sonic Disturbance]

For Russia wouldn't you say that ovechkin, Malkin, tarsenko, datsyuk, kucherov, Panarin and maybe even kuznetsov could make team canada? (Not including goalies)

They would have at least 5 or 6 Imo

Ovechkin - Yes
Malkin - Yes
Tarasenko - Probably
Kucherov - Unlikely
Panarin - Nope
Kuznetsov - Nope
Datsyuk - Nope

Guys like Hall, Perry, O'Rielly, Couture etc. all got cut.

 

[Nordic*]

In an all world team you'll see forwards from Canada, USA and Russia - defencemen from Sweden and Canada - and goalies would probably be Price, Lundqvist and Quick.

 

[Stand Witness]

Its 1 game to determine who is better between nations and anything can happen. Canada is still winning but the quality of competition is getting closer and closer. Canada has always had the advantage when it comes to depth but other teams can send out top end talent close to Canada's.

At the same time if teams are only lacking the depth when it comes to their bottom 6 and bottom pairing Dmen, they will probably fair off against Canada pretty good. Ice time is always going to favour the top lines so if they are closer in skill then it should help even out the scoring. For example just look at the scoring leaders for Canada. All of these guys would be leading their own teams in scoring and are a lot closer in talent levels than it might appear: http://stats.iihf.com/Hydra/388/IHM400000_83_60_0_CAN.pdf.

 

[Gsus]

Others are catching that's the reason.

and goalies would probably be Price, Lundqvist and Quick.

Quick can be questioned with Rinne or Rask. Just swap Boston's defence with Kings and you'll see that Quick and Rask for example are close at least.

 

[Regal]

Canada has won 4 of the last 5 best on best tournaments, and 8 of 12 overall. Looks pretty dominant considering most of them were single elimination format. Canada always sends the best roster, but all teams lose sometimes.

Yup. Make it a 7 game playoff style tournament and those wins likely go up. As well, I'd say the late 90s to mid 2000s was a bit of a lull for Canadian talent, and a boom for some of the other nations, while it seems to be the opposite right now, hence Canada's recent successes, and struggles 10+ years ago. Czech Republic and Slovakia used to be much stronger, Russia's defense has been lacking in recent years, though there seems to be more promising young guys coming down the pipeline, Sweden's forward corps isn't as strong as it used to be, etc.

 

[Yakushev72]

This is why the World Cup will be, more than anything else, unbelievably boring. Canada has no competition at all at this tournament, so they could give Canada the trophy now and just fill in the box scores later. Let's not try to hype some kind of "anything can happen" crap, nothing other than a Canadian victory can happen. Even if there were a team that could compete, the advantages to the Canadians are so overwhelming by the location, format, nationalities of referees and administrators, and any other way you can measure it. The World Cup is designed to manufacture another reason to try to get their fans to celebrate their greatness and, most of all, spend money.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Others are catching that's the reason.


Quick can be questioned with Rinne or Rask. Just swap Boston's defence with Kings and you'll see that Quick and Rask for example are close at least.

Swap LA Kings' defense with Boston's and you'll see Quick isn't good.

 

[Nordic*]

Sadly enough, aside from the goalies, I think that the second strongest team after Canada - is team North America.

 

[Pandaman11]

How are they not winning every single best on best tournament, and dominantly so?

Because sports isn't math.

 

[Scotty B]

Sadly enough, aside from the goalies, I think that the second strongest team after Canada - is team North America.

Lotz of doom and gloom on their side of the pond, but after Canada, I think the best WC lineups are Russia, followed by Sweden...Then comes, in my mind, North America's Young Gunz...though many would doubtless disagree

 

[Scotty B]

Lotz of doom and gloom on their side of the pond, but after Canada, I think the best WC lineups are Russia, followed by Sweden...Then comes, in my mind, North America's Young Gunz...though many would doubtless disagree

PS: Young Gunz look solid in goal...

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

Just how much more dominant do you want Canada to be?

 

[Canuckistani]

All things considered, Canada is as dominant as can be expected.

And of the four best-on-best that Canada has lost, they could easily have won in 1996 and 1998 with a lucky bounce.

Even the USSR lost twice at the Olympics to amateur US players, so how can Canada always be expected to win when facing everyone else's best? Not gonna happen.