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Olympic Hockey Thread IV

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ColonialsHockey10 said:
Like someone mentioned above, Okposo has been a pedestrian player his entire career and was on a hot streak with a top 3 forward in the game.

Byfuglien is one of those guys that's constantly being shuffled between D and forward. Where does he fit. Justin Faulk has a ****ing cannon, he just played 1 game. :laugh:

EJ is a solid, unspectacular disappointment, and has always been that.

Yandle is just beyond overrated.

Ryan is indeed void of intensity. You know who's out scoring him the past 2 years? Our 12th forward, Blake Wheeler.

The fact that the "experts" on television were saying Jack Johnson was a big emission exemplifies why this sport is second tier. He blows. If I stay at work an extra hour a day will they promote me to Chairman of the Board? He gets to play Hockey in another country for a couple extra weeks each year. Man, what a patriot!

They certainly were capable of making the team, but I don't think they would have added an element that team USA was lacking. It's a semantics argument; if Kane and Parise play a little better chances are we're in the gold medal game.
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Have you watched Okposo at all this year? I go to a lot of Islanders games, since they're cheap and I live 20 minutes from the stadium. He has been the more dominant player on that line. Absolutely unstoppable all season. Sure, in prior years, he wasn't as consistent, but anyone attributing his success to JT this season has absolutely not watched him outside of a few games.

As for Buff, he has been shuffled ONCE since moving over to the Jets and that was by a coach who was trying to save his job.

EJ has been extremely good for Colorado this year. He's one of the reasons they are doing as well as they are.

Bobby Ryan will score 30 goals again this year. How many USA players are outscoring Blake Wheeler? Bobby Ryan knows how to score goals, team USA didn't.

Jack Johnson has been absolutely amazing in international play. On top of that, he has been mediocre on Columbus, but certainly not as bad as you make him out to be. You are clearly one of those people who judges him on his placement in the draft selection instead of his actual level of play.

Now, I don't know that any of these guys would/should/could have made a difference in Sochi, but acting like they are not worthy and pointing out, in your eyes, that they are mediocre players subject to their environments is just asinine.

Honestly, I disagree with all of your assessments on each of these individuals. Most strongly, your one of Okposo, which screams mounds about how much you actually watch the guy. He has been better then any Ranger this year.
 
ColonialsHockey10 said:
Like someone mentioned above, Okposo has been a pedestrian player his entire career and was on a hot streak with a top 3 forward in the game.

Byfuglien is one of those guys that's constantly being shuffled between D and forward. Where does he fit. Justin Faulk has a ****ing cannon, he just played 1 game. :laugh:

EJ is a solid, unspectacular disappointment, and has always been that.

Yandle is just beyond overrated.

Ryan is indeed void of intensity. You know who's out scoring him the past 2 years? Our 12th forward, Blake Wheeler.

The fact that the "experts" on television were saying Jack Johnson was a big emission exemplifies why this sport is second tier. He blows. If I stay at work an extra hour a day will they promote me to Chairman of the Board? He gets to play Hockey in another country for a couple extra weeks each year. Man, what a patriot!

They certainly were capable of making the team, but I don't think they would have added an element that team USA was lacking. It's a semantics argument; if Kane and Parise play a little better chances are we're in the gold medal game.
Click to expand...

I was just referring to a more physical presence. I realize that my observations are hindsight. Team USA had an awful lot of skill.
Reading around the web, I doubt that the USA Hockey program is on the wrong track. The tournaments are crazy.

Regardless of the fact that I always get interested in International hockey, I still remember that it takes a best-of series to establish a real winner. The NHL and the Stanley Cup is still the epitome of hockey supremacy for me.
 
AHB said:
How about all the other games in the tournament.......

But it makes sense to just focus on this one, right? Guess McD was an absolutely awful choice then. :shakehead
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Orpik was fine the rest of the tourney and so was the coaching. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

If Yandle was on the team instead of Orpik, we still might have lost and, if we did, the complaint would be that our back end wasn't physical enough.
 
trilobyte said:
I was just referring to a more physical presence. I realize that my observations are hindsight. Team USA had an awful lot of skill.
Reading around the web, I doubt that the USA Hockey program is on the wrong track. The tournaments are crazy.

Regardless of the fact that I always get interested in International hockey, I still remember that it takes a best-of series to establish a real winner. The NHL and the Stanley Cup is still the epitome of hockey supremacy for me.
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No doubt about it.

In regards to physicality, I think they had plenty. Honestly like I said, it's a semantics game, the players I mentioned COULD have been on the team. Who knows how much it would change though.
 
Tawnos said:
Orpik was fine the rest of the tourney and so was the coaching. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.

If Yandle was on the team instead of Orpik, we still might have lost and, if we did, the complaint would be that our back end wasn't physical enough.
Click to expand...

This tournament is not about being fine. And Orpik got beat numerous times. Notably in the Russian game and he was also out of position in the goal against Canada, caught standing still.

You need elite players in this tournament. Orpik is not elite. There are a plethora of US D-Men who are. He shouldn't have been on this team.

And the coaching was poor as well. 3 games against good teams, not one even strength goal. Yet the only line change was swapping Maxpac and Brown on the 3rd and fourth lines and giving Wheeler a tad more ice-time.

I'm not a fan of constant like juggling like Torts did, but to not do anything when your team is flatter then a pancake two games in a row is absurd.
 
AHB said:
This tournament is not about being fine. And Orpik got beat numerous times. Notably in the Russian game and he was also out of position in the goal against Canada, caught standing still.

You need elite players in this tournament. Orpik is not elite. There are a plethora of US D-Men who are. He shouldn't have been on this team.

And the coaching was poor as well. 3 games against good teams, not one even strength goal. Yet the only line change was swapping Maxpac and Brown on the 3rd and fourth lines and giving Wheeler a tad more ice-time.

I'm not a fan of constant like juggling like Torts did, but to not do anything when your team is flatter then a pancake two games in a row is absurd.
Click to expand...

"Fine" as in "on par" with the other teams in the semis. In fact, the US coaching was worlds above any coaching in the tournament aside from the three medal teams and Latvia (who employed Teddy Nolan).

Orpik was standing still on the Canadian goal? Yeah, well Callahan WAAAAAY over-committed on that play. A single play in a game really doesn't tell much of a story.

I think you're nitpicking. The US played Canada to a standstill. One breakdown in the game was all it took. It could have gone the other way and didn't. Single game playoffs don't tell you much about one team's ability or coaching compared to another's.
 
AHB said:
This tournament is not about being fine. And Orpik got beat numerous times. Notably in the Russian game and he was also out of position in the goal against Canada, caught standing still.

You need elite players in this tournament. Orpik is not elite. There are a plethora of US D-Men who are. He shouldn't have been on this team.

And the coaching was poor as well. 3 games against good teams, not one even strength goal. Yet the only line change was swapping Maxpac and Brown on the 3rd and fourth lines and giving Wheeler a tad more ice-time.

I'm not a fan of constant like juggling like Torts did, but to not do anything when your team is flatter then a pancake two games in a row is absurd.
Click to expand...

Players like J.Johnson, Yandle, Byfuglien, E. Johnson, etc, get caught out of position even more than Orpik.

Orpik is the cool guy to hate. Before the Olympics started people predicted that his ability was so beneath his Olympic competitors that he would be getting burned on every shift. What an exaggeration that turned out to be. The Orpik selection was not the reason why they failed to bring home a medal.
 
AHB said:
Have you watched Okposo at all this year? I go to a lot of Islanders games, since they're cheap and I live 20 minutes from the stadium. He has been the more dominant player on that line. Absolutely unstoppable all season. Sure, in prior years, he wasn't as consistent, but anyone attributing his success to JT this season has absolutely not watched him outside of a few games.

As for Buff, he has been shuffled ONCE since moving over to the Jets and that was by a coach who was trying to save his job.

EJ has been extremely good for Colorado this year. He's one of the reasons they are doing as well as they are.

Bobby Ryan will score 30 goals again this year. How many USA players are outscoring Blake Wheeler? Bobby Ryan knows how to score goals, team USA didn't.

Jack Johnson has been absolutely amazing in international play. On top of that, he has been mediocre on Columbus, but certainly not as bad as you make him out to be. You are clearly one of those people who judges him on his placement in the draft selection instead of his actual level of play.

Now, I don't know that any of these guys would/should/could have made a difference in Sochi, but acting like they are not worthy and pointing out, in your eyes, that they are mediocre players subject to their environments is just asinine.

Honestly, I disagree with all of your assessments on each of these individuals. Most strongly, your one of Okposo, which screams mounds about how much you actually watch the guy. He has been better then any Ranger this year.
Click to expand...

Man, you're just craving an argument in this thread.

Okposo: I have watched him plenty this year. 40 games doesn't earn you a spot on team USA. It's as simple as that. A lot more time was put into this roster than 40 games. If that were the barometer, Kreider is a top 6 forward on this squad, and 3/4 of our "leadership" group is at home eating cereal.

Buff: I chuckled at this. It doesn't matter how many times he was shifted, it's the fact that he WAS shifted. And you want him on a ****ing all star team? :laugh:

Erik Johnson: He's a solid defenseman, there's nothing more to say. He could have made the team, but he didn't. In regards to his season, see above for Okposo, 40 games doesn't earn you a spot on this team.

Bobby Ryan: You must have been watching the games on mute, because clearly the announcers saying 50x how many top 15 NHL scorers team USA had didn't register in your brain. They went cold at the wrong time, it happens. Bringing a charmin' soft forward with no intensity to the games when the team already was loaded with scorers is redundant. There's no place for people to be Captain Hindsight here.

Jack Johnson: I'm really not one to preach reputation on these boards, because I think it's a little ridiculous, but it's laughable that a poster who has been here for 1 month would accuse me of how I evaluate players. I'm sure plenty of people who have read my posts on here know that draft stock is the last thing that goes into how I evaluate an NHL player. Is he bad for his draft status? Yeah, absolutely, but he's a crap defenseman anyway. A bunch of guys who didn't make the team certainly could have, and Jack Johnson is not one of them. I wasn't aware NHL players have a "tournament mode" built into their bodies where you know they will elevate it for special events. The last few World Championships have been in Germany, Slovakia, Russia, etc. The chance to play hockey in beautiful countries on another continent, the horror! :shakehead
 
Tawnos said:
"Fine" as in "on par" with the other teams in the semis. In fact, the US coaching was worlds above any coaching in the tournament aside from the three medal teams and Latvia (who employed Teddy Nolan).

Orpik was standing still on the Canadian goal? Yeah, well Callahan WAAAAAY over-committed on that play. A single play in a game really doesn't tell much of a story.

I think you're nitpicking. The US played Canada to a standstill. One breakdown in the game was all it took. It could have gone the other way and didn't. Single game playoffs don't tell you much about one team's ability or coaching compared to another's.
Click to expand...

Canada dominated the US that entire game. If not for Quick it would have been a 4 or 5 goal game for them. We didn't play them to a standstill.

ColonialsHockey10 said:
Man, you're just craving an argument in this thread.

Okposo: I have watched him plenty this year. 40 games doesn't earn you a spot on team USA. It's as simple as that. A lot more time was put into this roster than 40 games. If that were the barometer, Kreider is a top 6 forward on this squad, and 3/4 of our "leadership" group is at home eating cereal.

Buff: I chuckled at this. It doesn't matter how many times he was shifted, it's the fact that he WAS shifted. And you want him on a ****ing all star team? :laugh:

Erik Johnson: He's a solid defenseman, there's nothing more to say. He could have made the team, but he didn't. In regards to his season, see above for Okposo, 40 games doesn't earn you a spot on this team.

Bobby Ryan: You must have been watching the games on mute, because clearly the announcers saying 50x how many top 15 NHL scorers team USA had didn't register in your brain. They went cold at the wrong time, it happens. Bringing a charmin' soft forward with no intensity to the games when the team already was loaded with scorers is redundant. There's no place for people to be Captain Hindsight here.

Jack Johnson: I'm really not one to preach reputation on these boards, because I think it's a little ridiculous, but it's laughable that a poster who has been here for 1 month would accuse me of how I evaluate players. I'm sure plenty of people who have read my posts on here know that draft stock is the last thing that goes into how I evaluate an NHL player. Is he bad for his draft status? Yeah, absolutely, but he's a crap defenseman anyway. A bunch of guys who didn't make the team certainly could have, and Jack Johnson is not one of them. I wasn't aware NHL players have a "tournament mode" built into their bodies where you know they will elevate it for special events. The last few World Championships have been in Germany, Slovakia, Russia, etc. The chance to play hockey in beautiful countries on another continent, the horror! :shakehead
Click to expand...

And that's my point, you don't bring guys based on past achievements, you bring them on how good they are playing in recent memory. Choosing guys based on the past, like they did with Brown and Orpik is a clear mistake. Both have been flat all season and both were flat in this tournament.

As for the "you've been here for one month comment" I've been following these boards for 5 years. Not everyone makes a profile and decides to join the discussion. I enjoyed observing most of the time. And a lot of the reason is for comments like this that belittle new posters as if they have no knowledge due to their newer membership.

I'll leave this one though, since you have been here longer, you've clearly earned the right to dominate this discussion...
 
I belittled you because you accused me of baseless nonsense. You quoted my response to another poster and just jumped right in on the accusations.

And I'm happy to end the discussion. There's no room for playing hindsight on a 2 week long tournament.

Jack Johnson certainly doesn't fit your criteria for who should make this team. :laugh:
 
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Tawnos said:
"Fine" as in "on par" with the other teams in the semis. In fact, the US coaching was worlds above any coaching in the tournament aside from the three medal teams and Latvia (who employed Teddy Nolan).

Orpik was standing still on the Canadian goal? Yeah, well Callahan WAAAAAY over-committed on that play. A single play in a game really doesn't tell much of a story.

I think you're nitpicking. The US played Canada to a standstill. One breakdown in the game was all it took. It could have gone the other way and didn't. Single game playoffs don't tell you much about one team's ability or coaching compared to another's.
Click to expand...

I just don't see how you can let Orpik off the hook. He was terrible all series. Blaming Cally for that is way off base. The play Cally made, while, in hindsight, was not ideal, would have been forgotten had Orpik decided not to imitate a street sign.
 
Find it hard to believe that the way Canada played against us any other additions/subtractions to our lineup was going to make a difference. We were not going to win that game. Basically down the middle and on the top pairings Canada had it all over us and it showed. Carey Price had a laugher of a game. The United States had no sustained forecheck while the Canadians were cycling in our end the whole night. Bobby Ryan, Dustin Bufyglien, Kyle Okposo were not going to make any difference. Erik Johnson--Keith Yandle and maybe a few others might have been an upgrade on Orpik--enough to make a difference against Canada?--I doubt it.

The United States does not have the center strength or enough high end d-men.
 
I guess I will catch a few zzzz's and get up for the game. all that razzle-dazzle about the impending mystery trade has got me all worked up.
 
Backstrom is out with a migraine potentially and people on the Olympic board are calling him a wuss. Are these people joking? Hahahaha, idiots.
 
I really hope Sweden wins just to shut up some of the arrogant Canadian fans on these boards. They barely beat the US and Latvia and now they think team canada could beat an all world team. Some guys on the main boards calling this an easy win for Canada.
 
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