2014 Canada would take it. They weren't scoring much but all they needed is 1 goal or 2 tops to win. Defensively suffocating and puck possession off the charts.
Rank all the NHL-era olympic teams in a hypothetical round robin tournament.
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2014 Canada would take it. They weren't scoring much but all they needed is 1 goal or 2 tops to win. Defensively suffocating and puck possession off the charts.
OP is off his rocker... maybe just trolling.
This list here I can pretty much agree with with maybe the CDN 2014 team ahead of the 2002 team. The 2014 CDN team was just beast of a team that would have won even with Reimer in the net.
I would have to agree. No team was in such control throughout the entire tournament as 2014.
JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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Watching games, not only rosters on paper
Also ignoring your own stipulation that they will each play 63 games. A huge factor in the Olympic tournament is cohesion, with the teams that gel fastest often having a significant advantage. That advantage (along with another big factor in Olympic play, luck) almost disappears once the teams play that many games. Talent remains as by far the most significant factor. In a replay of the tournament in Olympic format, with only a few games for teams to come together, your list is somewhat reasonable. In your own scenario however, the most talented teams are going to dominate.
Watching games, not only rosters on paper
it would be an argument if those three canadian teams didn't win the olympics. But they did.
But he watched the games and that tells you more than you can read on paper.
Of coure he forgot to mention that his team was usually eliminated so he never caught the Gold Medal games...
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Incognito
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Watching games, not only rosters on paper
You didn't watch the games. There's no way you did, or else your rankings wouldn't be so terrible.
Not really. Sweden was never really that impressive in Sochi. Probably the worst silver-winning team ever. Canada and the U.S. were clearly superior in the preliminary round.
The U.S didn't look that great if I'm being honest. Personally, I thought Russia looked better in the game against them and I would have definitely put my money on Russia if they had met again in the medal round. Personally, I think Sweden and Canada were, if nothing else, the most consistent teams of the round robins.
Theokritos
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Arguable if ever means since 1998.
Arguable too. It just goes to show that it was a relatively underwhelming tournament overall. USA didn't look that great, Russia didn't look that great, Sweden didn't look that great. Neither did the Czech Republic. Not to mention Slovakia.
I agree that Russia looked better that game, but it was also the best game Russia played and one of the few instances where they played to their potential in recent years so even though they had a bad tournament I don't hold it against the U.S. too much that they got outplayed in Russia by Russia with Putin in the stands in the biggest game of the tournament up to that point.
Sweden was consistent, sure, but consistently unimpressive IMO. The first 10 minutes of the Czech game was the only part of the preliminary round where they looked legitimately scary - maybe the whole tournament. If Rask didn't get sick, I doubt they even make it to the final.
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Uncle Rotter
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In terms of play up to the Final it was probably better than some of the Gold medal winners (2002, 2006)
The 2006 Finland team is the best they've ever iced and it was really tough for me to watch them lose on what essentially came down a broken stick. Saku Koivu is my favorite player and I can't think of any other players who deserve a gold medal more than him. That said, they faced the best Swedish team ever in the final.
That said, I think Canada 2002 is the best Olympic team of the NHL era. They started off slow but by the end of the tournament you knew they weren't going to lose another game. Canada 2014 and Sweden 2006 are my 2 and 3 respectively.
That said, I think Canada 2002 is the best Olympic team of the NHL era. They started off slow but by the end of the tournament you knew they weren't going to lose another game. Canada 2014 and Sweden 2006 are my 2 and 3 respectively.
If we are talking about a schedule of 60+ games, while I don't like to admit it, I see some Canadian teams as the heavy favourites.
But as a general remark to the OP: you can't rank the teams based on their performance in a few games. Yeah, Finland might have played a good tournament in 2006, but take a quick look at their roster and for example the roster of Team Canada in 2002 and then tell me with a straight face that they come out on top in a season format with 60 games.
For me, Canada 2002 is the best team - if they buy into a system (and it really doesn't matter what system exactly), after 10 games they crush most of the other teams. Their 3rd and 4th lines are as good as most teams first, and their top lines are just scary.
Also I think the 2010 Russian team was a good team on paper, with some preparation they might be a serious threat as well (at least for place 4 after different Canadian teams).
But as a general remark to the OP: you can't rank the teams based on their performance in a few games. Yeah, Finland might have played a good tournament in 2006, but take a quick look at their roster and for example the roster of Team Canada in 2002 and then tell me with a straight face that they come out on top in a season format with 60 games.
For me, Canada 2002 is the best team - if they buy into a system (and it really doesn't matter what system exactly), after 10 games they crush most of the other teams. Their 3rd and 4th lines are as good as most teams first, and their top lines are just scary.
Also I think the 2010 Russian team was a good team on paper, with some preparation they might be a serious threat as well (at least for place 4 after different Canadian teams).
I think there are two differnet schools of thought here.
Let's compare Finnland 06 and Canada 02
Finnland went 7-1 and looked brilliant in most games and really had only one game that wasn't so special. This happened to be the gold medal game, of course. But it's not that they didn't have a chance to win.
The Canadian team went 4-1-1 and really didn't look all too special in 4 of their 6 games. Actually against Sweden and Germany they looked pathetic. Of course they won when it mattered and got gold.
Now, there are two different conclusions that can be drawn.
1. Finnland proved that they can play at a high quality level on a regular basis. Every team loses once in a while, that it happened to Finnland in the gold medal game was unlucky in the first place. Still they looked great over the course of 8 games, though. Hence they'd be the favorite to win a a long season. They simply were the most consistent and dominant team over the strech of 8 games, so why shouldn't they be the best team over 60 games. Especially compared to a team like 02 Canada that wasn't all that consistent,had terrible days and needed the biggest stage and high pressure to perform their best hockey. It's unlikly that they could show their gold medal performance consistently over a long period. They couldn't do it for 6 games, so why should they be able to do it over 60 games?
2. Team Canada 2002 had the best roster ever assembled and they won the gold medal. Their struggling of the first games doesn't mean anything as they knew that those games didn't really count at all. Once they had to win they did. They prooved to be the ebst and woud win every tournament, no matter what the format is. They simply have the best players.
Finnland looked great in 06 but who cares in the end. When it mattered most they choked. They only won meaningless games. No way they are better than team Canada.
Both conclusions are fine, imo. Everybody is free tho choose. Personally i go with conclusion number 1, that's how i came up with my ranking.
Let's compare Finnland 06 and Canada 02
Finnland went 7-1 and looked brilliant in most games and really had only one game that wasn't so special. This happened to be the gold medal game, of course. But it's not that they didn't have a chance to win.
The Canadian team went 4-1-1 and really didn't look all too special in 4 of their 6 games. Actually against Sweden and Germany they looked pathetic. Of course they won when it mattered and got gold.
Now, there are two different conclusions that can be drawn.
1. Finnland proved that they can play at a high quality level on a regular basis. Every team loses once in a while, that it happened to Finnland in the gold medal game was unlucky in the first place. Still they looked great over the course of 8 games, though. Hence they'd be the favorite to win a a long season. They simply were the most consistent and dominant team over the strech of 8 games, so why shouldn't they be the best team over 60 games. Especially compared to a team like 02 Canada that wasn't all that consistent,had terrible days and needed the biggest stage and high pressure to perform their best hockey. It's unlikly that they could show their gold medal performance consistently over a long period. They couldn't do it for 6 games, so why should they be able to do it over 60 games?
2. Team Canada 2002 had the best roster ever assembled and they won the gold medal. Their struggling of the first games doesn't mean anything as they knew that those games didn't really count at all. Once they had to win they did. They prooved to be the ebst and woud win every tournament, no matter what the format is. They simply have the best players.
Finnland looked great in 06 but who cares in the end. When it mattered most they choked. They only won meaningless games. No way they are better than team Canada.
Both conclusions are fine, imo. Everybody is free tho choose. Personally i go with conclusion number 1, that's how i came up with my ranking.
Finland didn't prove they could play at a high level over an extended period of time. They proved that they could play at a high level over 8 games. Attempting to extrapolate that over an hypothetical 60 game season is futile. You say they are the best most consistent team over 8 games so it should stand over 60 games. There are literally 1000s of examples in all sports where that just isn't true. The Philadelphia Flyers lost 7 of the first 8 games this year. And now they are 6th in the conference. They have won 38 of the 65 games since that streak. The Colorado Avalanche won 7 of the first 8 just as Finland did. In fact they won 12 of the first 13 games and are now only in fifth place in their conference. There are too many examples that prove 8 games is an insignificant sample size for a full hockey season.
I don't think you can compare 8 games at the olympics to 8 random games during a 82 game season.
The stakes are simply so much higher. Every single game is a lot mor emeaningful compared to 8 games in an NHl season.
Hence i think 8 game in the olympic can be rather compared to like 25-35 games in terms of rating consistency and so on.
The stakes are simply so much higher. Every single game is a lot mor emeaningful compared to 8 games in an NHl season.
Hence i think 8 game in the olympic can be rather compared to like 25-35 games in terms of rating consistency and so on.
The stakes are irrelevant here. I'm such demonstrating how a teams level of play can change over the course of a season.
You're not setting any precedents, you just keeping backing up in your argument and circling left. You're not looking establish criteria at all, you just don't want to make any concessions in any given post. Why are you trying to define "more meaningful games"? We already did that between the round robin and the medal games and you marginalized it in your favor. You can't sit on both sides of the fence.
I didn't pick 8 random games in an 82 season. I picked the FIRST 8 games of a season because they would be similar to the first 8 games of an Olympic tournament. New rosters who take time to gel, find their roles, and eventually play as a team. So the two 8 game examples I provided are perfectly apt.
The idea that I would need to compare it to 35 games is non-sense. A top line will have approximately 20 mins a game to play together. Over 8 games they would have approximately 160 mins of ice time together. That doesn't change whether its in the Olympics or the NHL. In fact the NHL is probably a better gauge because the discrepancy among the teams is far less than that of the Olympics. As bad as some NHL teams can play, they're still all NHL players. It's not like they're playing Austria or Latvia.
Not making any concessions?
"2. Team Canada 2002 had the best roster ever assembled and they won the gold medal. Their struggling of the first games doesn't mean anything as they knew that those games didn't really count at all. Once they had to win they did. They prooved to be the ebst and woud win every tournament, no matter what the format is. They simply have the best players.
Finnland looked great in 06 but who cares in the end. When it mattered most they choked. They only won meaningless games. No way they are better than team Canada."
I don't think anybody has made bigger concessions. I said i am absolutely fine with people who have diferent rankings.
I just don't agree that 8 games is a too small sample size, that's all.
Finland got great start, but lost the final game.
Canada got not-so-good start, but won over the US 5-2 with their best game right in the gold-medal game.
What is more important to you? The American team won everything in 2010, but didn't win the most important game. Slovakia won all 5 games in RR in 2006, but then lost the QF to Czechs. The history of any sport is similar to that. You can find these similar situations quite often. Spain lost to Switzerland in World Cup 2010. But they did win the final game.
Now, when the team, while starting slow, is able to win when it really matters, why should be our expectations different in this fictional tournament?
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