WC: TEAM USA

[William H Bonney]

Count out Samuelson, and likely Thompson too.





Brady Tkachuk declined

 

[William H Bonney]

The list of those that decline will be long and memorable.

They way it's going you wonder if they'll even get enough college players and journeymen to have a full roster...

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Here's my guess at a best case scenario:

Goaltenders (x3):

Casey DeSmith
Craig Anderson
Charlie Lindgren

Defense (x8):

Seth Jones-Caleb Jones
Cole McWard-Chris Wideman
Tyler Kleven-Trevor van Riemsdyk
Jake Walman-Noah Hanifin

Forwards (x12):

Jordan Greenway-Nick Bonino-Frank Vatrano
James van Riemsdyk-Tyler Johnson-Kevin Labanc
Sonny Milano-Ryan Poehling-Blake Coleman
Zach Sanford-Tommy Novak-Conor Garland

 

[William H Bonney]

Here's my guess at a "probable" team (LOL):

Goaltenders (x3):

Casey DeSmith
Craig Anderson
Dustin Wolf

Defense (x8):

Seth Jones-Caleb Jones
Cole McWard-Chris Wideman
Tyler Kleven-Trevor van Riemsdyk
Jake Walman-Noah Hanifin

Forwards (x12):

Jordan Greenway-Nick Bonino-Frank Vatrano
James van Riemsdyk-Shane Pinto-Kevin Labanc
Sonny Milano-Trevor Zegras-Blake Coleman
Zach Sanford-Tommy Novak-Conor Garland

Unfortunately, it's probably still too optimistic haha.

Wolf would only be available if his AHL team (best team in the league) is knocked out early from the playoffs.

Anderson just retired. I think they might contact him but he might be ready to start the next chapter.

Pinto already declined.

Zegras is an RFA staring down a huge deal, so I'd be surprised if he played unless a contract is done first.

 

[jaro]

Pinto first posible name? my roster prediction:

Bordeleau - Pinto - Bjork
Megna - Boyd - Pitlick
Joshua - Dries - MacDonald
Greenway - Cates - Erne

York - Peeke
Bayreuther - McWard
Schueneman - Kaiser
Thrun

1st goalie: some secondary NHLer
2nd goalie: some AHLer
3rd goalie: some Junior

My roster is most likely .. team level will be verry similar

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Unfortunately, it's probably still too optimistic haha.

Wolf would only be available if his AHL team (best team in the league) is knocked out early from the playoffs.

Anderson just retired. I think they might contact him but he might be ready to start the next chapter.

Pinto already declined.

Zegras is an RFA staring down a huge deal, so I'd be surprised if he played unless a contract is done first.

Made some edits. LOL. I think we're in for a historically bad team.

 

[William H Bonney]

Unless there a bunch of silent acceptances of consequence (i.e., Keller, Schmaltz, Farabee, Novak, Cooley, Hanifin, Fowler, etc.), it's not going to be a roster to get excited about.

If there aren't a bunch of silent accepters, I think we'll see more college players (i.e., Cooley, Snuggerud, Pietila, etc.) or recently signed ones:
- Drew Commesso who was probably getting an invite nonetheless
- Jacy LaCombe
- Drew Helleson
- Carter Mazur
- Matt Coronato
- Sean Farrell
- Henry Thrun
- Wyatt Kaiser
- Tyler Kleven
- Aidan McDonough

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Unless there a bunch of silent acceptances of consequence (i.e., Keller, Schmaltz, Farabee, Novak, Cooley, Hanifin, Fowler, etc.), it's not going to be a roster to get excited about.

If there aren't a bunch of silent accepters, I think we'll see more college players (i.e., Cooley, Snuggerud, etc.) or recently signed ones:
- Drew Commesso who was probably getting an invite nonetheless
- Jacy LaCombe
- Drew Helleson
- Carter Mazur
- Matt Coronato
- Sean Farrell
- Henry Thrun
- Wyatt Kaiser
- Tyler Kleven
- Aidan McDonough

Do you have a list of notable guys who have declined?

 

[William H Bonney]

Do you have a list of notable guys who have declined?

I have only seen declines so far and no acceptances.

Confirmed declines:

- Quinn Hughes
- Brady Tkachuk
- Jake Sanderson
- Shane Pinto
- Alex Debrincat

Confirmed injuries and shut down to end season, thus almost assured declines:

- Tage Thompson
- Mattias Samuelsson

I imagine we have some acceptances already and maybe at least a couple guys that would make us excited. But I imagine the list of declines is longer and we just haven't heard about them yet, either.

 

[William H Bonney]

Can probably count out Dylan Larkin as per Kevin Allen:

[Larkin] was dealing with an injury late in the season. Plus, he’s getting married this summer

Canada Wants Tanguay For Worlds; Lalonde Expected to Join USA Staff

Detroit Red Wings assistant coach Alex Tanguay, who handles the team’s power play, has been selected to be an assistant coach for Canada at the upcoming World Championships. Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman is the associate general manager of the Canadian team. St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong is...

detroithockeynow.com

 

[William H Bonney]

Joel Farabee was not explicitly asked as far as I can tell but based on his answer for his summer plans, I think he declined, too.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Why is it that USA every year gets so many declines?

 

[jaro]

Why is it that USA every year gets so many declines?

USA 2018-2019 - Roster, Stats & more

USA - WC - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com

www.eliteprospects.com

not every year, but yes, last years it is weak

 

[William H Bonney]

USA 2018-2019 - Roster, Stats & more

USA - WC - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com

www.eliteprospects.com

not every year, but yes, last years it is weak

Most years it's weak, especially relative to the players who declined.

We've had a couple of tournaments where we've built a strong team but usually still with a glaring weakness (i.e., no good goalie wanted to play, year we had no RHD, etc.)

 

[William H Bonney]

Why is it that USA every year gets so many declines?

I'm sure it's complicated and a mix of a lot of factors but IMO some of the biggest:

1. Unlike In Europe, the tournament is not popular in the US with fans or players. It doesn't even register in the US. Our player pool doesn't grow up watching the tournament or caring about it, so there is little dream or commitment to playing in it.​

​

2. There are no media pressures on the players to play. The US hockey media barely reports on it let alone covers it. Players aren't scrutinized for choosing to decline, so they feel no pressure to play unlike most of the other hockey countries.​

​

3. USAH doesn't pressure players, either, by factoring in their WC participation when choosing best-on-best teams (if those tournaments ever exist again). In fact, USAH has been on the record that they don't (can't) expect players to play often, which makes it even easier for them to decline.​

​

4. The above issues make it really easy for players to decline for weak excuses. There are endless examples of players declining because they want to work out over the summer, take college classes, take a vacation, or have minor bumps and bruises. They decline because they don't care for the most part and nothing else.​

​

5. USAH doesn't offer the same perks (i.e., accommodations, paying for travel for family, etc.) to its players that the other countries do. Patrick O'Sullivan went deep on this after playing for Team USA at the WC. And while the players can afford those things, it certainly doesn't help the player recruiting.​

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6. When players do show up, the commitment level is varied. Of course, they want to win but IMO it's not always been the top priority of players over treating the tournament like a party or vacation.​

​

7. The NTDP isn't having the effect on player pride in representing Team USA as much as people think. USAH has struggled to get that pride to transverse junior <-> senior hockey. And it's not that surprising. At the junior level, it's more attractive to play for the national team than some USHL or CHL team in a random city. The NTDP perks are also enormous in terms of facilities, international tournaments, etc. The cards are stacked differently when players start making a ton of money, start getting married or having kids, start to see hockey as a job, etc. It's why we have some decent representation from NTDP players when they're still young in their first couple of WC invites and then they stop bothering to play.​

​

8. USAH doesn't seem to treat the tournament seriously with the endless coaching retreads, shrugged shoulders approach to trying to get players to play, or baffling roster decisions. For example, on the latter, there's been multiple times we've maxed out our roster unnecessarily and then been unable to add star players eliminated from the playoffs who wanted to play (Zach Parise was a famous example when he was in his prime).​

 

[William H Bonney]

If I was in power at USAH I would:

1. Stop pretending like USAH can increase the player pool depth in a significant way in the near term to make the like 90%+ decline rates a non-factor. This seems to be their only real current approach.​

​

2. Establish criteria for dictating inclusion on future Team USA rosters.​

- For example, if a player doesn't play in at least 33% of WCs when invited (without valid excuse like significant injury or baby birth within X weeks of tournament), they will not be under consideration for the next best-on-best tournament.​

- Or if no best-on-best tournaments are in place (like now), exclude players from inclusion in any Team USA roster for say 5 years if they decline 2 straight invites before they get another chance.​

- We'd probably lose players because of it but so be it. And in a world with no best-on-best tournaments, we need to start treating the tournaments that do exist seriously.​

​

3. Start reporting on the invited players and their decisions as a federation. And leverage the media from there.​

 

[MTU34]

Unless there a bunch of silent acceptances of consequence (i.e., Keller, Schmaltz, Farabee, Novak, Cooley, Hanifin, Fowler, etc.), it's not going to be a roster to get excited about.

If there aren't a bunch of silent accepters, I think we'll see more college players (i.e., Cooley, Snuggerud, Pietila, etc.) or recently signed ones:
- Drew Commesso who was probably getting an invite nonetheless
- Jacy LaCombe
- Drew Helleson
- Carter Mazur
- Matt Coronato
- Sean Farrell
- Henry Thrun
- Wyatt Kaiser
- Tyler Kleven
- Aidan McDonough

Is that Blake Pietila you’re talking about?

 

[SK94]

Some thoughts:

- I agree what Bonney said above. We sometimes give a lot of stick for players because they don't want to play but it is not rewarding to go when people could not care less at back home. That said, I would respect honesty rather than some of these weak ass excuses like to get married in the summer. Please.

- Our better results are just because our depth is so good these days. We can send these half good teams and they can still compete for a medal.

- European countries are running programs for this tournament and playing games with their European based player pools during the season so they can be ready when they get a lot of declines like North American countries. It is not just talked about that much. An end of the day if you don't count Russia, every nation is struggling to attract their top NHL players to come.

- I think it is time to scratch this tournament because it is not World Championships. Europeans should just call it a European Championship if they want to keep it alive. Then they can allow the US and Canada to compete or not. I don't really care. NHL and IIHF should work together and create a real World Cup (like in soccer) and it would be played every four years. Olympics should be played with U20 teams.

 

[Boonk]

Some thoughts:

- I agree what Bonney said above. We sometimes give a lot of stick for players because they don't want to play but it is not rewarding to go when people could not care less at back home. That said, I would respect honesty rather than some of these weak ass excuses like to get married in the summer. Please.

- Our better results are just because our depth is so good these days. We can send these half good teams and they can still compete for a medal.

- European countries are running programs for this tournament and playing games with their European based player pools during the season so they can be ready when they get a lot of declines like North American countries. It is not just talked about that much. An end of the day if you don't count Russia, every nation is struggling to attract their top NHL players to come.

- I think it is time to scratch this tournament because it is not World Championships. Europeans should just call it a European Championship if they want to keep it alive. Then they can allow the US and Canada to compete or not. I don't really care. NHL and IIHF should work together and create a real World Cup (like in soccer) and it would be played every four years. Olympics should be played with U20 teams.

No it shouldn’t, it has never been played with U20s and there are whole qualification campaigns that senior teams play through.

 

[Eye of Ra]

I'm sure it's complicated and a mix of a lot of factors but IMO some of the biggest:

1. Unlike In Europe, the tournament is not popular in the US with fans or players. It doesn't even register in the US. Our player pool doesn't grow up watching the tournament or caring about it, so there is little dream or commitment to playing in it.​

​

​

Canada has no problems getting good teams every year, even thought this tournament is not popular in Canada either.

 

[jj cale]

Canada has no problems getting good teams every year, even thought this tournament is not popular in Canada either.

The U.S is in a different situation then Canada in that while it's not a huge tournament in Canada it does have some decent popularity, and is covered every year by TSN. Media coverage of it in the U.S is non existent and fan interest is zero aside from the most hard core of hard core of fans there.

 

[Eye of Ra]

The U.S is in a different situation then Canada in that while it's not a huge tournament in Canada it does have some decent popularity, and is covered every year by TSN. Media coverage of it in the U.S is non existent and fan interest is zero aside from the most hard core of hard core of fans there.

I see. Still, USA have so many active players in NHL, AHL, NCAA, Europe they should still do better in the worlds even with many declines.

 

[jj cale]

I see. Still, USA have so many active players in NHL, AHL, NCAA, Europe they should still do better in the worlds even with many declines.

Those NCAA.AHL/Europe based players aren't getting prepared for this tournament as a team like the European based teams as was mentioned above by sk94.


European teams have an advantage going into this tournament over the North American teams period, be they the U.S or Canada.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Those NCAA.AHL/Europe based players aren't getting prepared for this tournament as a team like the European based teams as was mentioned above by sk94.


European teams has an advantage going into this tournament over the North American teams period, be they the U.S or Canada.

I think both Canada and USA should be part of EHT. They have been it before and it went well.

 

[William H Bonney]

OMG we have a tentative acceptance. I repeat we have a tentative acceptance. And it's a great get if he doesn't back out. We've had it happen before. A couple of years ago with Mittelstadt as an example.