JackSlater
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"The Canadian Way"
- Thread starter Rabid Ranger
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JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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Canada's dominance at centre is ridiculous right now. That's where the strength is. Canada also has the best group of defencemen currently, but Sweden has been doing a great job with young defencemen, while Canada hasn't been great there since the 2008 draft. Considering Canada's sizable edge in hockey resources, they must be doing something very good in that area.
Hedman and OEL are the biggest pieces Sweden has got from defence since 2008 and none of them would crack the Canadian Olympic Roster. Kylington is still a unknown piece even though he is looking good, sure we haven't got much since 2008 but it might be showing now with Ekblad going 1st overall in 2014, Sean Day exceptional status, Chychurn as a potential 1st overall for 2016. If you watched the U17 camps the defence was probably the most outstanding for Hockey Canada with kids like Fabbro, Mete, Girard, Green along with Day and Chychurn. I know that's a long way but Keith, Weber and Subban were 2nd rounders and where the player was drafted isn't the way to look at our development we should be looking at results, a 2nd round defencemen like Ronald McKeown might just be on our Olympic Team in 2018.
P.K Subban was drafted in 2007, he didn't make the 2010 team so it isn't fair to look at 2011 draftees and wonder why they didn't make the 2014 team.
2012 was a great year for Canadian defencemen, we got Murray, Reinhart, Rielly, Dumba, Pouliot, Koekkoek all drafted in the top 10 as defencemen. I think some potential Olympic defenceman we might have are Murray, Rielly, Pouliot, Ekblad, Morrissey, Fleury. It isn't too bad, I liked Pouliot and Ekblad alot at last years WJC. Rielly, Murray have potential who are getting into their sophomore year and Morrissey with a great year in the WHL, Fleury with a great summer camp who we expect to make the WJC along with a good year in the WHL.
JackSlater
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It doesn't matter if Ekman-Larsson or Hedman would make the team now (I think both would have had a shot at least this time) but they look like players that would be strong bets to make the Canadian team going forward. Brodin and Lindholm performed exceptionally well as young defencemen too. Canada hasn't been bad here (Day and Chychrun are American products, so not really examples of Canada producing defencemen but Murray, Hamilton and Rielly all look promising at least), and you are correct that projecting defencemen is very difficult, but Sweden has been doing very good things at that position with far fewer players than Canada. That is worth taking a look at.
I agree that we should look at it but I don't think it is any cause for concern because we are IMO at the top of it, the Olympics showed our defence is good.
JackSlater
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I never said it was a cause for concern. Even casually following the NHL would indicate that Canada's group of defencemen are the best for the time being, regardless of the Olympics.
1Gold Standard
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No matter what we perceive our particular strengths to be, we should always be open and willing to exchange ideas with other federations if they are doing something right in that particular area.
Let's not have a repeat of our goaltending "situation" of 15 years ago when it was believed Quebec would spit out 2-3 Hall of Fame goalies every year. We sort of dropped the ball on that one... but to be fair, that wasn't the only contributing factor...
I really don't think defence is something we should even look at, we're doing great at that part of hockey. Goaltending is the only problem but we don't have to go around and try to fix every little thing just because a defenceman drafted since 2009 didn't make the Olympics. Could use that money in better ways instead of trying to tweak every little thing, we'll never run out of Drew Doughtys, Duncan Keiths or Shea Webers.
JackSlater
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That is the exact attitude that leads to problems like Canada is currently having with goaltending. In 2002 Canada had Brodeur, Joseph and Belfour as goaltenders at the Olympics with Roy at home and a young Luongo constantly improving. Fast forward ten years and the situation is completely different. The defencemen are great now, but that does not mean they always will be. Canada isn't automatically entitled to having the best defencemen in hockey perpetually. What Canada is doing with defencemen does not need to be "fixed" but instead constantly improved. Of course defence should be looked at, as should forward and goaltending.
The point with defencemen is not that none since 2009 made the Olympic team in 2014, so I don't know why you focus on that. The point is that they seem like a bit of a step back from the 2003-2008 group of defencemen. There are certainly worse problem to have, but it's better to make steady improvements than to just wait for the bottom to drop out (relatively speaking) like what has happened with goaltenders in Canada.
Well said.
Underneath complacency is the whiff of the stench of arrogance and we cannot afford to engage in that considering the challenges we face ahead.
That type of thinking is the exact thing that directed Russian hockey downward.
Underneath complacency is the whiff of the stench of arrogance and we cannot afford to engage in that considering the challenges we face ahead.
That type of thinking is the exact thing that directed Russian hockey downward.
SanDogBrewin
Righteous bucks!
As an example - Do you think it was coaching in Finland's hockey development that produced Rask, Niemi, Lehtonen, Ramo, Raanta or Rinne recently ? or cyclical ?
Is it Canada's goalie coaching in the development or cyclical ?
Hockey Canada should never just forget about a position because it looks good now but you're saying we should look at Sweden when really we're alot better than Sweden at defence. What we're doing is fine, I highly doubt anything changed in development from 2003-today, they're will always be great Canadian defencemen if we don't change what we are doing. I don't see any reason to change anything anyways when you're developing the best defencemen in the NHL like Weber, Keith, Doughty, Pietrangelo, Subban.
You can always improve but we already have top defencemen in the NHL and maybe improve a little but there's bigger problems than our development for defencemen.
A lot better than Sweden? I beg to differ.. I personally think it's a very close race on who produces better defensemen, but to say Canada is a lot better than Sweden at producing defensemen is not true.
JackSlater
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It looks like Finland's success in goaltending is based primarily on the goaltending skills development they have implemented in their hockey development. Coaching is a bigger factor.
The flaw for Canada is probably both developmental and cyclical, in my opinion. Goaltenders in Canada are simply not as good as they should be, year after year, compared to their peers from other nations. I also think there has been a little issue cyclically, as by pure numbers Canada should have better goaltending at the senior level. When Canada had Roy, Belfour, Joseph, Brodeur, Burke, even Theodore for one year, several of them played different styles and took different routes to the NHL that demonstrate that it wasn't simply coaching that helped them reach an elite level.
Canada has better defencemen than Sweden does now, yes. That should be a given as Canada has far more players available than Sweden. That Sweden can even make the comparison close (which it is, particularly with young defencemen) indicates that there is something Canada can learn. Learning from others isn't a sign of weakness, but the complacency that you are seemingly encouraging would be.
Is Doughty, Subban, Pietrangelo old? They're in their mid 20s unless you mean 18-22 defencemen but even then, Keith and Weber were 2nd round picks so it is hard to see who we might really have.
What are your expectations though?
Well let's look at 2005-2011 which should be enough to see how defencemen have developed:
Canada: Staal, Letang, Subban, Doughty, Pietrangelo,
Sweden: Karlsson, OEL, Hedman.
Considering the quality of our defencemen to Sweden, I would say ours is better.
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I think our expectation is that it would be foolish of us and HockeyCanada to just assume the defense position will always just take care of itself.
UsernameWasTaken
Let's Go Hawks!
JackSlater
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You're right that they are not old, and I fully expect Canada's defence to be great for the next several years. The point is that Sweden has been producing players like Karlsson, Ekman-Larsson, Hedman, Brodin, Lindholm that are all either elite already or look very promising as teenagers, and they are doing this with only a fraction of the players that Canada has. They are doing something right when it comes to producing defencemen. Canada is doing well in this regard too (I don't really like recent trends though) but they should still look at what Sweden is doing. USA has also been doing a good job with young defencemen (I think the emphasis on skating is the main point with them) and Canada should look at them as well.
I expect Canada to have the best group of defencemen in the world. In order for that to happen, they need to keep doing what works while also looking at what works for other nations and adopting the best practices where possible.
Well, I guess we should just do what we've been doing for the last few years. Whatever that was, do it because it's gold medal calibre.
We've heard similar things about questioning Canadian development of players but it really doesn't lead to anything because we're winning.
JackSlater
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Great players now are the result of great development in the past. Canada is doing well with development, but things can always improve and they need to look at other countries who are succeeding in certain areas. If you don't see that, then that is your problem. Hopefully HC sees beyond it. Canada had a terrible development period in the 90s, and people didn't pay attention to it as it was happening because they were satisfied with results that came from the Gretzky generation. They didn't notice until losing tournaments in the late 90s, after the problem had existed for years. Canada does a good job today, but winning a seven game tournament every four years does not mean they should simply carry on in the same way.
