Was Martin St. Louis in the wrong for the 2014 Sochi situation?

[Sentinel]

MSL was 100% completely in the wrong, and I say that as somebody that thought he should have made the team from the outset.

I disagree.

Nobody is entitled to make an Olympic team. Crosby was left off in 2006. Stamkos was left off in 2010. Neither had a temper tantrum over it even if they were privately disappointed or seething.

A reigning Art Ross winner who was having a good season to that point is as entitled as they come.

Crosby's absence in 2006 was VERY much felt.

MSL’s whole ‘if Im not good enough for Team Canada, I must not be good enough for your NHL team, so trade me’ nonsense was so unbelievably childish.

Are you a robot? It's the most natural reaction in the world.

Yzerman was completely in the right, and frankly, if I had been his GM, Id have said ‘f*** you, you’re under contract, Im not trading you. Grow the f*** up and deal with disappointment like an adult.’

MSL WAS a grown-up at that point but he was treated like a child. He gave TBL all he had and then some.

On the subject: you will not find many bigger Yzerman fans than me, but what he did was wrong. MSL should've been on that team from the beginning. If your own GM doesn't trust you, you are totally justified in asking for a trade.

Hell, Babcock brought Danny Cleary to the Olympic training camp. Naturally, he didn't make the Olympic squad but at least he was shown that his coach trusts him.

 

[Michael Farkas]

A reigning Art Ross winner who was having a good season to that point is as entitled as they come.

This is a really good point/example of what I talk about here with the evaluation process. Being an Art Ross winner doesn't entitle you to anything...in the same way that being the leading scorer in the USHL or OHL or whatever doesn't make you the top pick or even a legit pro prospect. They're building a team, not an abacus.

I did a fast look, it looks like the final roster was announced 1/7/14.

So from 1/1/13 to 1/7/14 here are the top scorers:
Crosby 121
Kane (USA) 109
Tavares 101
St. Louis 100
Kunitz 100

St. Louis was determined not to be one of the best 14 Canadian forwards. I don't think that's unfair either. And ultimately, it looks like they were right...he wasn't very good when he got the nod.

And I'm not saying anything negative about St. Louis when I say that...I like him quite a bit as a player. But it just shows that trophy counting and binary stuff like that is also subjective because it needs to be assigned a weight. You have a drastically shortened season. You have a player that wasn't close to as impactful as his points would dictate. He goes to the Rangers and does very little down the stretch of the regular season. The clear best player in the league took a puck to the jaw. If that happened two days later, St. Louis doesn't catch him. I'm sure some other prominent scorers missed a game or two here and there and that's enough in a really short season to make a huge difference.

That's the fragility of all this. And that's why you (royal you) have to be careful with leading with this kind of thing...using data to support your position in this case is great. But the whole "this guy won the Norris, and this guy never did...so this guy is better" jibber-jabber is just not good enough.

 

[MadLuke]

being an Art Ross winner doesn't entitle you to anything...i

Not in the a right to anything way, but in the:
believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

What St-Louis thought about himself, winning 2 Art Ross, leading the tourney scoring 15 pts in 9 games last time you played for Canada can easily do that. And missing 2010 can build it up.

People every day get angrier and feel more entitle to stuff with way less reason MSL had to think he should be on the team.

Kessel thought he should have been on team USA, that part is just normal., in some way you probably want all elite players to have that competitive edge and think a bit like that.

How you express it being different and where it is easier to have issue with.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

This is a really good point/example of what I talk about here with the evaluation process. Being an Art Ross winner doesn't entitle you to anything...in the same way that being the leading scorer in the USHL or OHL or whatever doesn't make you the top pick or even a legit pro prospect. They're building a team, not an abacus.

I did a fast look, it looks like the final roster was announced 1/7/14.

So from 1/1/13 to 1/7/14 here are the top scorers:
Crosby 121
Kane (USA) 109
Tavares 101
St. Louis 100
Kunitz 100

St. Louis was determined not to be one of the best 14 Canadian forwards. I don't think that's unfair either. And ultimately, it looks like they were right...he wasn't very good when he got the nod.

And I'm not saying anything negative about St. Louis when I say that...I like him quite a bit as a player. But it just shows that trophy counting and binary stuff like that is also subjective because it needs to be assigned a weight. You have a drastically shortened season. You have a player that wasn't close to as impactful as his points would dictate. He goes to the Rangers and does very little down the stretch of the regular season. The clear best player in the league took a puck to the jaw. If that happened two days later, St. Louis doesn't catch him. I'm sure some other prominent scorers missed a game or two here and there and that's enough in a really short season to make a huge difference.

That's the fragility of all this. And that's why you (royal you) have to be careful with leading with this kind of thing...using data to support your position in this case is great. But the whole "this guy won the Norris, and this guy never did...so this guy is better" jibber-jabber is just not good enough.

No but you can't make a logical case that a guy who finished 1-2 in points 2 of the 3 seasons prior to the Olympics isn't a top player in the league and should be a no doubt pick.

Especially since he put up 15 in 10 in the 2009 WC

 

[Johnny Engine]

This is a really good point/example of what I talk about here with the evaluation process. Being an Art Ross winner doesn't entitle you to anything...in the same way that being the leading scorer in the USHL or OHL or whatever doesn't make you the top pick or even a legit pro prospect. They're building a team, not an abacus.

I did a fast look, it looks like the final roster was announced 1/7/14.

So from 1/1/13 to 1/7/14 here are the top scorers:
Crosby 121
Kane (USA) 109
Tavares 101
St. Louis 100
Kunitz 100

St. Louis was determined not to be one of the best 14 Canadian forwards. I don't think that's unfair either. And ultimately, it looks like they were right...he wasn't very good when he got the nod.

And I'm not saying anything negative about St. Louis when I say that...I like him quite a bit as a player. But it just shows that trophy counting and binary stuff like that is also subjective because it needs to be assigned a weight. You have a drastically shortened season. You have a player that wasn't close to as impactful as his points would dictate. He goes to the Rangers and does very little down the stretch of the regular season. The clear best player in the league took a puck to the jaw. If that happened two days later, St. Louis doesn't catch him. I'm sure some other prominent scorers missed a game or two here and there and that's enough in a really short season to make a huge difference.

That's the fragility of all this. And that's why you (royal you) have to be careful with leading with this kind of thing...using data to support your position in this case is great. But the whole "this guy won the Norris, and this guy never did...so this guy is better" jibber-jabber is just not good enough.

Wasn't there something about Team Canada's brain trust not liking the way he used the angles on the wide ice? I don't remember anything more specific than that.

 

[Michael Farkas]

No but you can't make a logical case that a guy who finished 1-2 in points 2 of the 3 seasons prior to the Olympics isn't a top player in the league and should be a no doubt pick.

Especially since he put up 15 in 10 in the 2009 WC

Yes, I can. Just like all the people that built a gold medal winning team did.

One, I wouldn't let the performance in a World Championship from five years before creep into my decision making too much. Because...why the hell would it? Why not his performance from a few years before that in the Olympics.

But this is another case of being duped by stats or at least led to make assumptions...taking a shortcut in place of real work.

While St. Louis did dominate Hungary and Slovakia in the prelims, as part of a pool of mostly non-NHL goalies...did you happen to watch him in the playoff round? One assist in the playoff round.

Fact of the matter is, he's a slowing down 38 year old playmaking winger, a single position (off wing) player, he's a LHS, he's not very useful down the lineup at this point (ya know, in the last ~100 games of his 16 year career). He had only been in the playoffs once in the previous six seasons...so, he isn't used to important games at his advanced age.

I also enjoy that once again MSL gets full weight for the 48 game stretch in 2013 from a poster who makes a spectacle of himself to diminish Crosby for partial seasons. Weird that there's no issue here. 48 games is what was available, I know that...but that doesn't mean it has the same value as 82, right?

As an aside, this is a fascinating position for me...one, I really like Marty St. Louis. Two, usually I have to explain how stats can be misleading, but in this case...the hypothetical situation that we're arguing about actually DID happen and he really didn't do anything (he was the lone Canadian forward that played at least two-thirds of the games and didn't record a point).

He took a slashing penalty trying to catch up to a Latvian player in the QF that led to a mid-game PP in a 1-1 game. I don't think he took more than a couple shifts for the next game in a half after that...just didn't have the same jump that he used to and was getting beat back to the far side/post.

 

[Gorskyontario]

People are overthinking this way too much. Canada probably could have swapped out half the team and still won that year. Was MSL any worse then Kunitz(there because of Crosby), Sharp(there because of Toews), Marleau(there because Babcock liked him for some reason). None of those guys are bad players, or bad picks for the roster because obviously that team was so dominant. MSL would have been on my team but you can't argue with results.

Also @Michael Farkas, Saying MSL didn't show much down the stretch makes close to zero sense. You're leaving out the context of him being on a boring super defensive new york team where the leading scorer had 59 points. Despite that, MSL went 15 in 25 in playoff scoring, which was tied for 2nd on the team(the leader had 17 points). Hardly washed up if you ask me. The next year you could call him washed up however,

 

[Michael Farkas]

Hmph, that must mean I made the best post in history because you normally tell people that they "make less than zero sense" in every single post. I'm just at "close to zero". I'll take that as a positive haha

He had 8 points in 19 games in NY - a 34 point pace. One might note that Canada was playing a very defensive style of game and folks can make a connection in terms of his adaptability there if they so choose...they don't have to.

He then gets five points in his first three games of the playoffs against the horrendous Ray Emery. Once Mason came in, that put an end to that. They move on without him, and he does nothing against Fleury and the Pens. He goes eight games with just one assist between late Philly/early Pittsburgh.

Then his mom dies...he becomes a superhero for a brief time.

Pens blow it. Rangers move on to play the Canadiens.

But............Chris Kreider was on his early career goalie killing spree. He injures Carey Price in game 1. He's productive against Budaj and Dustin Tokarski - who has the athleticism of a house plant.

Then has a 2-point, minus-5 (team worst) series vs a real goalie in Jonathan Quick.

And while you really did upsell the 23 points in 44 games in an unexpected way (though, if I'm being honest, he was better than that statistical representation suggests)...and yes, the Rangers were a defensive team, but they were actually opening up their game a bit (at least their forwards, they didn't allow defensemen to carry it) under AV. They played faster than the stats made it seem. But MSL got the dead mom jolt and then got an incredibly weak run of goalies to help him along...

 

[Gorskyontario]

And while you really did upsell the 23 points in 44 games in an unexpected way (though, if I'm being honest, he was better than that statistical representation suggests)...and yes, the Rangers were a defensive team, but they were actually opening up their game a bit (at least their forwards, they didn't allow defensemen to carry it) under AV. They played faster than the stats made it seem. But MSL got the dead mom jolt and then got an incredibly weak run of goalies to help him along...

I don't need to upsell anything. His regular season performance is irrelevant. The fact is he was 2nd in scoring on a team that made it to the stanley cup finals, so calling him 'washed up' is a ridiculous statement.
He finished the season with 69 points in 81 games, then followed up that regular season by finishing 2nd in scoring on a stanley cup finalist. I do not care in the slightest if Kreider injured Price, or what other weak team they managed to beat. Because that is irrelevant information in this context.

Those are facts, period.

If you want to claim MSL was washed up at any point, the only applicable season would be 14-15. Where he finished with 52 points in 74 games(Still 4th in scoring). Then 7 points in 19 playoff games (tied for 9th in scoring). He would probably agree with you considering he retired after those playoffs.

 

[JackSlater]

As an aside, this is a fascinating position for me...one, I really like Marty St. Louis. Two, usually I have to explain how stats can be misleading, but in this case...the hypothetical situation that we're arguing about actually DID happen and he really didn't do anything (he was the lone Canadian forward that played at least two-thirds of the games and didn't record a point).

This is the strange thing about the discussion to me - it's a very rare case where the player was cut, but also ended up on the team. We can actually judge whether his play merited inclusion in the initial selection. St. Louis didn't fit in on that team and was more or less useless. Getting the Art Ross trophy the previous season is meaningless unless they happened to award an extra goal each game to whichever team has the reigning Art Ross winner. It's another instance of blind trophy counting, and I do wonder whether some people would think the same if Crosby hadn't taken a puck to the face in 2013 while St. Louis' play remained unchanged.

As things actually happened, St. Louis was 12th in scoring among Canadian forwards at the time that the team was announced. He was sixth (seventh depending on how someone views Seguin at the time) among Canadian wingers in scoring at the time. He brought no value of note outside of offence. Multiple players who were outscoring St. Louis at the time were cut as well. It's not hard to see how that Canadian team was built and that St. Louis didn't match the way the team was constructed. Then when he did make the team, he was a bottom three forward with Kunitz and Sharp. I can understand the case for thinking that he should have made it before the games were played, but I don't get the case for people still claiming that he clearly should have made it.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I always felt the real snub in 2014 was Claude Giroux. I get that he and Crosby hated each other.

But he brought the ability to play C and RW. Was good at faceoffs. Could PK. Brought toughness without always ending up in the box. And I think overall, fit the mentality of that team better.

 

[NordiquesForeva]

I always felt the real snub in 2014 was Claude Giroux. I get that he and Crosby hated each other.

But he brought the ability to play C and RW. Was good at faceoffs. Could PK. Brought toughness without always ending up in the box. And I think overall, fit the mentality of that team better.

What you say re: Giroux is correct, but then he ends up making the World Cup team in 2016 and dresses for only one meaningless game (meaningless in the sense that Canada had already clinched a SF berth, iirc) when Babcock wanted to give Getzlaf a rest.

Yzerman and Babcock had a team construct and player profile they wanted in that era, and I think its fair to say that neither Giroux nor St. Louis really fit the bill for them.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I don't need to upsell anything. His regular season performance is irrelevant. The fact is he was 2nd in scoring on a team that made it to the stanley cup finals, so calling him 'washed up' is a ridiculous statement.
He finished the season with 69 points in 81 games, then followed up that regular season by finishing 2nd in scoring on a stanley cup finalist. I do not care in the slightest if Kreider injured Price, or what other weak team they managed to beat. Because that is irrelevant information in this context.

Those are facts, period.

If you want to claim MSL was washed up at any point, the only applicable season would be 14-15. Where he finished with 52 points in 74 games(Still 4th in scoring). Then 7 points in 19 playoff games (tied for 9th in scoring). He would probably agree with you considering he retired after those playoffs.

You keep using the term and quoting "washed up"...did I actually say that? Are "those the facts, period"? Or am I just saying, "it's pretty justifiable to leave a smaller, single position, LHS, who is a declining 38 year old off of your super team?"

 

[Michael Farkas]

With Giroux, it was probably about his skating and them being scared about the big ice for him. I'm not saying I agree (in fact, I do think he should have made the team)...but he doesn't have a lot of pop to his stride (like MSL at that point, more or less)...obviously, he makes up for it with hockey sense and compete level to the point that he would have been fine...

 

[Fatass]

Canada won Gold. That makes Yzerman right in his roster choices.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Canada won Gold. That makes Yzerman right in his roster choices.

It makes it not the wrong choice. Of course, they could have brought a B team, put St. Louis in a marquee role, and still been the favorite. Which we'd never really know how something like that plays out. Bit ironic for people to lament trophy counting on one hand, but also give complete deference to "built a gold medal winning roster, so that was right" on the other.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Just for kicks...based mostly on the camp, it seems like their 'B' team would have been...

Hall-Thornton-St.Louis
Marchand-Couture-Eberle
Ladd-E.Staal-Giroux
Lucic-J.Staal-Neal

Letang-Seabrook
Methot-Green
M.Staal-Boyle

Holtby
Fleury

Is that still a favorite? They aren't very fast, certainly. I don't know...it's probably close anyhow.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Just for kicks...based mostly on the camp, it seems like their 'B' team would have been...

Hall-Thornton-St.Louis
Marchand-Couture-Eberle
Ladd-E.Staal-Giroux
Lucic-J.Staal-Neal

Letang-Seabrook
Methot-Green
M.Staal-Boyle

Holtby
Fleury

Is that still a favorite? They aren't very fast, certainly. I don't know...it's probably close anyhow.

Probably. U.S. is pretty close, if Sweden had healthy/available centers they are right there as well, but they definitely have a chance with that team.

 

[Wallet Inspector]

Even if him being left out was a "snub", St Louis demanding a trade in the middle of the season and disrupting his team was just plain selfish.

 

[Fatass]

It makes it not the wrong choice. Of course, they could have brought a B team, put St. Louis in a marquee role, and still been the favorite. Which we'd never really know how something like that plays out. Bit ironic for people to lament trophy counting on one hand, but also give complete deference to "built a gold medal winning roster, so that was right" on the other.

No. Winning the Gold makes Yzerman's roster decisions the right choice. He chose the players he believed had the best chance of winning Gold. He was right.

 

[The Panther]

No. Winning the Gold makes Yzerman's roster decisions the right choice. He chose the players he believed had the best chance of winning Gold. He was right.

St.Louis was one of the guys on the team who won Gold.

 

[Fatass]

St.Louis was one of the guys on the team who won Gold.

Then why all the complaining (from St. Louis) about not being chosen for the 2014 club?

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Then why all the complaining (from St. Louis) about not being chosen for the 2014 club?

Because he wasn’t chosen. He was an injury replacement for Stamkos.

 

[Michael Farkas]

*Martin St. Louis is considered the 15th best Canadian forward in the league after [trophy/stats rubber band ball]*

Board: "Boooooooooo! Learn to count!"

*Martin St. Louis is considered the 14th best Canadian forward in the league after...*

Board: "Yaaayyyyyyy!"

 

[Fatass]

Because he wasn’t chosen. He was an injury replacement for Stamkos.

Couldn’t Yzermsn have selected a different player than St. Louis?