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Olympics: You're the GM for Team USA 2018. Who gets an invite back?

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Pez68 said:
There shouldn't be any choice in playing time to be made between Kane, JVR, and Pavelski. They all play different positions. Kane should have been playing with Backes or Pavelski as his center, with Kessel or JVR on his wing. Parise and Kesler were pretty much useless in this tournament.

To be honest, I saw way too much Kesler, Parise, and Pacioretty for my liking in the last two games. Especially for how they were playing. Unfortunately, the only guy playing worth a damn on the left side was JVR. Which is why we saw Kane being moved to the left side quite a bit.
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I may be biased but Kesler was one of your better players all tournament so I disagree with him being useless.
 
Quick didn't adjust well to the euro sized rink. He's one of the most aggressive goalies in the NHL in challenging shooters by coming very far from his crease. It works for him in LA because he's an excellent skater and because it's much harder to make those long east to west passes in the smaller rink. He should've played deeper, and a goalie like Lundqvist would probably have saved three of the five goals Finland scored. It could have changed the outcome of the game because hockey is a momentum game.

Aside from change in goal I think the only other necessary change is a change in coaching staff. The team had a lot of fantastic players, and the staff are responsible for getting them to gel and instilling a winning system.
 
McGuiresMonsters said:
Near locks:
Kessel
Kane
McDonagh
Suter
Quick

Everyone else is on the bubble or no chance. Players like Parise, Kesler, and Pavelski will be 33 and most likely slowing down. Team USA did not have one Forward who was 30 or older on their roster.

Fowler, Faulk, Carlson, and Shattenkirk have very good chances, but who knows how they continue to develop.
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The fact that the U.S. had such a young group was because that's exactly who their best players were. Even the bubble players (Okposo, Ryan, Yandle, etc.) were in that age range. I can't think of any deserving players who were left off because of their age. In fact Orpik was 33 and he made it, and that guy sucks. As long as those guys haven't dropped off the face of the earth I expect to see them back.
 
http://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/last-5-nhl-seasons-defensemen-stats.html

It's hard to fathom how NHL gms could select inexperienced defenseman with little playoff experience to fill offensive blueline roles such as Fowler and Shattenkirk, when there's two guys sitting at home who are at the top of usa scoring, one of which who won a Stanley Cup, the other who wears a letter on his sweater for a Dave Tippett coached team. and to drive the point home, 2 players who were drafted outside of the top three rounds, and worked their way into NHL All Stars

it's easy to look like you belong, when you are playing the likes of Slovenia and Slovakia, but when it comes to the games that count, it really came back to bite them in the ass.

Sweden and Canada showed the importance of getting offense from your dmen, Team USA left their top two in North America.

of course it's easy now, when you go back and remind yourself of the idiotic comment Brian Burke made to the press regarding Bobby Ryan, and he selects the least respected player in the league who ended up riding the bench against Finland. Bad Karma really sucks, especially when you force it on an entire country.
 
Kessel, Kane, Kesler, Okposo, Backes, JVR, Parise, Pavelski, Pacioretty, Bonino, Galchenyuk, Pominville, Statsny.

Yandle, Shattenkirk, McDonagh, Suter, Jones, Trouba, Niskanen

Quick, Miller, Bishop
 
theboss said:
I guarantee pacioretty will come back and Galchenyuk will join him.
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Yea seriously, can't believe people are leaving Pacioretty off when he's 2nd in goals per game by an American over the past 3 years. Shame he didn't get much ice-time when he had done so well for the US at the WC 2 years ago.
 
McCullogh said:
Quick, Suter, McDonagh, Kessel and Kane.
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This is closest to my list, but add Kesler and Backes.I have a man-crush on Backes and, hate to admit it, but I like Kesler a whole lot more than I thought I would (as a Kings fan). Kane, by the way, sucked, but he is good enough that he gets a locked invite regardless

The rest of the roster should have their jobs on the line. Oshie and Pavelski closest to separating from the pack.
 
Regardless of whether USA's big name players showed up or not, they are the best American players and they will be back in 2018, as long as NHLer's are participating in the Olympics.

Kane
Kessel
Suter
McDonagh
Pavelski
Kesler
JVR
Parise
Backes
Quick

Should all be back barring any sort of injury or major drop in play.
 
Based on their performance here, I'd say JVR, Kessel and Quick straight on. Then Pavelski, McDonut and Suter aswell.
 
After watching this tournament I'm more and more convinced that we need to ditch this Brian Burke style top 6, bottom 6.

We have the depth now follow Canada's model and sole bring the best players, the most skilled players and tell, buy into the system or go home with no medals.

Scoring in the Olympics is hard, you are facing the top 100 hockey players in the world. Canada's third pair is jay boumeester and Alex pietrangelo. Good luck scoring with guys like Dustin brown who don't face top pairings every shift.

No more meat line role players. No more Dustin Brown and Ryan Callahan third liners who score at a mediocre clip in the nhl.

We have elite players who can kill penalties and score. Kesler, Pavelski, Backes, Oshie etc. no need to have defense only players to kill a third of your shifts.

You dump players like Brown, Orpik, Callahan because you don't need them and bring in guys like Ryan, Okposo and Yandle.


We will bring back almost the entire defense, Faulk, Carlson, Suter, McDonaugh, Fowler and even they will have to fight off the young kids like Trouba and Jones.

At forward most if the skill comes back. Kane, Kessel, JVR. Center is a bit tough to predict with guys like Kesler and Backes it's a question of how their bodies hold up with that style of olay.

You have to hope Galchenyuk transfers well to center and Eichel is ready at 21. If so then the skill level quotient should be high enough that we don't need meat lines or a leadership core that apparently lead us into a 5-0 embarrassment to end up without a medal.
 
Ducksgo said:
Hell ****ing no, are you trolling? Or being serious

Anyways both Burke and Bylsma are both fired. I wonder who is going to be the replacements. Anyone know any good American coaches and staff that may be there replacements?
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Give me Dean Lombardi and whoever he wants.
 
Blueline Bomber said:
I'm confused as to why so many want to remove Faulk. He was barely able to play in these games, due to Bylsma's incompetence. According to the Burnside article, he was one of the first defensemen selected in the US selection process, but wound up being the healthy scratch every game for some inexplicable reason. He was only given the opportunity to play a game because of the Martin injury, and even then, he only played 1:15 in the entire game. Baffling.

This was a defenseman who, in the two times he represented the US in the World Championships, put up 14 points in 18 games. But I'm sure Orpik was obviously the better choice to help the team break those two shutouts.
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In fairness, Orpik did help to break the shutout against Canada.
 
Daishi said:
Quick didn't adjust well to the euro sized rink. He's one of the most aggressive goalies in the NHL in challenging shooters by coming very far from his crease. It works for him in LA because he's an excellent skater and because it's much harder to make those long east to west passes in the smaller rink. He should've played deeper, and a goalie like Lundqvist would probably have saved three of the five goals Finland scored. It could have changed the outcome of the game because hockey is a momentum game.

Aside from change in goal I think the only other necessary change is a change in coaching staff. The team had a lot of fantastic players, and the staff are responsible for getting them to gel and instilling a winning system.
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I'm confused...Before the Finland game, the most Quick gave up was 2.

How does one game against Finland translate to Quick failing to adapt to the "big ice?" :laugh:
 
kingsholygrail said:
I'm confused...Before the Finland game, the most Quick gave up was 2.

How does one game against Finland translate to Quick failing to adapt to the "big ice?" :laugh:
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Agreed. Going in, I wanted Miller. But Quick absolutely proved to be the right choice against Canada. One of the better performances I've seen in a while. He deserved better. Amazing to think if we had potted a lucky goal or two he might have stolen that game.
 
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