Edward's self absorbed filler

Olympic hockey fallout thoughts

Ok we know what happened, so I'm not going to repeat it here.

Looking back, Nagano wasn't that bad. We were undefeated in the robin round (5-0 Belarus, 3-2 Sweden, 4-1 USA) and beat Kazakhstan 4-1 in the quarters. Then of course, we ran into a red hot Hasek in the semis and lost in a shootout. Russia, who lead all teams with 15 goals in the round robin, were shut out in finals 1-0 versus Hasek. Yet, for whatever reason, the country panicked about our lack of offensive production and we had those hockey summits. Overreacting don’t you think?

We all know about our early struggles at Salt Lake, so I won’t go there either. What about our vaunted 2004 world cup team? 1996 world cup team?

	1996	2004
Round robin GA	11	10
Round robin Goals per games (3)	3.67	3.33
Playoffs GA	15	12
Playoffs Goals per games (4/3)	3.75	4
Tournament Goals per games (7/6)	3.71	3.67

Ok, the big difference between the two is that we won in 2004 and lost in 1996. But in 1996, much like Nagano, we ran into an ultra hot goalie (Tournament MVP Mike Richter) and lost the third and deciding game versus the USA in the finals (not to mention that fucking stick was definitely above the crossbar goal by Brett Hull). Despite supposedly having an overpowering offensive in 2004, we didn’t even score that much more than our “offensively inept” team back in 1996. And our 2004 team didn’t exactly overwhelm the competition (see semi final game versus Czechs).

While we’re at it

Olympics	1998	2002	2006
Round robin GF	12	8	15
Round robin Goals per games (3/3/5)	4	2.67	3
Playoffs GF	5	14	0
Playoffs Goals per games (2/3/1)	2.5	4.67	0
Playoffs Goals per games minus Belarus Blowout (2)		3.5
Tournament Goals per games (7/6/6)	3.4	3.67	2.5

My first thoughts when we lost to Sweden in Salt Lake: “Gretzky might be a great player, but that doesn’t mean he put together a great team --> see Isiah Thomas"

In the province newspaper (2/23/2006), Ed Willies put it best:

”Look up and down Team Canada’s roster and identify a player who’s having a good season. There are a couple. A lot more have struggled. In the meantime, Eric Staal, who’s third in the league in scoring, wasn’t on the ice. Neither Sidney Crosby or Patrick Marleau or Jason Spezza. But Kris Draper and his five goals were. So were Ryan Smyth, Todd Bertuzzi, Rick Nash and Shane Doan, all of whom have underachieved for a variety of reasons this season.”

Ok I think Draper and Doan were unfairly dumped on because they played well on the penalty kill, but otherwise it was right on the mark.

Patirck Marleau (64 points) was on the 2004 world cup team. Paul Kariya (58 points) was on the 2002 team and 1994 Olympic teams with only a concussion holding him back from the 1998 team. Alex Tanguay (66 points) was a strong consideration for the 2002 Olympic team. Why not? Back in 2002, Iginla wasn’t even invited to the August trading camp, but he played his way onto the team by leading the NHL in points that year. Haven’t these other guys played their way onto the 2006 team?

Anyways, I doubt Gretzky is going to be back for 2010. Ditto for Pat Quinn

Other guys I don’t think that will be back

Bryan Mccabe (Mccabe sucks bad)
Shane Doan
Joe Sakic (first ballot Hall of Famer, but I can see him retiring)
Martin St. Louis (seems like a flash in the pan)
Kris Draper
Todd Bertuzzi (Prime year as a power forward are over. On a slow and irreversible decline now)

Overall I really do think our team really played their hearts out, but better luck and roster selections next time.

posted by Edward @ 11:29 AM