Name: Canada's Olympic roster selection is already coming together
Brand: theathletic.com
SKU: theathletic-com-226
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Canada's Olympic roster selection is already coming together

preview

Feb 18, 2021The long list can’t stay long forever.But I will admit I was mildly surprised when Canadian Olympic men’s hockey GM Doug Armstrong said his management group was already cutting down that list of players, one year out from the 2022 Games.Part of the reason the management group can already be fine-tuning the long list is that they’ve been on Canadian Olympic calls since July (Ken Holland, , and Scott Salmond from the get-go and joined the group after the playoffs).So they’ve been poring over names for seven months already.“This started prior to the bubble last summer,” Armstrong said Wednesday on our Two-Man Advantage podcast with Scott Burnside and yours truly.“We put together, actually, two teams, each guy (in the management group) had to put together two teams,” Armstrong said in explaining how the process began. “Then we sort of melded that together and we looked at who was in the majority, who did everybody have, and who were sort of the outliers that only one of us had.“We added that into the mix, then we started to watch the playoffs.”Then there were group management calls after the opening round, the second round and after the Stanley Cup Final.“Then we had everybody put another team together,” continued Armstrong. “Now we’ve broken the season up into quarters, and just had another meeting (last week). We’re getting close to the point now where we’re starting to take that long list into a shorter list. You can’t focus in on 55 or 60 players all year long. You have to start making decisions.”Players will pop in and out of that list, but the idea is to zero in on a more workable number sooner rather than later.“I think where we are at right now, we have a majority where we probably have 10 or 11 locks on the team,” Armstrong said. “That leaves up to 14 or 15 players that are in contention and there’s probably 50 guys on that list still. It’s just a whittling down process.“You want to add guys to the locks, and remove guys that are no longer in consideration and hope that list gets smaller and smaller.”For the bubble players, it’s about what’s left of this shortened season plus the playoffs to make that final impression, plus some may play for Canada at the IIHF World Championship.The breakout performance so far this season by St. Louis Blues forward has caught Team Canada’s eye. Armstrong just wants to make sure his Blues lens doesn’t affect the analysis of the 22-year-old’s play when it comes to jumping up the list. I asked him how he handled that in this case.“What I do, is that I did bring his name up to the guys (in the management group), in the sense that I’m probably a little too close to the fire,” Armstrong said. “So I told them, ‘just keep an eye on him.’ He got off to a great 10-game start. Can he maintain this? If he maintains this, is he someone we can have interest in?”Armstrong then brought us back to the 2010 Olympics when a then 20-year-old surprisingly made the roster and was a stud in Vancouver. The point being, there is a door open for some youngsters despite the massive competition to make the team.“I was fortunate enough to be the manager of the world championship team that Doughty made as a 19-year-old the year before,” said Armstrong, also part of Steve Yzerman’s management staff for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.“We weren’t really sure if we should take him to the worlds, would it be too much for him? He went there and was one of the best players,” said Armstrong. “And then parlayed that into an Olympic roster spot in 2010. So there are going to be young players. I watched that (Bowen) Byram the last couple of nights against Vegas. There’s going to be young players that grab our attention that we’re not ready for.“It would be great for Jordan and great for me personally with my day job if he was one of those guys (chuckles).”In fact, if there’s a 2010 Olympic comparison on defence to Doughty it might just be Byram finding a way to climb his way up the food chain over the next several months. Fellow Colorado Avalanche blueliner is probably a lock, but wouldn’t it be something if the rookie Byram kept impressing Team Canada brass and found his way on the Olympic team.Byram, 19, played 23:07 two games ago and then 25:03 the other night, his usage up with some Avs regulars out on the blue line. And he took full advantage of it.In some ways, as I made the argument to Armstrong on the podcast, it’s freeing to a degree that by virtue of not having an NHL-participated Olympics since 2014 and no best-on-best event since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, Team Canada’s brain trust is not nearly as beholden to the same number of players that helped win all those tournaments before.Normally, out of loyalty and merit, the tie would always go to the player that helped win an Olympic gold medal or the World Cup of Hockey. I always felt that played in a role in Canada’s selection for the 2006 Olympic team after winning gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 and also winning the World Cup of Hockey in 2004.It’s hard to pass over a guy that’s helped the team win. There’s a trust factor there.And don’t get me wrong, I’m confident we’ll see , and on the Olympic roster next year.But given the eight-year gap between NHL-participated Olympics, Team Canada isn’t nearly as beholden to anyone. It’s a new generation of talent taking over to some degree.“I think that’s very fair,” said Armstrong. “… Because we didn’t go in 2018 (at the Olympics), we are going to be looking at a couple of guys from 2010, a couple from 2014, but there is going to be a whole new wave of guys in there.“And I sort of look at it as who played for their national teams between say 2010 and 2016, 2017 at the world juniors,” added Armstrong. “That’s likely the majority of your group coming out of there.”Which going back to that logic, Armstrong said as an aside, reminds you how good Team USA is going to be.“A team like the Americans, they really started to feel the fruits of their labour from their program during that time frame and that’s a group we’re really going to have to look at,” said Armstrong.But for Canada, led by and , there are fresh Olympic faces coming. The question is, how deep does that fresh list run?“On a stage this large, it’s going to be a brand new group; or not a totally brand new group, but the majority of the guys will be new,” Armstrong said.As it should be.(Photo of Sidney Crosby, Carey Price: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Feb 18, 2021The long list can’t stay long forever.But I will admit I was mildly surprised when Canadian Olympic men’s hockey GM Doug Armstrong said his management group was already cutting down that list of players, one year out from the 2022 Games.Part of the reason the management group can already be fine-tuning the long list is that they’ve been on Canadian Olympic calls since July (Ken Holland, , and Scott Salmond from the get-go and joined the group after the playoffs).So they’ve been poring over names for seven months already.“This started prior to the bubble last summer,” Armstrong...

public

Pierre LeBrun

Get every sports story that matters. Download The Athletic app: https://linktr.ee/TheAthletic

Canada's Olympic roster selection is already coming together

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS