Ray Ferraro of TSN has projected Team Canada’s Olympic roster for the 2014 games in Sochi, and Eberle is the only Oiler to make the cut. The following is Ferraro’s version of what the Canadian entry should look like.
Before getting into which Oilers might deserve consideration, a few notes on Ferraro’s roster:
- As is often the case thanks to Canada’s tremendous depth at centre, Ferraro has a number of converted pivots playing on the wings. Eric Staal, Claude Giroux, John Tavares and Mike Richards all qualify in that category. Tyler Seguin has spent a lot of time on right wing in Boston, or he would make that list, too.
- Last time around, the Canadian team had a pretty decent balance of right/left-handed shooters on the blue line. This time – thanks to the departures of Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger – five of Ferraro’s six starters on defence are right-handed shots and primarily play the right side at the NHL level, with Duncan Keith the sole exception (both players listed reserve defencemen are left-handed shots).
Looking at that roster, which Oilers might merit consideration? Ryan Smyth has been a long-time competitor for Canada at international events, but he’s at the point in his career where he won’t crack an Olympic roster. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was a first overall pick, but given Canada’s exceptional depth at centre and his age, realistically he isn’t likely to be included either. Justin Schultz is still lacking in experience at the professional level and is handicapped by the fact that he’s a right-handed shot.
Realistically, there are only two names on the Oilers’ roster right now that really deserve a long look: Eberle and 2010 first overall pick Taylor Hall.
It’s actually somewhat surprising to me that Hall doesn’t make Ferraro’s roster, particularly since he’s arguably a better all-around player than Jordan Eberle in the here and now and was not only picked ahead of Seguin but has a 10 point lead on him in NHL points in 30 fewer games. Hall’s not really competing with Eberle or Seguin for a spot, though; he’s competing with the laundry list of converted centres playing wing.
After looking through the list of available talent (and projecting ahead a little bit – since the Olympics are a year away there is an element of projection to this roster) I found that I couldn’t disagree with the majority of Ferraro’s picks; I’m in broad agreement, with most of the quibbles coming around the edges of the roster. The following is my list:
Up front, I have subtracted Jordan Staal, Patrick Sharp and Mike Richards and substituted Ryan Getzlaf, Taylor Hall and Patrice Bergeron. All of the decisions were difficult, but I thought Getzlaf was simply too strong a talent to leave off the roster, Hall will have another year under his belt and I think he’ll do too much to be left off, and I prefer Bergeron to Richards for the role of utility forward.
On defence, Marc Staal and Brayden Coburn are replaced by Dan Hamhuis and Jay Bouwmeester. Hamhuis is an exceptional defensive defenceman and adds another left-handed shot to the top-six, while Bouwmeester’s skating and passing abilities were tough to ignore on the big ice.
In net, I have 2010 starter Roberto Luongo taking the role of backup, with the greatly overrated Marc-Andre Fleury axed from the team (Fleury was the only one of Ferraro’s picks I found myself emphatically disagreeing with). While I have the three goalies ranked this way now, any of the three could easily be starter in 2014.
Other notables who did not make my final version of the team included the San Jose Sharks duo of Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, Jarome Iginla, James Neal, Jeff Skinner, Milan Lucic and Jason Spezza.
Other Oilers likely to get at least some Olympic consideration from their countries include Ales Hemsky and Ladislav Smid (Czech Republic), Nail Yakupov (Russia) and Jeff Petry (United States). Players such as Teemu Hartikainen (Finland) and Magnus Paajarvi (Sweden) could also play themselves into contention with a strong run between now and then.
One thing that is certain: there is plenty of time between now and the Olympics, and a lot is bound to happen in the meanwhile.
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