Players still split on headshot rule

Most players around the league said Monday they want to see hits like the one Penguins winger Matt Cooke laid on Savard penalized – and even suspended. But beyond that, there's little consensus on what, if any, rule changes are needed to prevent similar checks.

Some say all hits to the head should be outlawed. Others scream sacrilege at the thought.

Another group altogether attempts to avoid saying much at all.

- March 9, The Globe and Mail

Burke comments on deadline day

“We turned down two picks for Poni because we liked the prospect better,” Burke said. “A prospect is farther along the food chain, as far as development. This is a guy who’s a second-year pro, has played in the NHL, a guy we really liked in junior, a guy we really like as a pro – that to me has far greater value than a draft pick that I’m not going to see for three years, if I ever see him at all.

“You can see with the Kessel deal, we are not interested in a five-year rebuilding plan. We’re trying to improve this team on a much more rapid time frame. You saw in Anaheim that it didn’t take five years. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

- March 4, The Globe and Mail

Trade deadline: Six sellers to be busy

With parity ensuring that all but the bottom feeders are still in the playoff hunt with 20 games to go, it's been the six teams in the league's basement - the Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes, New York Islanders, Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets - getting most of the attention as teams gear up for the 3 p.m. EST trade deadline on Wednesday.

"Since about Thursday or Friday, there've been quite a few calls," Columbus GM Scott Howson said yesterday.

- March 1, The Globe and Mail

2010 Olympics: Picking the tournament all-stars

There are a trio of end-of-tournament awards that they hand out in the men's Olympic hockey tournament: One for the MVP, one set of three Directorate Awards for each position and then a media all-star team.

Here's who took home that hardware in 2006, when Sweden won over the Finns:

Media all-stars: Antero Niittymaki, Nicklas Lidstrom, Kimmo Timonen, Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu and Alex Ovechkin

MVP and top goalie: Niittymaki
Top defenceman: Kenny Jonsson
Top forward: Selanne

There's still one game to go so this may change a bit, but here are my picks for 2010:

Media all-stars: Ryan Miller, Brian Rafalski, Shea Weber, Pavol Demitra, Zach Parise and Jonathan Toews

MVP: Miller if the U.S. wins or a top Canadian forward who makes an impact in the final if they win (Toews, Heatley, Iginla, Crosby and Getzlaf are in the running)

Top goalie: Miller
Top defenceman: Rafalski
Top forward: Could be Parise if he has a big game or one of the aforementioned Canadian forwards

The tournament scoring leaders are all listed here and goaltending leaders are here.
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2010 Olympics: Players in the hunt for medals

Four teams left and two more big games Friday in Vancouver. Here's a team-by-team look at the NHL players in the running for medals:

Anaheim: Getzlaf, Koivu, Niedermayer, Perry, Ryan, Selanne, Whitney
Boston: Bergeron, Chara, Satan, Thomas
Buffalo: Lydman, Miller, Sekera
Calgary: Hagman, Iginla, Kiprusoff
Carolina: Gleason, Pitkanen, Ruutu, Staal
Chicago: Hossa, Kane, Keith, Kopecky, Seabrook, Toews
Colorado: Budaj, Stastny
Columbus: Jurcina, Nash
Dallas: Lehtinen, Morrow
Detroit: Filppula, Rafalski
Edmonton: Visnovsky
Los Angeles: Brown, Doughty, Handzus, Johnson, Quick
Minnesota: Backstrom, Koivu, Miettinen
Montreal: Halak
Nashville: Suter, Weber
New Jersey: Brodeur, Langenbrunner, Parise
NY Rangers: Callahan, Drury, Gaborik, Jokinen
Ottawa: Ruutu
Philadelphia: Pronger, Richards, Timonen
Phoenix: Lepisto
Pittsburgh: Crosby, Fleury, Orpik
San Jose: Boyle, Heatley, Marleau, Pavelski, Thornton
St. Louis: Backes, Johnson
Tampa Bay: Malone, Meszaros, Niittymaki
Toronto: Kessel
Vancouver: Demitra, Kesler, Luongo, Salo

So, in all, 26 NHL teams still have a hope of a player bringing back a medal. Those not in the running are Atlanta, Florida, the Islanders and Washington. The Ducks have the most players still in the running with seven, followed by Chicago with six and L.A. and San Jose with five.  
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KHL, WADA sign agreement

Today in Vancouver, the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) signed an agreement declaring the KHL’s intentions to abide by the WADA’s World Anti-Doping Code and the Code's main principles and regulations. In doing so, the KHL becomes the first major, international professional sports league to commit to the tenets of the WADA’s best-in-class anti-doping regulations and measures.

“By establishing this partnership, we are positioning the KHL as a leader among other sports leagues on this issue,” said KHL president Alexander Medvedev. “This agreement further demonstrates, through our commitment to create a drug-free environment for all of our players, the willingness of the KHL to be transparent in its operations.”

One of the KHL’s first steps under this newly signed agreement will be the creation of a player ambassador program as part of “Clear Ice,” the league’s own anti-doping program, featuring such KHL stars as Jaromir Jagr, Alexei Yashin and Sergei Federov. The goal of the ambassador program will be to further educate both fellow players and youth sports participants about the dangers of drug use.

>> KHL release

A positive step, one would think. It'll be interesting if there'll be in-season testing done, which is something WADA has criticized the NHL for not having in the past.
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The past 30 years of Olympic participation

Here's a quick look at how the 12 countries that are in these year's Olympics have fared over the past 30 years at the Games. I included the Soviet Union as Russia but not Czechoslovakia for the Czech Republic and Slovakia:

	Country	1980	1984	1988	1992	1994	1998	2002	2006	2010	Avg
1	Russia	2	1	1	1	4	2	3	4	6	2.7
2	Sweden	3	3	3	5	1	5	5	1	5	3.4
3	Canada	6	4	4	2	2	4	1	7	?	3.8
4	Finland	4	6	2	7	3	3	6	2	?	4.1
5	Czech Rep.					5	1	7	3	7	4.6
6	USA	1	7	7	4	8	6	2	8	?	5.4
7	Belarus					DNQ	7	4	DNQ	9	6.7
8	Slovakia					6	10	13	5	?	8.5
9	Germany				6	7	9	8	10	11	8.5
10	Switzerland	DNQ	DNQ	8	10	DNQ	DNQ	11	6	8	8.6
11	Norway	11	12	12	9	11	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	10	10.8
12	Latvia				DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	9	12	12	11.0

This year's tournament will go down as the worst finish ever for Russia, who had never placed lower than fourth since first entering Olympic hockey in 1956. Canada's low point, meanwhile, came in Turin four years ago.

The U.S. has a chance to win gold for the first time since the Miracle on Ice, while Finland and Slovakia have never won gold. (The Slovaks have already earned their best-ever finish given the worst they can now do is fourth.)
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Burke's tears

After Brendan publicly revealed his sexual preference, Brian was flooded with requests to do advocacy work on behalf of gays. He told the groups that while he supported his son, he had other causes: land conservation, blood donation and children's literacy. He didn't want to dilute that work. This, too, changed on that Friday in February. Brendan's causes are Brian's now. He will do a public-service announcement aimed at eliminating the bullying of gay children. And he plans to march in the Toronto Pride Parade. "I'd promised him I would march with him," says Burke, who briefly left the Olympics last Friday to attend a memorial service for Brendan at Miami of Ohio. "He won't be there, but I will."

- Michael Farber, Sports Illustrated

Another excellent piece from Farber.
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2010 Olympics: The Canada 'bias'

Dan Dunleavy, in Vancouver to cover the Olympics for the Rogers radio network, picks Russia to win the men’s hockey tournament. To use Catriona Le May Doan’s term, it’s a gutsy call, because the Canadian media, generally, are terrified to predict any country but Canada winning hockey gold. They risk being condemned by the xenophobes as twisted, unpatriotic and even seditious. Truth is, Russia, based on its talent up front and its goaltending, should be the favourite.

- William Houston, Truth & Rumours

It's nice to see that the tournament's quarter-finals played out with the most talented teams advancing*, as I think if Russia had won we'd be hearing overly simplistic analysis ad nauseam about how having a few snipers like Ovechkin and Malkin is the path to icing the best team. (Nevermind that this was a team with two "star" calibre defencemen, both of whom are on the downside of their careers.)

The fact is, Canada continues to boast the best depth in this tournament and is a completely reasonable choice as the favourite. Meanwhile, a team that relies on Dmitri Kalinin to play 15 minutes a night on its back end, and which has Evgeni Nabokov - a netminder who has flamed out more than once in the postseason - as its backstop, does not have the advantage in a best-on-best event.

Russia always had too much KHL talent playing key roles and, if its top guns couldn't get things going, they weren't a good enough group defensively or in goal (i.e. Finland) to win games 2-1. 

Given the format, any team on any night can beat another, but based on their talent at every position, Canada is a perfectly reasonable favourite - likely more in 2010 than any other year. This is a country with two former Norris Trophy winners on the blueline and three more players who are favourites to win this year. Six of Canada's defencemen are in the top 11 in scoring among blueliners.

All that said: Given no team has a better than 25- or 30-per-cent chance of winning, any prediction for the Olympics is a shot in the dark, and there's no outright "favourite" worth condemning other picks for.

If there was, it wasn't the Russians, who we have seen this from in the past (the 2005 world junior tournament comes to mind) and who allowed internal politics to decide some of their roster selections.

*- Sweden's tied 2-2 with Slovakia in the quarter-finals as I write this

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NBC's Brokaw on Canada

Good stuff.
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2010 Olympics: Looking at roster depth

There have been a lot of great discussions about Team Canada over the past few days, including one I had with Tyler D. on Twitter most of last night. He's defensive of how the team's played so far; I think that, given their talent advantage, they should have been better (even beyond Brodeur).

Part of my argument simply comes back to where I think Canada has a real edge, and that's in its depth, and the best way I could think to illustrate that is below. Here's Canada's roster, sorted into lines based on ice time so far in the tournament (more ice time and you're higher up), along with who I think the other three contenders are based on their play so far.

Canada could very well have to beat all three to win gold:

	For.	Canada	Russia	Sweden	USA
	1	CROSBY	MALKIN	BACKSTROM	PARISE
	2	MARLEAU	OVECHKIN	ALFREDSSON	LANGENBRUN.
	3	NASH	KOVALCHUK	ZETTERBERG	KANE
	4	HEATLEY	DATSYUK	H.SEDIN	STASTNY
	5	THORNTON	SEMIN	ERIKSSON	KESLER
	6	GETZLAF	AFINOGENOV	D.SEDIN	BROWN
	7	E.STAAL	RADULOV	FRANZEN	BACKES
	8	TOEWS	ZINOVYEV	WEINHANDL	PAVELSKI
	9	PERRY	ZARIPOV	FORSBERG	DRURY
	10	IGINLA	MOROZOV	PAHLSSON	RYAN
	11	M.RICHARDS	V.KOZLOV	HORNQVIST	MALONE
	12	BERGERON	FEDOROV	MODIN	KESSEL
	13	MORROW			CALLAHAN
	Def.	Canada	Russia	Sweden	USA
	1	WEBER	GONCHAR	LIDSTROM	SUTER
	2	KEITH	NIKULIN	OHLUND	RAFALSKI
	3	NIEDERMAYER	A.MARKOV	KRONWALL	J.JOHNSON
	4	BOYLE	KORNEYEV	TALLINDER	ORPIK
	5	DOUGHTY	TYUTIN	MURRAY	E.JOHNSON
	6	PRONGER	KALININ	ENSTROM	GLEASON
	7	SEABROOK	GREBESHKOV	ODUYA	WHITNEY
	8		VOLCHENKOV	JOHANSSON

For all of the Big Seven countries, here's a similar chart.

In terms of top-end talent up front, Russia's as impressive as they come with five excellent weapons. From forward No. 7 on, however, Canada has a healthy advantage, with five of their bottom seven forwards serving as captains of their NHL teams. Their top 11 forwards are all essentially point-a-game all-stars, most of whom are in their prime.

The blueline, however, is where I think Canada should have the biggest edge, as its top six are all in the top 11 in scoring among NHL defencemen and log huge minutes. Weber, Keith and Doughty are potential Norris Trophy candidates, while Russia's relying on three KHL blueliners in their top six.

Sweden's depth, meanwhile, measures up better, although both Franzen and Kronwall are coming off injuries (and who knows what you get from Forsberg at this point). The Americans' defence, beyond the top two, should have its hands full with every elite team in the tournament (which they did with Canada given the shot totals).

When Chris Pronger is your No. 6, you should be laughing. (Not crying.)

Of course, goal is a huge piece of the puzzle, and as I said going in, that could very well be Team Canada's trouble spot - despite the big names. Luongo will definitely be tested by Russia, and despite his sterling international record, there are question marks there.

Up front and on defence, however, Canada should have an edge over everyone in the tournament. Maybe not every minute of every game, but more often than not.

As an aside to all that, Gabe Desjardins had a good look at the recent historical record for the contending teams and pegs Canada's chances of winning it all at just 20 per cent. He's definitely right that this is a far more difficult tournament to win than many make it out to be, and a  gold-or-bust mentality is silly, but realistically, this team should be able to at least medal more than half the time.

Nagano was proof of how difficult a tournament formatted like this is to win. Salt Lake City saw the stars align. Turin, meanwhile, was a disaster. 

A loss in the quarter-finals this time around will mean a sixth-place finish for Canada, meaning that in four Olympic tournaments, they would have one gold, one fourth, one seventh and one sixth. Whether its the pressure or some sort of weakness many are overlooking, that's simply an underperformance for this group.

But if they finish second, third or fourth in Vancouver? That's probably getting closer to where the odds lie. 
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2010 Olympics: Who's getting the big minutes

I've been working on a couple stats packages after the initial games of the Olympic tournament, looking at some of the leaders from all 240 skaters to this point.

Here are the ice time leaders through the round-robin games, separated into forwards and defencemen:

Rk	Forwards	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-	M/G
1	THORESEN	Norway	3	0	3	3	0	-2	20:30
2	ZUCCARELLO A.	Norway	3	0	1	1	2	0	19:51
3	VIKINGSTAD	Norway	3	3	0	3	4	-2	19:39
4	DEMITRA	Slovakia	3	1	2	3	2	1	19:30
5	HANSEN	Norway	3	1	0	1	2	-2	19:01
6	ELIAS	Czech Rep.	3	2	2	4	0	0	18:45
7	HOSSA	Slovakia	3	2	1	3	2	1	18:38
8	HANDZUS	Slovakia	3	1	2	3	0	2	18:37
9	GOC	Germany	3	1	1	2	0	-1	18:34
10	GABORIK	Slovakia	3	1	0	1	2	1	18:34

Norway's one of the few teams in the tourney to have shortened its bench so far, and that makes sense on some levels given their lack of depth. These players' plus-minus is pretty impressive given this is a team that's been outscored 19-5 after three games.

Slovakia, meanwhile, has to go with its few key offensive stars in big minutes, and they've delivered so far. Handzus, in particular, has impressed me in facing opponent's top lines.

The top Canadian and American forwards (Crosby and Parise), meanwhile, have both only played in the 17 minute range, something that is likely to change now that we're in must-win territory. 

Rk	Defencemen	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-	M/G
1	HOLOS	Norway	3	0	0	0	2	-3	28:41
2	TRYGG	Norway	3	0	0	0	0	-5	25:25
3	STREIT	Switzerland	3	0	2	2	0	-1	25:05
4	CHARA	Slovakia	3	0	0	0	4	1	23:51
5	SALO	Finland	3	0	1	1	2	1	23:47
6	TIMONEN	Finland	3	2	0	2	2	1	22:38
7	SEIDENBERG	Germany	3	1	0	1	0	0	22:37
8	EHRHOFF	Germany	3	0	0	0	4	-1	22:34
9	JAKOBSEN	Norway	3	0	1	1	6	-6	22:29
10	WEBER	Canada	3	0	3	3	2	1	22:00

More Norwegians logging huge minutes. I don't know a heckuva lot about Holos other than he plays in the Swedish Elitserien (and I put him on my fantasy team), but being only minus-3 while playing roughly half of Norway's lopsided games is impressive.

The others, save for Weber, aren't surprising given their team's lack depth on the blueline and need to ride their few NHL studs. I imagine we'll see a ton of Ehrhoff and Seidenberg against Canada on Tuesday night. Chara will be a huge part of Slovakia playing spoiler, too. 

Kimmo Timonen's really impressed me in the games I've seen for Finland, as he continues to be one of the NHL's more underrated blueliners.
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Bobby Stevenson, Team USA star

Robert Stevenson was charged with attempted murder and five other felony counts. He tried to obtain a passport using the name of a dead baby before jumping bail. He fled to Canada and his wife, who had forgiven him, and his son later joined him.

Robert Stevenson and his son changed their names and lived under assumed identities and the family lived on the lam.

Today, the boy who protected his family’s dark and complicated secret for much of his life is a pivotal part of the U.S. Olympic hockey team that faces Canada.

- Manish Mehta/The Star-Ledger

A story that's been out there for a while, but an incredible one nonetheless.
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Hockey Night in Afghanistan

"I feel like a Canadian stereotype," said Lieutenant (Navy) Neil King, who was wearing a Canada jersey, holding a Canadian flag, and drinking a Tim Hortons coffee while sitting on a yellow utility truck that had a large Canadian flag hung off it.

"Just the atmosphere here. It's always good to see the Canadians take on the Americans," Lt. King said, before - in true Canadian fashion - politely tip-toeing through his prediction of a lopsided affair. "You know they've got a decent team, but not quite to the level of the Canadians. So, I'm expecting, you know, quite a few goals on our side."

- Josh Wingrove, The Globe and Mail

My good pal is over in Afghanistan, and he covered a different sort of hockey game on the weekend, this one won 16-2 by the Canadian troops over the Americans. As for the actual game back in Vancouver, they were watching and he said the soldiers weren't all that pleased...

I believe the quote was: "f--- this." 
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2010 Olympics: Who plays who after the prelims

So, the three-game round robin is over for all 12 teams, and everyone moves on. Here are how they're ranked after Sunday's games: 

1. United States

2. Sweden

3. Russia

4. Finland

---

5. Czech Republic

6. Canada

7. Slovakia

8. Switzerland

9. Belarus

10. Norway

11. Germany

12. Latvia

Next round (Tuesday):

G1: Czech Rep. vs. Latvia, 10 p.m.

G2: Canada vs. Germany, 7:30 p.m.

G3: Slovakia vs. Norway, midnight

G4: Switzerland vs. Belarus, 3 p.m.

Quarter-finals (Wednesday):

Q1. United States vs. Switzerland/Belarus

Q2. Sweden vs. Slovakia/Norway

Q3. Russia vs. Canada/Germany

Q4. Finland vs. Czech Rep./Latvia

Semi-finals (Friday)

Q1 vs. Q4

Q2 vs. Q3

Bronze-medal game (Saturday)
Semi-final losers

Gold-medal game (Sunday)
Semi-final winners


A few observations:

1. Finishing first has done wonders for the U.S., who will now avoid Canada, Russia and Sweden until playing for gold (should they make it that far). The Americans are the favourites now to come out of that side of the bracket (although we may not have seen the best of the Finns or Czechs yet).
   
   
2. Canada, conversely, has a heckuva road ahead, which is what they've earned after needing a shootout to beat Switzerland and losing to the U.S. The Canadians were the lowest ranked team that finished second in their group, and placing sixth instead of fifth means a date with Russia in the quarter-final instead of Finland.
   
   
3. I'm assuming there won't be any monumental upsets, of course, but that could happen. A win over a contending team by Slovakia or Switzerland would change everything, and when it comes down to one game and given those teams have excellent goaltenders, who knows?

However it shakes out, we're in for some great games this week. And, six days from now, a new gold-medal winner. 
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What's next at the Olympics

I'll update this after tonight's Sweden-Finland tilt.
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How the Olympic hockey format works

For the curious, here's how the men's hockey format works at the Olympics (courtesy of the IIHF).

I may offer a more extensive runthrough of how this works later today, but in a nutshell, the top four teams after today's games will move on to the top four spots in the quarter-finals. Teams five through 12, meanwhile, will play a "bonus" game, with the winners of that one moving on and the losers going home ranked 9th to 12th.

If, for example, Sweden, Russia, Canada and the U.S. end up as the top four, Finland, the Czechs, Slovaks, etc., will face some of the lowly teams (Latvia, Norway, Germany) that didn't win a game for the right to move on. The No. 1 ranked team will face the winner of the 8th v. 9th game, which looks like it'll be between Switzerland and Belarus, in the quarter-final, while teams ranked No. 2 through 4 will likely get a somewhat difficult opponent in the quarters.

One other twist is the fact that that "bonus" game is played on Tuesday and the quarter-finals on Wednesday, meaning teams without the top four bye will have to play two must-win games back-to-back.  

Things are definitely about to get interesting.
  .F

Langenbrunner on being Captain America

International hockey's been a bit of a strange road for Jamie Langenbrunner.

Named to the 1998 Olympic team in Nagano at age 22, midway through his second full NHL season, he then wasn't invited back for Salt Lake City in 2002. Nor Turin in 2006.

Twelve years after that first appearance at the Games, he's now the 34-year-old captain of an American team that has 14 members 25 and under.

Langenbrunner's coming off his best season in the NHL last year, a 29-goal, 69-point campaign in which he was also plus-25. He's also emerged as a top defensive player and a leader, as in addition to captaining the Olympic team he wears the 'C' for the Devils.

Langenbrunner's a small-town guy from Minnesota and has a pretty straightforward approach to answering questions. I had the chance to chat with him briefly this year about how he'd approach leading such a young group. 

"You're named captain and you're put in those situations because of the way you do things," Langenbrunner said. "If you go out and try and change who you are and the way you prepare, you're not being the person who you're supposed to be. I'm going to keep playing the way I always have."

He was also asked if he had any special insight into how the U.S. team could beat his Devils teammate, Marty Brodeur.
"He's been in the league 18, 19 years - if he had any secrets, they'd be out there," he said. "He's one of those special goalies that plays such a unique style that there's not just one thing that works on him."

Langenbrunner added that, with so many Olympians in the Devils dressing room (including U.S. blueliner Brian Rafalski and sniper Zach Parise, Czech winger Patrik Elias and Swedish defenceman Johnny Oduya), there had been a little trash talking going on.

He said he and Marty, in particular, know what's coming having been through this before with the World Cup in 2004. 

"We joke a little bit, but you know it's one of those subjects where you joke kind of but we both realize how serious its going to be when we get there," Langenbrunner said. "As good of friends as we are here, I think we've both kind of decided we'll say 'hi' and that's about it for a few weeks. That's the way you've got to prepare and approach those things I think."
L.

Team Canada in the shootout

Seems like a good time to post this given Canada narrowly won out in a shootout tonight over Switzerland. Here's what coach Mike Babcock had to say to Duhatschek about his strategy in picking shooters:

"It was really complicated," said Babcock. "We had all the numbers down. Sid was the best, Toews was second and Getzlaf was third. We went in order. Then we said on the bench, ‘Do we go with (Rick) Nash because he's fourth or do we go back to the guy who scores every time?' We just thought he'd had a look at him once; and he'd get him the second time."

Which obviously makes one wonder: What are those numbers?

So, here's a look at the all-time shootout records of all 20 Canadian skaters.

	Players	Teams	Goals	Shots	Pct
1	Crosby, Sidney	PIT	18	46	39.1%
2	Nash, Rick	CBJ	16	45	35.6%
3	Getzlaf, Ryan	ANA	15	42	35.7%
4	Toews, Jonathan	CHI	13	24	54.2%
5	Perry, Corey	ANA	11	33	33.3%
6	Bergeron, Patrice	BOS	11	41	26.8%
7	Richards, Mike	PHI	10	30	33.3%
8	Marleau, Patrick	SJ	7	23	30.4%
9	Iginla, Jarome	CGY	7	26	26.9%
10	Boyle, Dan	SJ	4	16	25.0%
11	Heatley, Dany	SJ	4	24	16.7%
12	Morrow, Brenden	DAL	2	4	50.0%
13	Doughty, Drew	LA	2	5	40.0%
14	Thornton, Joe	SJ	2	9	22.2%
15	Staal, Eric	CAR	2	12	16.7%
16	Seabrook, Brent	CHI	1	1	100.0%
17	Niedermayer, Scott	ANA	0	2	0.0%
18	Pronger, Chris	ANA	0	3	0.0%
19	Weber, Shea	NSH	0	1	0.0%
20	Keith, Duncan	CHI	0	0	0.0%

Toews, in other words, appears to have the best overall percentage among regular shooters, but looking at the numbers for this season, Crosby has been hot (six for eight). This table, however, explains why they went with Getzlaf in the third spot, and why Nash would have been No. 4 had Crosby not gone for a second go-round.

Expect those four to be taking all the shots if there's another one later on in the tournament.
c.

Comparing Team Canadas: 2006 to 2010

I've been asked a lot about Team Canada leading into these Olympics, and for the most part, my responses have been pretty positive. This is, after all, a remarkably different team than the one that finished seventh and was essentially a disaster in Turin four years ago.

Here's a comparison of those teams:

Returning players
Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Chris Pronger, Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla, Rick Nash, Joe Thornton

Missed 2006 due to injury but on 2010 team
Scott Niedermayer

2010 newcomers
Marc-Andre Fleury, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber, Brent Seabrook, Drew Doughty, Dan Boyle, Brenden Morrow, Patrick Marleau, Jonathan Toews, Mike Richards, Eric Staal, Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Getzlaf, Sidney Crosby

In all, 15 of the 2010 team's 20 skaters are newcomers (if you include Niedermayer). Nearly half (seven) of those came out of the world junior class of 2005, as stacked a team as we've seen in that tournament: Seabrook, Weber, Bergeron, Crosby, Getzlaf, Perry and Richards.

Fleury played for the 2003 and 2004 teams, Doughty in 2008, Toews in 2006 and 2007. Morrow played in the 1999 tourney. Incredibly, Keith and Staal didn't play at all at the world juniors. Neither did Marleau or Boyle, who made his international debut in 2005 with the world championship team at age 28.

Canada won gold in the juniors from 2005 to 2009, five straight times, and a lot of their new recruits (nine) came from those tournaments. The international success is there, albeit at a different level, and that alone leads me to believe this team will have more success than the group in Turin.
H.