Nothing but open ice with NHL taking a pass
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— Around this time four years ago, as the men’s hockey tournament at the Sochi Olympics was about to begin, the plot line didn’t promise much suspense.
Canada, the defending gold medallist, was the heavy favourite to repeat. And as much as the men in the maple leaf had the occasional nerve-racking moment — a toonarrow win against Latvia in the quarter-finals comes to mind — they played with a ruthless dominance that didn’t allow for cliffhangers. Even a 1-0 victory over the United States, as close as the score made it look, was a puck-possession clinic. Canada finished the tournament having allowed only three goals in six games, a new Olympic standard for stinginess. To no one’s surprise, a similarly-manned roster of Canadians made it three straight best-onbest championships by capturing the 2016 World Cup of Hockey in Toronto. It was all as clinical as it was predictable.
This time around at the Olympics, with NHL players not participating in the five-ringed hockey draw for the first time since 1994, the eve of the tournament brings with it far more uncertainty.
What can be expected from Canada’s team? On a roster with an average age of about 31 years old, there’s plenty of NHL experience, even if there are no NHLers. And there are familiar names, too. Thirty-sevenyear-old Chris Kelly, who won a Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins a few years back, has played more than 800 NHL games. Rene Bourque and Derek Roy have played more than 700 apiece. Forwards Mason Raymond and Brandon Kozun, along with goaltender Ben Scrivens, have played for the Maple Leafs, as has the father of 25-yearold Canadian winger Christian Thomas, son of Steve. Still, there’s a lot less name recognition (and NHL experience) on Canada’s blue line (only one of the eight selected defencemen, Oakville’s Cody Goloubef, has played more than 100 NHL games). There are questions about goal scoring. And given that the goaltending trio of Scrivens, Kevin Poulin and Justin Peters put up a composite career NHL save percentage of .903, it’s difficult to know what to expect from the Canadians. Something other than a dominant romp to gold would be a safe bet.
“In this tournament, anybody can win,” Willie Desjardins, the exVancouver Canucks coach who’ll be the man in charge behind Canada’s bench, has said.
Russia hasn’t won an Olympic men’s hockey medal since 2002, when it captured bronze. It hasn’t won gold since 1992, when it travelled to Albertville as the post-Berlin Wall Unified Team. In the blank spaces between those podiums and beyond, there’s been a vast quantity of disappointment. So to insist, as many bookmakers have, that the gold-medal favourite here is Russia — or rather, the Olympic Athletes from Russia, as they’re being called as a repercussion of the Sochi doping scandal — probably overlooks that history of underperformance. Still, if marquee names are a difference maker, the Russians ought to do fine. Forward Ilya Kovalchuk is the Kontinental Hockey League’s scoring leader at age 34. Co-star Pavel Datsyuk, who plays alongside Kovalchuk for the KHL’s St. Petersburg SKA, is averaging nearly a point a game at age 39. All of which suggests they both remain viable forces as European-based pros. That the team is largely a melding of two KHL teams — the lineups of SKA and CSKA Moscow — suggests a continuity advantage that could prove critical. Throw in 20-year-old Minnesota Wild prospect Kirill Kaprizov, possibly the best goal scorer not currently in the NHL, and it’s a dangerous mix.
Which is not to say the OAR can lay claim to the tournament’s most intriguing star. You can make a case that Swedish defenceman Rasmus Dahlin, the 17-year-old who is expected to go No. 1 in June’s NHL draft, will be one of the best players in the tournament. It’s also fathomable, given his YouTube-worthy penchant for dramatic rushes, that he’ll emerge as the most entertaining.
Scarce are the other players with such potential. Finland, the only team to win a medal in each of the past three Olympics, has Eeli Tolvanen, the 18-year-old Nashville pick who’s piling up points in the KHL. But the U.S., captained by Brian Gionta, will, like Canada, rely more on veteran experience than youthful skill — although they are buoyed by a handful of collegians, among them Troy Terry of the University of Denver, who scored the gold-medalwinning goal in a shootout over Canada at the world junior championship back in 2017. Veteran wisdom also defines the Czechs, captained by four-time Olympian Martin Erat, who’ll be among Canada’s preliminary-round opponents.
The South Koreans, competing in their first Olympics in men’s hockey and a group-stage matchup for the Canadians, are the conspicuous underdogs here. They’re coached by Jim Paek, the Korean-born, GTAbred veteran of the Pittsburgh Penguins teams that won the Stanley Cup in 1991 and 1992. More of a possible concern could be Switzerland, Canada’s foe in the Feb. 15 tournament opener. The Swiss are likely to be backstopped by Jonas Hiller — he of the 45-save performance in the 2010 Olympics that pushed Canada into a shootout ultimately won on a Sidney Crosby shot.
Around this time four years ago, the idea of long shots prevailing against a Team Canada juggernaut seemed hard to fathom — Latvia’s near miss notwithstanding. This month on the Korean Peninsula, the improbable seems more than possible.