Without NHL players, Olympics are ‘wide open’
When Willie Desjardins coached Canada’s 2010 world junior team stacked with future NHL players Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Brayden Schenn, Alex Pietrangelo and goaltenders Jake Allen and Martin Jones, it took a wild final game with John Carlson scoring in overtime to win the gold medal for the United States.
Just like Canada was the most talented team back then, Russia is likely to have that role at the upcoming Winter Olympics. Desjardins isn’t concerned about that.
“In this tournament, anybody can win,” Desjardins said.
Goodbye, NHL players. Hello, unpredictability.
No NHL participation for the first time since 1994 threatens to upset the traditional world hockey order after Canada has won the past three best-onbest tournaments: the 2016 World Cup, 2014 Sochi Olympics and 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Russia is considered the favorite because it has former NHL players Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk and Andrei Markov, though Finland could make gold its sixth medal in the past five Games or Sweden could win for the first time since 2006.
Coach Tony Granato’s American team was put together with players from European professional leagues, the NCAA and American Hockey League.
“This Olympics is wide open for a lot of reasons,” Granato said. “Russia’s got the most talented players in the world. They’re going to have the team that steps on the ice with the most talented players. Does that make them the best team for two weeks? No. We all know that. We all know how sports works. All you’re looking for is an opportunity to make the most and be the best that you can be for that period of time.”
Because it’s such a short tournament with three pool-play games, a qualifying round and then quarterfinals, it could come down to which team gels first after limited preparation time. Or maybe another goaltender will pull off what Latvia’s Kristers Gudlevskis almost did when making 55 saves to give Canada a scare in the quarterfinals in Sochi.
“The goaltending matters, too, in an event like this,” NBC Sports analyst Pierre McGuire said. “It always matters, but I think in this one, the underdog — if you have an elite goalie — can really do some damage.”
Who’s the underdog? It’s fair to say host South Korea, in its first Olympics in men’s hockey, fits that bill, along with Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany and Norway.
Yet being in a group with Slovenia, Slovakia and Russia is no easy task for the U.S., which boasts 38-yearold semi-retired captain Brian Gionta as its most experienced player. Granato said the U.S. “has lots of pieces that other teams and countries don’t know about” and wonders if his team will be overlooked.
Mistake-prone play seems likely, though Gionta doesn’t think there will be any lack of sizzle.
“I know there’s been some talk that not having the NHL guys in, you don’t have your high-skilled guys,” Gionta said. “I think that’s a bad representation of the people that are going over there and competing in these games. There’s a lot of great hockey players.”