If this is the case, that's sad. Marchand should be considered elite at this point in his career and after the year he had. 6th in the league in goals. 2nd when talking about Canadian skaters. The guy deserves a spot. Hopefully he at least gets a LONG look. If I'm putting together a team for Canada having Bergeron and Marchand as a twosome and then putting some other stud on that line gets me all tingly in the pants area.
That's interesting. For Russia, the 2nd highest goal scorer is Tarasenko, for USA Pavelski, for Sweden Loui Eriksson, for Finland Leo Komarov and Czechs David Krejci (I think). You'd have to think all of those are guaranteed spots on their teams.
But obviously the competition for Canada is quite a lot tougher at forward than any of those teams, especially since their 2nd goal scorer is ranked 6 overall (5 for USA, 4 for Russia, 23 for Sweden, 114 for Finland and 121 for Czech Republic). You'd want the package Marchand brings, though, with penalty killing, shorthanded scoring, sniping and being able to dish it. He's 18th in points for Canada, but his +/- is astounding at 9th - the highest of a non-playoff team player (the second highest is Pageau) and his career +/- per game is amongst the highest in the league, and the highest amongst forwards with over 250 games played.