Canadian World Cup roster announced

[Ironchef Chris Wok*]

My "not-so-good" picks:
Draper and Maltby - shoulda taken Peca and Madden
Brewer - AUCOIN IS BETTER.
Morrow - Kinda on the bubble. Another grinder.
Gagne - Worked in Salt Lake, let's see what happens.

My "Glad they weren't taken"
KEITH PRIMEAU. NO. Thanks, but we've been there.
Bryan McCabe - To tell you the truth, I'm not really sold on him. I wouldn't have been "ANGRY" if he was chosen, but meh.
Alex Tanguay and Paul Kariya - The former had a good year, the latter did not. Too soft for the World Cup? Maybe. I think Team Canada has filled the quota of speedy midgets (St. Louis, Richards)

My "Glad they were taken"
Steve Yzerman - He's gonna be huge if he plays. I guaren-damn-tee it. He's beaten entire teams in the playoffs with one knee. Another missing eye isn't gonna stop him.
Ryan Smyth - I've been getting vibes lately that Ryan Smyth was on the bubble. If they didn't take him, I would have gone ******* and mailed Hockey canada and called them fools.
Brad Richards - He's gonna fly w/ St. Louis

My "Should have taken but weren't:
Rick Nash - If they're not taking Bert, fine. But they shoudl have taken another physical scoring forward instead. I would take out Morrow and put Nash in.
Al MacInnis - I know he's injured, but if he comes back, he should be a lock. At least put him on the list or something. If he can't go, then put somebody else in.
Peca and Madden - superior to Maltby and Draper IMO. I know they've never played with each other, but I think they would have been just fine.

 

[Ironchef Chris Wok*]

They don't need guys like Maltby and Draper. Look at the Nagano team, guys like Corson and Linden didn't do nothing.

Nobody else scored against Hasek

Btw, here are my lines:

Iggy - Sakic - St. Louis
Lemieux - Thornton - Morrow
Smyth - Marleau - Richards
The "International grindline"

Making lines with Team Canada is easy!

 

[big_steve]

Gagne too soft ??? You don't ever watch him play then.

Gagne is not close to soft. Great along the wall and in the corners.

Gagne is every bit as fast if not faster than Maltby and Draper.

To back you up a bit, Gagne is definitely faster then Maltby and Draper.

 

[big_steve]

Here's Bob McKenzie's lines from yesterday:
Brad Richards-Mario Lemieux-Martin St. Louis
Simon Gagne-Joe Sakic-Jarome Iginla
Brendan Morrow-Joe Thornton-Dany Heatley
Kirk Maltby-Kris Draper-Shane Doan
Ryan Smyth-Patrick Marleau-Steve Yzerman

Here's my line-up which is VERY similar to Bob's:
Brad Richards-Mario Lemieux-Martin St. Louis
Simon Gagne-Joe Sakic-Jarome Iginla
Ryan Smyth-Joe Thornton-Dany Heatley
Kirk Maltby-Kris Draper-Shane Doan
Extras: Patrick Marleau, Brendan Morrow, Steve Yzerman

Only one change on the whole line-up and that's Smyth with Thornton and Heatley.

Chris Pronger-Scott Niedermayer
Rob Blake-Ed Jovanovski
Adam Foote-Wade Redden
Extras: Eric Brewer, Robyn Regehr

Martin Brodeur
Roberto Luongo
Ed Belfour

 

[Chaos]

.Not crazy about Morrow either. I felt he had a poor season.

He had a career year in goals and points

 

[The List Of Jericho]

No suprise that Fatty Quinn was abel to weasel one of his players onto the team.

Leaf fans are wetting themselves again, too bad they don't realize that BelFORE will be a third stringer and see no action. :lol

Maltby instead of Primeau?

Maybe they were worried that Thedore was betting against Canada

 

[The List Of Jericho]

This team is quite soft and have no power forwards(Morrow please).I can't see this team winning the World Cup unless Bertuzzi along with Primeau are added some how (Phantom injuries)

 

[Street Hawk]

They have size...

This team is quite soft and have no power forwards(Morrow please).I can't see this team winning the World Cup unless Bertuzzi along with Primeau are added some how (Phantom injuries)

Canada isn't small by any means. Thornton, Iginla, Smyth, Heatley, Doan, and Maltby, Morrow, and Marleau all have size and use it.

The way I break down the forwards are as follows:

Gagne/Sakic/Iginla - keep the SLC line
Heatley/Lemieux/St. Louis - solid #2 unit
Maltby/Draper/Yzerman - checking line
Smyth/Thornton/Doan - crash and bang line with a scoring touch

Spares:

Morrow for a grinder, ie. one of the Wings
Marleau and Richards for one of the top scorers, or move one of the bangers up and replace with Marleau or Richards on the 4th line.

But, I will agree with you that I would feel better if a PF was one of the spares as opposed to 2 of the same type of guy in Marleau and Richards. Marleau is grittier, but by no means is he in the league of a Primeau.

I can live with Bertuzzi being off the roster. I'm a Nucks fan and I think that it is still acceptable that he is left off the roster.

 

[SumOfUs]

It pisses me off that many of you are whining about Gretzgy's picks and don't know a thing about creating a roster yourselves. It seems that many of you believe that the way to go is to just slap together the 26 best Canadian players and call it a team. If that were the case, the lineup would have been finalized a long time ago. You have to take in to account other factors, the intangibles of the game. If the best players made the best team, I think Detroit would have swept Calgary and Colorado would have swept San Jose, but they didn't. You guys think you know what you're talking about. Making a roster that not only has skill but the chemistry and will to do well is essential.

Maltby and Draper are incredible grinders, they will bring a hard nosed edge to the team like never before. Gagne is in there because of his great speed and passing abilities. Don't forget, this is a different brand of hockey where bodywork is rare from the opposition and 2 line passes account for many goals. Yzerman is in there to bring leadership to the table, an extremely underrated quality in terms of importance. Lecavalier is not a part of this team because he is too one dimensional and selfish. Primeau should have been picked I must admit, but Morrow is not a bad checking scorer in his own rights.

The only terrible pick that I see here is Brewer. I honestly can't explain that one.

This will be a great team Canada.

 

[SumOfUs]

On a seperate note how about these pairings?

Blake-Pronger
Neidermeyer-Redden
Foote-Jovo

 

[Dale]

I think Brewer might make some people eat their words. We'll just have to wait and see.

Brewer will probably be fine on the team as would a number of other D that didn't get chosen. The point is that there were more deserving defensemen who didn't get picked because they didn't have someone like Lowe lobbying for them as was done in the Olympics.

People are mentioning Boumeister, Stuart, Hannan and Aucoin. Any of these guys deserved it as much if not more than Brewer.

On the Oiler team alone, the guys voted the top defensemen the last 3 years were Niinimaa, Staios and this year Smith. Not once was Brewer close.

The facts that Eric plays well on the big ice and has 3 international tournaments under his belt should not have been that important in the decision making process, as this tourney is being played on regulation NHL size ice.

International experience should count less than who is just the better dman.

I've been to or watched 95% of the Oiler games the last 4 years. Brewer ALWAYS has a slow 1st half and then gets stronger. Let's just hope he's counting the world cup as part of last year rather than the start of a new year.

 

[Phanuthier*]

I just read over some articles on canoe.ca and found some interesting info the selection of D

The 6 returners were put in pen, they were damn sure all (yes, including Brewer) were in. Regehr was the 7th man picked, quoted Gretzkey a easy and definate choice, followed by Redden as the 8th man, another easy choice. So it seems, Regehr was put on the list before Redden, although it really doesn't seem to matter since they didn't seem to spend too much time mulling over it.

From the articles, it seems as though Regehr will be more than a bench warmer. I would put money on it.

Do what you want with it, don't flame the messenger.

 

[MacDaddy TLC*]

It pisses me off that many of you are whining about Gretzgy's picks and don't know a thing about creating a roster yourselves. It seems that many of you believe that the way to go is to just slap together the 26 best Canadian players and call it a team. If that were the case, the lineup would have been finalized a long time ago. You have to take in to account other factors, the intangibles of the game. If the best players made the best team, I think Detroit would have swept Calgary and Colorado would have swept San Jose, but they didn't. You guys think you know what you're talking about. Making a roster that not only has skill but the chemistry and will to do well is essential.

Maltby and Draper are incredible grinders, they will bring a hard nosed edge to the team like never before. Gagne is in there because of his great speed and passing abilities. Don't forget, this is a different brand of hockey where bodywork is rare from the opposition and 2 line passes account for many goals. Yzerman is in there to bring leadership to the table, an extremely underrated quality in terms of importance. Lecavalier is not a part of this team because he is too one dimensional and selfish. Primeau should have been picked I must admit, but Morrow is not a bad checking scorer in his own rights.

The only terrible pick that I see here is Brewer. I honestly can't explain that one.

This will be a great team Canada.

BRAVO! This is our team. it isn't time to criticize, it's time to rally behind them (Cripes, same thing i said in 2001 when the olympic team was announced)

Draper and Maltby earned their way on to this team with their outstanding international service. They belong to be there as much as Simon Gagne. Same with Robyn Regehr. The selection of Regehr reminds me of the Foote selection in 1996. Foote road the momentum of a solid cup run in 1996 to a World Cup berth and took his opportunity and made the most of it. He has become a staple of Team Canada since.

The Brewer pick isn't that hard to understand. He may have had an off year, but has always answered the call for his country and provided a decent performance.

 

[big_steve]

I just read over some articles on canoe.ca and found some interesting info the selection of D

The 6 returners were put in pen, they were damn sure all (yes, including Brewer) were in. Regehr was the 7th man picked, quoted Gretzkey a easy and definate choice, followed by Redden as the 8th man, another easy choice. So it seems, Regehr was put on the list before Redden, although it really doesn't seem to matter since they didn't seem to spend too much time mulling over it.

From the articles, it seems as though Regehr will be more than a bench warmer. I would put money on it.

Do what you want with it, don't flame the messenger.

Direct link please, I want to read this.

Plus, if Regehr is gonna be placed ahead of Redden then have him ahead of Brewer also. I've really taken a liken to Regehr.

 

[Phanuthier*]

Direct link please, I want to read this.

Plus, if Regehr is gonna be placed ahead of Redden then have him ahead of Brewer also. I've really taken a liken to Regehr.

I read it at work, so I'll let you dig through the some-40 articles if you don't take my word for it. Its on the SLAM canoe.ca site.

I'm not full of BS... but if you wanted to know how it was said, it was something along the lines of "Well it really wasn't hard picking Redden as the 8th man, since he was so close to making it in 2002. It was an easy choice, he deserved a spot. (Martin) I told him at the begining of the season if he played like this next year, you'll get a spot."

 

[IceDragoon]

Just happened across this article that supports Splatman Phanutier's input.

http://www.canoe.ca/Slam040516/col_jones-sun.html

 

[big_steve]

I read it at work, so I'll let you dig through the some-40 articles if you don't take my word for it. Its on the SLAM canoe.ca site.

I'm not full of BS... but if you wanted to know how it was said, it was something along the lines of "Well it really wasn't hard picking Redden as the 8th man, since he was so close to making it in 2002. It was an easy choice, he deserved a spot. (Martin) I told him at the begining of the season if he played like this next year, you'll get a spot."

I never said you were full of BS.

 

[PinkFloydLives]

Twist your words around?

Huh.

I guess then you'll have to clarify what you meant by the following statement, since the first time around the implication was that Iginla is a selfish player, not a team player.


Oh and if you're going to accuse someone of twisting your words around, be careful not to do the same yourself in the next sentence. That would be embarassing.

Uh huh. Thanks Dad

 

[kerrly]

I like this team alot. Some people question some of the picks but every player on this roster fills a needed role and they are all class guys. And just to say, some of you may question the Brewer pick, but just wait until this tourney starts and he will impress you, I guarantee it. He gets better the bigger the games gets and he is a solid solid dman.