There will be no replacement for Patrick.
Have to think that Hockey Canada was expecting it. The camp roster is basically the same size as the roster from last year, plus Patrick and Speers. I agree that I'm not big on taking players who have barely played that year, other than very special cases.
There's kind of an adjustment period for all these guys anyway, jumping from club teams to Team Canada, with the way the process is set up. Whether they're coming in healthy and on a hot streak, or just working back from injury.
I wouldn't have had a problem with them bringing Patrick as basically the "extra" forward, had he been able to get a few games in and demonstrate in the pre-tournament process that he's healthy and reasonably up to speed. He's pretty versatile and he's got a high ceiling for potential impact if he were to be healthy...maybe sliding up over the course of the tournament as he gets his legs, and others inevitably disappoint.
But yeah, pretty much a no-brainer to exclude him now. And it looks as though Hockey Canada were probably expecting as much - or at least, intentionally erred on the side of caution in event that this happened.
And with loaners from the NHL looking pretty unlikely, for me at least...i think this pretty well narrows the field at Forward down to a few guys mostly competing for that spare forward role.
Up front i'd probably go with:
Jost-Strome-Raddysh
Dubois-Barzal-Gauthier
Steel-McLeod-Joseph
Howden-Roy-Stephens
Let Speers/Cirelli/Dube/Merkley duke it out for that last spot. I think they've all got enough versatility to work well as the spare and slot in to a few different spots depending on how chemistry shakes out with the lines as the tournament goes.
Not married to those particular line combos obviously, but that'd be the rough outline i'd pencil in...and that would at least be the group of players i'd want to take.
