PaulieVegas
Registered User
The one area where Canada's been heads-up-and-above everyone is on defense, in most tournaments Canada has guys not make the team that would be the #2 or even #1 D-man on most other teams. But the USA is producing a solid crop of young defensemen, and if they all pan out the way they're supposed to (key word: if), we could be looking at a pretty sick corps of D-linemen in Sochi:
Erik Johnson-Jack Johnson
Ryan Suter-Dustin Byfluglien
Cam Fowler-John Carlson
Zach Bogosian
Again, that assumes these guys pan out the way they should, EJ and Bogosian probably being the biggest question marks. And that assumes we only decide to take young kids, Brooks Orpik and Paul Martin will still be in their early 30's. And there's other guys who should make the team but might get squeezed out, like Alex Goligoski, Kevin Shattenkirk, and both the Greene's.
Not prepared to compare this generation to the Leetch-Chelios-Housley-Suter-Hatcher x2 generation of American defensemen, or even to what Canada will bring to Sochi in 2014. But this has the chance to be a really good crop of D-men.
Erik Johnson-Jack Johnson
Ryan Suter-Dustin Byfluglien
Cam Fowler-John Carlson
Zach Bogosian
Again, that assumes these guys pan out the way they should, EJ and Bogosian probably being the biggest question marks. And that assumes we only decide to take young kids, Brooks Orpik and Paul Martin will still be in their early 30's. And there's other guys who should make the team but might get squeezed out, like Alex Goligoski, Kevin Shattenkirk, and both the Greene's.
Not prepared to compare this generation to the Leetch-Chelios-Housley-Suter-Hatcher x2 generation of American defensemen, or even to what Canada will bring to Sochi in 2014. But this has the chance to be a really good crop of D-men.