Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Movie: Smile at the Camera

Since I have the night off from watching playoff hockey (funny how the elimination of more teams from the playoff picture correlates with an increase in the time I can devote to other leisure activities), I decided to fulfill my promise to watch and blog about the next installment of the 1981 Miracle on Ice film. This section focuses on part of the trials process associated with selecting the Olympic team, but since this movie centers around the trials more than its twenty-first century counterpart does, I will continue to examine the trials process in the next blog post as well, as the trials process appears to extend beyond the portion that I’m being for this post. With that caveat, wagons ho! We’re about to depart on the next part of our wonderful journey to gold in Lake Placid.

When we last left our boys, they were besieging Patrick with a million and one questions. Apparently having received answers to all their manifold inquiries, they are now giving their names and getting their photographs taken. This is probably intended to serve as our introduction to all the boys—providing us with a way to place all the faces with a name—but it feels like too little too late, since we’ve already been thrown into the deep end without a life vest, and, anyway, most of these actors (a term I employ here in the loosest possible sense) bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. Basically, this is my disclaimer that at some point in the movie I might end up saying something about how Mark Johnson has this great line when really it was Rob McClanahan who said it, because casting makes everyone look the same. In real life, though, I would never in a million years confuse those two, so I can still keep my real Miracle fan badge, right?

While the Miracle fan board reviews my case, the first guy to come forward to get his picture taken is Rizzo. He strikes a pose that is more arrogant than outgoing, and I’m not sure that’s really him. I’d believe he’d give off a confident but also friendly vibe. Once Rizzo is done with his photo op, OC steps forward to have his picture taken while chewing a wad of gum just like Brett Connolly did in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft when he went to the podium to shake Steve Yzerman’s hand, and we just had to be grateful that he didn’t spit or pick his nose since neither his parents nor his agent had coached him in how to meet a GM and Hall of Famer. Unlike Brett Connolly, OC does not seem as if he is operating under the influence of horse tranquilizers, and he puts on this cocky smirk that I believe is perfect for his character. So far he’s one of the better portrayed guys in this film, though that may be damning with faint praise.

Jim’s up next, and he needs to be told to look at the camera, which I guess could be the filmmaker’s way of trying to establish that he was something of a loner. After giving his name, he gives this horrible half smile, and I cringe in disgust. Why, oh way, did casting think Steve Guttenberg was a perfect fit for this role? You could torture me like in that graphic and only appropriate for adult audiences scene in Braveheart, and I’d still refuse to believe that Guttenberg was Craig, until the bitter end shouting, “Freedom!”

After Jim, Ken Morrow follows, and he gives his name so quietly that Patrick asks him to repeat it, which is a reasonably clever and relatively subtle way of showing how reserved Ken was. Kudos to the script writers here.

Buzz is up next, and all I can think is that at least he’s better looking than the guy who plays Jim Craig in this movie. His smile is a bit more smug and less kind than I would have imagined, but maybe that’s just me.

Les Auge follows Buzz, and, like OC, he’s chewing gum. It’s a gum-chewing pandemic. I hope that none of them gets attacked like Hugh Jessiman by their suddenly sentient gum when celebrating a goal. I mean, it’s a sure sign that you’re basically a total bust as a professional athlete when you can’t even celebrate a goal without some hilariously ungainly malfunction, and you don’t want to give Herb that sort of insight into your failings.

Next up is Rob McClanahan, who seems pretty regular and inoffensive, which is about all you can ask from this film at this point. Then we have Pav, who is totally blank for the camera, and that goes well with his hating-the-spotlight personality. Pav is followed by John Harrington, who seems normal though plumper than he looked in earlier shots of him. It must be the light…

We shift over to the rink, where some guys are performing a warm-up skate after having their pictures snapped. Les Auge skates up to Rizzo and introduces himself before remarking about how there isn’t much competition. In response, Rizzo observes that is a good thing because he’s still tired from the trip. Since Rizzo mentions jet lag, I’ll just point out that many of the boys who tried out for the ’80 Olympic team actually arrived in Colorado Springs many days in advance so that they could adapt to the higher altitude.

On that note, we’re back to Patrick taking a picture of a guy named Steve Thompson. I admit that unlike Les Auge, Cox, and Hughes, I don’t remember reading a word about this Thompson fellow in any of the books or articles I’ve studied about the Miracle on Ice, but it’s still interesting to have a face to go with one of the names that Herb will (spoiler alert) end up cutting in this movie. Thompson is followed by some other dude with the surname Parides that I’ve never read about either. It’s weird and vaguely sad how some names are utterly lost in the annals of hockey history.

After those two guys who are the merest footnotes of history in this movie, we have a dude who I have heard of: one Bill Baker, who gives a slight smile and nod at the camera. He’s pretty cute, even though he is apparently not Eric Strobel after all.

Following Bill, we have Mark Johnson, who has dark hair and white skin but other than that really does not look at all like Mark in terms of facial structure or eye color. He also has this arrogant expression on his face that isn’t at all suitable for Mark to be wearing. Why did the director allow this to happen?

When Patrick is done taking Mark’s photo, the scene shifts to focus on all the boys skating around the rink, and then zones in on the bleachers, where Patrick joins Herb, who is watching the warm-ups like a hawk, and asks, “Now what?”

Herb replies that Patrick took the words right out of his mouth, and Patrick looks aghast at his rudeness. I predict that Patrick will spend about half of his screen time going into cardiac arrest because of all the nasty things that emerge from Herb’s irritable lips. Proving me right, Herb, being his blithe self, continues, “What’s this—a hockey camp or a rehearsal for the ice companies?”

That’s actually a good bit of dialogue (or else my standards have just been lowered by the abysmal quality of the rest of the script, because I can’t even tell any more), and I have some time to appreciate it before Patrick responds with a chuckle, “Relax, Coach. There’s got to be twenty great ones in that line-up.”

Being a total boar, Herb counters, “Good. When you find out who they are, let me know.” Again, Patrick looks astonished by Herb’s terseness. I see this conversation is going nowhere, and maybe the emotionally stunted Herb actually senses the same thing, because he goes on, “Meanwhile, would you get them started? Sprints and everything. Work ‘em. Work ‘em hard.”

Patrick stands up and blows his whistle, but we are left to imagine the horrible paces the boys are put through, since the next scene transpires in Herb’s office, where we are looking down at a pile of the pictures Patrick has just taken on Herb’s desk.

Herb, who presumably was using the phone to attempt a call to his wife, puts it down, stating that she must have taken the kids to a movie. Switching from the personal to business, he scoops up the pile of pictures and begins to rifle through them, asking Patrick, who is seated in the chair opposite his desk, what on a scale of one to ten he thinks of Grazier.

Patrick estimates a nine, and then bumps it up to a nine-and-a-half, reasoning that Grazier is dependable in clutch situations.

Herb demands who would back Grazier up, and Patrick, looking pensive, says Johnson and Parides could. I’m assuming from the fact that Grazier’s and Parides’ names are linked with Johnson’s that these guys were seen as talented, top prospects in 1979, but since I’ve never heard of them, I’m guessing that they busted. That’s the interesting thing about prospect development. Sometimes a late round pick blossoms into a Chara, Pavelski, or Lundqvist, and a first overall pick can be a disappointment like Alexandre Daigle or Marc-Andre Fleury.

Referring to Parides and Johnson, Patrick says, “They’re both talented.”

Hurling down the pictures, Herb wants to know, “But are they tough? Will they stand up?”

My immediate reaction to this line is that the scriptwriters are trying to be all philosophical and whatnot, but are actually betraying the fact that they’ve never drawn up a hockey roster or even contemplated doing so for more than six seconds. Toughness probably isn’t within the top five qualities that coaches and GMs look for in a first line center. Things like stickhandling, skating speed, playmaking abilities, shooting strength, and overall hockey sense are all more important. You look for skill in a first line center, and toughness in a fourth line center, because, a fourth line goon considers it a great triumph to get a star center to drop the gloves and earn a coincidental penalty.

That’s my reaction if it’s physical toughness being questioned here. However, if it’s mental toughness, that’s much more valid a concern, but still a slippery slope, since the hockey world tends to overrate the toughness of players who are chirpy on the ice but then delve into full turtle mode if anyone actually raises a fist while underrating the bravery and endurance of quieter leaders like Steve Yzerman whom Scotty Bowman said had the highest pain threshold of any player he ever coached.

All I can say is we better not be headed down the path of “Mark Johnson was a talented player but a weak one,” because Mark Johnson got his shoulder speared in the Czechoslovakia game and returned to the line-up in the next one even though he had to have his arm in a weird sling under his equipment. It was like playoff hockey, and, on that note, tune in to NBC tomorrow to watch Jonathan Toews, who wears number nineteen just like Steve Yzerman, lead the Blackhawks against the Kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Movie: Meet the Guys

As anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time probably has figured out I have a slightly overzealous interest in the Miracle on Ice, so when I had a chance to buy a VHS (those tapes that are a pain in the neck to rewind and flash forward that we used to watch back in the ‘90s before DVDs were invented to spare us the agony if you can remember those technological Dark Ages) of the 1981 made for TV movie called Miracle on Ice at a garage sell, I had to spend the two bucks it took to purchase the relic. Of course, the fact that I even go to such garage sales is a source of eternal embarrassment to my family, as is the fact that we still have a VHS player hooked up to one of our TVs. To make my family’s humiliation complete, I decided to watch the Miracle on Ice VHS that I bought nice and cheap at a garage sale on our antiquated VHS player and then blog about it in ten to twenty minute segments.

Now to give my audience fair warning, I’m so excited about this rainfall from heaven in the form of a Miracle on Ice VHS that I might not be entirely coherent throughout this viewing and writing experience. Seriously, the last time I was flailing so much over something Miracle related was when I ordered a book about the Miracle on Ice used on Amazon and it arrived with Eric Strobel’s signature in it, making me feel like I had just committed the online equivalent of highway robbery since I would have paid a lot more money for the book if I had known it had Eric Strobel’s John Hancock in it. Gosh, that was like the pinnacle of my Miracle fan glee, and the only way it could have possibly been improved was if the signature had been Mark Johnson’s or Rob McClanahan’s, because those two are my absolute favorite Miracle boys. Okay, that’s more than enough about me and my freakishness. Let’s get on with the show, ladies and gentlemen of the blog world…

The movie opens with a rather impressive declaration that it’s based on the events leading up to the USA men’s hockey team winning gold at the Lake Placid Olympics, but some characters and events have been compressed for dramatic purposes. With all these fancy words, it sounds like the beginning of those forensic shows on the Discovery channel. Maybe Herb will commit a murder in this film, and we’ll have to go on a journey to find DNA evidence to convict him by confiscating his Coke can or something.

Credits are rolling, and I want to get on with the actual film. I’ve got all the patience of a sugar high toddler here, basically, and I’m remembering how hard it is to fast forward a VHS.

All right, the credits are finally over, and we’re at Herb’s house near St. Paul, Minnesota. The camera focuses on the Coach of the Year Award and assorted honors that Herb has received that are hanging on his bedroom wall. It’s a good way of subtly establishing his character as a decorated college coach, and the fact we don’t see any coffee mugs with “Number 1 Coach” written in bright colors is probably a sign that he’s not a touchy-feely guy or else that he coaches the most ungrateful brats ever.

The camera drifts over to Herb’s face, and if I don’t make a crack about Karl Malden nose right away it’s going to be distracting me the whole movie, which will hinder my enjoyment of all things Miracle on Ice, so, on that note, Karl’s nose is so big that it looks like they got two actors to play Herb.

Patty’s awake, and she’s fretting about Herb being up all night like the obsessive nut that he is. Herb comes over to their bed (and the fact that they are allowed to be on the same bed and not have to sleep in twin beds shows that this is an ‘80s film not a ‘50s one, since the ‘50s were so prudish that not even husbands and wives were allowed to share beds) and protests that he had to decide which players he was going to invite to the Olympic try-outs.

Patty is sassy, pointing out that was Herb’s excuse for not getting any sleep last night, and he can’t use the same one twice. Nice to see her given some personality in this film.

Herb explains that he delayed sending out the invitations until today (since he’s such a terrible procrastinator) and then provides a little bit of an info-dump, describing how he’ll have to cut forty-two of the sixty boys at the Olympic trials, and then he’ll have six months to narrow the roster down to twenty. I’d probably be a sarcastic jerk about Herb flipping out this much over sending out invitations if I didn’t just think about how miserable an experience mailing a million Christmas cards can be, but since I remember that I’ll graciously hold my fire.

Of course, in the modern era, mailing invitations isn’t a concern for USA hockey. They just send out text messages to players, and if that sometimes means accidentally inviting a sixty-seven-year-old Canadian to the Olympics instead of Ryan Kesler since Kesler changed his number that is just the price of doing business. Anyway, the lesson in all this is that the technology may have improved, but inviting players to the Olympics still remains a messy process because USA Hockey is a marvelously inefficient organization, as most bureaucracies are.

Since Herb sounds like a ball of stress, Patty points out that Herb didn’t need to take the job, and when Herb worries about what will happen if he can’t succeed, she reassures him that she’ll still be there for him as always. This is a pretty sweet scene, to be honest.

Herb hops into Craig Patrick’s car and begins acting as if he has the social skills of a rhino on a rampage. In response to Patrick’s question about how he’s doing, he just demands to know where the list of the boys they’re going to invite is, and Patrick whips out a clipboard. It’s interesting that the film has Herb treating Patrick like a clod of dirt, since Herb was actually known for treating his assistant coaches and trainers with a lot of respect. He was just mean to his players mainly.

Being a complete thunderhead, Herb grouses about how even if he had twenty of the best players in the world, he couldn’t build a team in less than seven months, and this is why the Russians don’t take American hockey seriously. I guess he would love it if he were named a commander in the army who could draft hockey players to his unit and force them to live in barracks away from their families for eleven months of the year since that was what the Soviet team success was rooted in. I hope that he doesn’t continue in this vein all the way to Lake Placid, because that would just be annoying.

Patrick makes a valid point about hockey being more important to Russians than it is to Americans.

Herb snarls at Patrick to mail out the invitations and then slams the list down like a toddler having a tantrum over Mommy not buying the Oreos at the supermarket. He tops the rant off with a statement that Patrick should start praying that enough of the boys to make a team will feel like showing up, but if that’s really a concern shouldn’t he send out more invitations to more players instead of whining about a potential lack of turnout?

We’re in Boston now, and Rizzo is walking through a park filled with historical statues as all Boston parks are legally required to be with his girlfriend. As they stroll along the path, Rizzo’s girlfriend asks Rizzo if he’s nervous.

At first, Rizzo tries to scoff off the question, then he mans up enough to admit that he is nervous because he’s a hockey player and he needs to get noticed. It should be noted that Rizzo’s Boston accent makes “Donna” sound like “darling.”

Donna gives Rizzo a look to let him know she’s not impressed by this logic, and he says that the pros know where he is, but he needs to prove himself to them if he wants them to give him a real opportunity. He feels that the Olympics would give him that chance to prove himself.

Rizzo’s Boston accent is so excessive that it’s difficult to take him seriously even when he is being so intense in this scene. His actor could have followed the less is more philosophy when it comes to portraying an accent in film.

Donna smiles and asks Rizzo how long he’s going to wait. Rizzo slings an arm around her and says he’ll tell her after the mail comes.

With that as a transition, we move over to North Easton, Massachusetts, where Jim Craig lives. He enters to find an opened invitation to the Olympics on the mantle next to a picture of his mother, who, of course, died of cancer but dreamed of her son going to the Olympics.

As he reads the letter, his dad comes into the room and tells Jimmy not to be angry with his brother who tried to get to it first. Yeah, as someone from a large family, let me tell you that if a sibling was snooping through my mail, I wouldn’t be angry—I’d be searching for a knife. In large families, you shouldn’t get mad; you should just get even.

Jim tells his dad that he wasn’t trying to hide the note and that he just was waiting to see what offers he could get from the pros. Jim’s father says there will be time to speak with the pros later, and Jim counters that it costs money to keep playing amateur, and he feels like his family has spent enough already. Many families do struggle to cobble together the money to give their children a shot at the Olympics that I applaud this film for examining some of the tension that results from that. I imagine it puts a ton of pressure on the athletes knowing how much their family sacrificed to give them a shot at the Olympics, and then for the families it has to be stressful to because they feel like they should be doing everything possible to give their talented kid the best opportunity to succeed but that’s so hard to do when you money is tight.

During the course of this discussion, the camera really zooms in on Jim’s face, and let me tell you, the actor who plays him looks absolutely nothing like the actual Jim Craig. He’s about as far from objectively good-looking as it’s possible to be, he doesn’t look remotely Irish, and his peepers aren’t a dazzling blue. Was this the best casting could do because it’s kind of pathetic?

We’re back in Minnesota, and some guy who I assume is Steve Christoff is watching some reels of himself getting slammed into the boards in awkward ways. Thankfully we are distracted from these frankly weird poses by Rob McClanahan materializing in the doorframe and saying like the obnoxious know-it-all that he is, “Don’t tell me. Slapshot.” No, Robbie, it’s the Three Stooges.

The guy who I’m just going to call Steve until proof that he’s not comes along says he’s actually watching a play of himself getting nailed into the corners.

Rob replies with a joking, “You never give up, do you?” This script is quite terrible, since half of what people say isn’t very related to what was offered in the previous comment. It’s as if everyone in this film has never engaged in an actual conversation with other human beings before.

Steve (or whoever he is) responds that “we can’t all be naturals.” That’s definitely true about the acting in this movie, let me assure you.

Rob, deciding to hop onto the next topic and get to the real point of his visit, asks if Steve “got one.” This forced dialogue that’s trying to sound organic and bantering is quite grating to listen to in case you’re wondering.

Steve (or whatever his name is) answers that he hasn’t checked yet, and Rob crows that he saved him the trouble and they’ll be going to camp together. In other words, the script writers have a fetish for people committing the federal offense of opening mail not addressed to them. I mean, seriously, this is the second time in less than five minutes that someone has nosed through a letter that doesn’t belong to them. Come up with a new way of revealing information. This is already getting old, and we aren’t ten minutes into the movie yet.

I can’t help but picture other conversations Rob might have engaged in with friends in the past, though, and it’s rather amusing. I can just envision him strutting into a friend’s living room during his senior year of high school and announcing all smugly, “I saved you the trouble of getting your mail and opening it. You got that letter from the admissions office of that university you really were dreaming of going to and that you thought was so perfect for you. You were outright rejected. What a bummer, but let’s focus on what’s really important in life. Do you want to watch Slapshot? Wait. Why are you crying and hurling blunt objects at my head?”

Getting beyond the fact that Rob doesn’t understand human emotions too well in this movie, we’re moving up to Eveleth, Minnesota to meet some Coneheads at a bar.

We get some shots of the mines because Eveleth is in the Iron Range of Minnesota, so mining iron ore is what the economy of that whole region is based on. Good to get some local flavor.

We follow Pav as he dashes into a bar, glances around at the patrons, and then takes a seat at a table with Bah Harrington and Buzz Schneider.

Buzz makes a wisecrack about Pav only being an hour late this time. Pav would be the dude who couldn’t arrive on time to anything, since he is the exact opposite of a social butterfly.

Pav explains that he was fishing. This feels so in character, since Pav loved nature and hunting, so I could totally see him blowing off his friends for an hour or more to catch some fish.

I think the scene with the Coneheads is the best yet, because Bah actually sounds natural when he gives Pav a hard time about fishing instead of hanging out with his friends, and Pav does to when he responds that if it’s between Bah and fishing, fishing is going to win.

That natural feeling kind of fades away though when Bah and Buzz want to know if Pav got an invitation to the Olympic trials, but at least this gives Pav a chance to show his prankster side by putting on a blank face for a few seconds, and then whipping out the invite with a slight smile.

After this, there is some manly hand-shaking and celebratory shouting from the Coneheads.

Then we shift scenes to a cemetery where Jim and his father are standing over his mother’s grave. It’s a poignant touch to have them both offering the Sign of the Cross at the end of their prayers, since it’s annoying in films when Catholics act like evangelical Protestants and don’t make that gesture. Really, it’s almost as bad as when a Catholic priest decides to lead his congregation in the Protestant version of the Our Father, because Hollywood just doesn’t understand Catholicism at all and doesn’t realize that’s just as unbelievable as a backwoods Baptist chanting a Hail Mary. They don’t mess this bit up, though, so props to them.

As they walk away from the grave, Jim’s dad asks him how it feels to being going to the Olympic trials, and Jimmy sighs before answering that it’s what he wants to do. The poor guy needs a hug, because he’s making me a very sad panda right now.

When his dad asks if he’s doing okay, Jimmy responds that he is but it’s still hard for him to believe that his mom is gone. Way to snatch my heart out of my chest and stomp on it, Jimmy. I hope you’re happy about that now.

Some of the touching melancholy of this scene is squandered when Jim’s father just responds that it’s hard for everyone in the family. It just seems like there would be about fifty more comforting things he could have said at this juncture, so it sort of rips me out of the moment and reminds me of the vexation I experienced when I vented to a friend about how upset I was when I got a C on a test I thought I aced and instead of sympathizing she took the opportunity to wax poetic about an F she’d gotten on an exam several years ago. She was so determined to prove that she had suffered more than me, while I was thinking that I was sorry she had a bad day years ago, but I was having a bad day now and some consoling might be in order…

Jim worries aloud that him pursuing his Olympic dream is asking too much of the family, and Jim’s dad points out that it is really Jim’s mother who is doing most of the asking. The scene is back to being touching now.

Jim’s father tells him to just make his mom proud and repeats that instruction as if to pile on the pressure. If I were Jim, I’d probably feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders after those words from dear old dad.

Jim’s father slings an arm around Jim’s shoulders, saying, “Come on. Let’s get you to the plane.” This serves as our transition to an airplane that’s taking off.

Aboard this plane, we are introduced to Jack O’Callahan gambling with some guy named Graser. Graser loses the card game for what seems to be the umpteenth time and takes out his temper by smacking OC’s mouth with a hand of cards. OC gasps and clutches his face, which seems rather inconsistent with the fact that OC had hundreds of stitches and no teeth. He’s tough guy. He’s not going to find some paper hitting his lips painful.

In another row, we have Silky and Rizzo talking about how many of the boys will go pro before Lake Placid rolls around. Silky remarks that he can’t blame anyone for choosing to go pro when that’s where all the money is. Rizzo suggests that Silky should leave the pros alone for now since he still has a year of college eligibility left.

In a comment that doesn’t directly respond to what came before, Silky says that his family wants him to become a doctor but he prefers performing surgery with his stick. From the row up front, someone chips in that Herb would want to see him playing the body not the stick, and Silky retorts that is why Herb’s not coaching in the NHL.

Rizzo points out that maybe Herb doesn’t want to coach in the NHL, and Silky scoffs that the NHL is where all the money is. Rizzo flares up and snaps that Silky still has other options and that he should finish school to give himself something to fall back on. I think that Silky’s allusions to the fact that the best play and coach in the NHL because that’s where all the money is poked a raw nerve with Rizzo, don’t you?

Flashing back to OC, we learn that Graser is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the red to OC. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a ton of money. Good Lord, did Graser think the plane was Las Vegas or what? If you’re going to lose that kind of money, at least do it in a snazzy casino.

That’s all for now, folks. We’ve met the boys, and next we’ll get to watch them partake in the trials. Oh, and OC wants me to tell you that the over/under odds on Graser making the team are really great, so bet on it with him…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Shout-Out to Gibson’s Shutout

Last night a promising goaltending prospect for the Anaheim Ducks by the name of John Gibson made his NHL debut against the Vancouver Canucks. While he was a bit jittery in the opening moments of the first period, Gibson’s confidence seemed to increase as the game progressed and once his team took an early lead. Although he faced a mere eighteen shots (you must remember that a team coached by Tortorella will block shots but won’t actually make any on their opponent’s net), he displayed some of his trademark athleticism and strong positioning skills in the process of holding Vancouver scoreless. He also demonstrated some nice fire when he shoved at a Sedin twin and got a slash to the helmet as a reward for his efforts. By not allowing any ease goals and showing that he definitely knows how to use his goalie stick to close a five-hole, Gibson earned not only a win in his NHL debut but also a shutout.

According to the Ducks commentary (I was listening to the Ducks feed on NHL Game Center, since I hoped that it would have less panning over to Tortorella on the bench than the Vancouver one, since I saw enough of his fits to last me a lifetime while he was putting on his own Broadway shows during his period of coaching the Rangers), Gibson is the first NHL goaltender since Al Montoya to get a shutout in his NHL debut. Now that may not exactly be the best company since Montoya has been something of a bust and a disappointment (just ask a Rangers fan—they rank him right up there with Hugh Jessiman, who, of course, was that so-called power forward the Rangers picked over players like Zach Parise and Ryan Getzlaf in the unfathomably deep 2003 draft and who at a whopping zero has less NHL points than Marc Andre-Fleury) but it still shows how rare and worthy of a shout-out Gibson’s shutout performance was. I expect that despite his strong showing against the Canucks, Gibson will spend most if not all of the remaining season and post-season in the AHL, but he has certainly demonstrated that when he is called up to the big league on a more permanent basis, he should be a powerful presence in the net for Anaheim.

I will certainly continue to monitor his progress on that front, as he’s been a favorite prospect of mine ever since his impressive performance helped the USA to gold at the 2013 World Junior Championships, where his save percentage led all goaltenders, he was named to the tournament All-Star team, and he was recognized as not only the tournament’s best goalie but also as the tournament’s most valuable player. His games against Russia and Canada were incredible, allowing his team not only to compete with but defeat players from these hockey bastions. He also had a memorable performance against Slovakia and posted a shutout in the USA victory over the Czech Republic.

Since the 2013 World Junior Championships, my respect for Gibson only grew when he stepped into the crease at the 2013 World Championships when Bishop faltered and was dominant enough in net to help the USA team earn a bronze. On the international stage, Gibson has proven that he can compete with and triumph over the best, and he is showing signs that within the next couple of years he should be able to do the same on the NHL level. I applaud him for what he has attained so far in his hockey career, and I look forward to watching him develop into the amazing franchise goalie I believe he can become. I hope he enjoys his first NHL win and shutout but also that he sees it as only the beginning of an excellent career.

 

Number the Stars: Grading the US Men’s Hockey Team

Number the Stars: Grading the US Men’s Hockey Team

The twenty-four hours where the US Men’s Hockey team plummeted from gold medal aspirations to going home empty-handed were some of the most painful and most humiliating in USA Hockey history, especially since the process of leaving Sochi without a medal also involved laying two goose eggs on the scoreboard. USA Hockey will rally from this, and part of the recovery process will probably entail apportioning blame and metaphorically making a few heads roll.

Like USA Hockey, I will be holding various members of the team accountable for the good and bad they did in Sochi in this blog post. The objective of this report card isn’t to tear into any particular member of the roster but rather to highlight areas where individual members needed to improve, as well as situations where a certain player shone like a beacon of hope for USA hockey’s future. In essence, this post is intended as a celebration of the successes team members had in Sochi and an indictment of certain players’ failures.

Now that I’ve sung my new jam  “Let It Go”  a couple of hundred times and made my family members suffer from hearing my terribly off-key singing the same way I endured the torture of watching Finland crush the USA in the bronze medal game, I feel like I have just enough distance from the situation to be objective in rating various players, but also enough indignation at the dismal level of US play in the final two games to rake team members over the coals as necessary.

In terms of grading individuals, I have judged them based on whether they have met, exceeded, or failed to meet the expectations for their role in the team. Within this system, it is possible for a fourth line winger to have a better grade than a first line winger because the first line winger may not have lived up to expectations, whereas a fourth line winger may have exceeded them. This does not mean that someone like Patrick Kane is actually a worse player than T.J. Oshie. It just means that T.J. Oshie fulfilled his role on the team better than Patrick Kane is. No member of this team has been upgraded or downgraded because of his NHL affiliation. Everyone is judged based on what they did or failed to do for the US team in Sochi. Now onto the grading system.

Grading Rubric:

A+ = Excellent

A= Extremely Good

A-= Good

B+= Consistently Exceeds Expectations

B= Occasionally Exceeds Expectations

B-= Seldom Exceeds Expectations

C+= Consistently Meets Expectations

C=Occasionally Meets Expectations

C-=Seldom Meets Expectations

D+=  Hurts Team

D=  Disaster Waiting to Happen

D-=Disaster Happening on Skates

F= Should Never Play in the Olympics Again

Dan Bylsma, C-: On any team, accountability should begin with the coach, who is responsible for his team’s performance and who should hold his players accountable for their efforts, so it is only fitting that we start by looking at our head coach’s work in Sochi. His system worked well in the preliminaries, but it backfired in the medal round. I felt like he failed to adapt to the team’s he was facing, and he never tried to free Kessel in the Canada even when it was apparent that Kessel was being effectively shut down by Toews, which is pretty damning since Kessel was the dominant scoring forward for the USA in the preliminary rounds and ultimately was named the best forward of the tournament.

Some of Bylsma’s line combinations like the Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel and the Pacioretty/Wheeler-Statsny-Oshie had chemistry and were successful. However, other line combinations like putting Brown on Kane’s line and Parise on a checking line were less effective and were not ended until the quarterfinals even though it was clear before that this experiment had failed. If Parise and Brown had been swapped from the beginning or even from the second game onward, Kane and Parise might have been more productive in early games, boosting their confidence for the medal round.

With the defense, McDonagh and Suter made a solid shutdown pairing (even if I did sometimes wonder if McDonagh might have been better used on his natural side anchoring his own pairing), while Shattenkirk and Fowler did well providing an offensive thrust. On the defensive pairings, I think Bylsma erred the most in frequently sending out Orpik and Carlson together despite the fact that by the end of the preliminaries they had been on the ice for three goals against (which is an impressive stat given that they were not a regular defensive pairing) and overusing Orpik in general. Bylsma has an unfortunate delusion that Orpik is essentially the Second Coming of Pronger, and that cost the USA throughout the tournament as Orpik got bone-headed penalties and accumulated team-leading goals against. If Bylsma couldn’t overcome his nepotism enough to realize that Orpik needed to be an extra defenseman and penalty kill specialist for this tournament, he should have left his toy in Pittsburg and brought someone else to Sochi.

From the motivation perspective, his benching certain players worked. For instance, Brown stopped taking stupid penalties when he was benched in the Russian game. There were times, though, when Bylsma would do something like bench Carlson for the goal in the Russian game, but not bench Orpik, who was also on the ice and who was as much to blame for the goal. That I felt was less effective and fair.

In the end, he also failed to rally his troops after his team let in two goals in eleven seconds. At that point, if he had maintained control of his team, it might have been possible to recover from a two goal deficit, but he allowed their psyche to be crushed, although the team looked like it was ready to fight for a bronze at the opening of the Finland game. He let his team lose that drive, and if a coach is judged by whether his team can perform at the highest level it is capable of for the most important games, Bylsma messed up big time. His team reached its nadir during the medal round and became so rattled that it could not even give the best performance it was capable of, which is at least partly Bylsma’s fault. After failing so publically, I doubt that we’ll see Bylsma coaching a national team again. Balancing his strengths and weaknesses, I give him a C-.

Zach Parise, D+: When a team fails to meet expectations, the captain often is the first one to fall under scrutiny. In this case, it is a bad omen that Parise was more visible in his Chobani commercials than he was on the ice. His most memorable moments this Olympics were the brief scuffle he had along the boards during the Russian game and his failure to convert a sweet pass from Kane into a goal, which is quite a come down from Vancouver when he had his famous tying goal that sent that gold medal game against Canada into overtime. This Olympics our captain had one goal (to put that in perspective, so did defensemen Carlson, Fowler, and McDonagh) and it took him until the quarterfinals to get it.

There were times I would even forget he was on the team until the camera panned over to the bench, and we got to watch Parise wipe the sweat (because it’s apparently hard work to do what amounts to nothing all Olympics) off his brow with a towel while the commentator reminded us that he was the team’s captain. It was good that the commentator reminded us of that fact, since you never saw Parise doing much to inspire his teammates on the bench as you might expect a captain to do. The US team needed Parise to step up and be a leader on the ice and off it in the medal round, and he couldn’t do it, just as he couldn’t score until the quarterfinals. His failure to produce points and to encourage his teammates during the game against Finland certainly did nothing to help the fight for a medal. His lack of determination and leadership hurt this team badly, hence his D+ score.

Dustin Brown, B-: After Brown was named an alternate captain, there was an outcry from everyone in America who regarded him as a diver (someone who tries to draw penalties) and a goon. Brown certainly showed his goon side in the game against Russia where he took a stupid penalty for basically trying to knock out an opposing player’s knee, and he was justifiably benched for that. He also was too slow to keep up with Kane on a scoring line, perhaps prompting Kane to begin falling into a pattern of useless one-on-three or one-on-four attacks that was ultimately impossible for Kane to break, and he did have his fair share of blunders like passing to no one.

On the plus side of the equation, he did have a goal in the match against Slovakia, and he was very effective on a checking line with Backes and Callahan, where he also scored against the Czech Republic. When on the bench, he could be seen joking around with players like Kessel, so he made an effort to interact with teammates in a positive fashion throughout the tournament, which I mark in his favor. There were times when Brown exceeded the expectations of what he was brought to Sochi to do, but there were also occasions when he messed up in a way that harmed the team, so that averages out to him overall seldom exceeding expectations and earning a B-.

Ryan Suter, B+: Now that we’ve analyzed Brown’s performance as alternate captain, it’s only fair that we study Suter’s. Suter was on the ice in all situations, and he performed solidly throughout the tournament. Unfortunately, the USA didn’t need Suter to be merely solid; he had to be spectacular, and, to be blunt, he simply wasn’t. He didn’t look like a Norris Finalist this Olympics. He made some poor decisions and turnovers that cost the team. Whether it was the turnover that ended in a goal during the opener against Slovakia or it was the back-to-back goals during the Finland game, the opposition found the chinks in Suter’s armor and exploited them to the detriment of the USA. Suter was not awful this Olympics but he was not awesome either, and that is a contributing factor in why the US team has no shiny Sochi souvenir, so he earns a B+ in my grade book.

Ryan Kesler, B+: I would have liked for Kesler to be more of an offensive threat this Olympics, and when he was paired with Kane, I expected him to produce more points, since he and Kane were such excellent line mates in 2010. While Kesler was not an offensive force, he was gritty on the defense, blocking two shots with his hand in the game against Russia, and not missing a shift even though the puck hit him at upwards of ninety miles an hour. He was prepared to make a personal sacrifice of his body for the welfare of his team, and his determination was inspiring. Combining his lackluster offense with his stellar defense, I give Kesler a B+ for consistently exceeding expectations at least on the defensive end of things.

Patrick Kane, D: In America, Kane was marketed as one of the faces of the Olympics, so when the US hockey team fell first to Canada and then to Finland, it’s only natural that the cameras zoomed in on his crumbled frame and tear-filled eyes. As horrible as it sounds, Kane has reason to be disappointed in his performance this Olympics. Just as he stated to the reporters, he was expected to produce more in Sochi than he did, and his four assists in a six game tournament did not add much to the American bid for a medal. He needed to step up big in the medal rounds, especially when it became clear that the scoring well of Kessel had finally run dry. Instead, he blundered two penalty shots (which completely demoralized his team) and took three bad penalties (on the first penalty, Finland scored its third goal, which can be seen as a nail in the USA team’s coffin) in the Finland match, which is particularly horrible since Kane is mostly a clean player.

Kane is a brilliant American forward who will hopefully have many future successes and I sympathize with him for the recent loss of his grandfather, but that does not take away from the fact that he was more painful than beautiful to watch this tournament. In a nutshell, he was a disaster waiting to happen this Olympics.

His fans on Twitter, who even went to the extreme of suggesting that Team USA keep a suicide watch on Kane after the loss to Finland, noticed, and so did his teammates with USA and with the Blackhawks. That’s why Toews patted Kane’s shoulder when he was being interviewed by the media after the Canada game and why Van Riemsdyk shielded him from the cameras on the bench following Kane’s second botched penalty shot during the Finland match. Going into this tournament, everyone, including Kane, had high expectations of his performance, and he failed by a large margin to meet them. Everybody, including Kane, should be able to admit that.

David Backes, A: Backes was a resolute, strong presence on ice throughout the tournament. He played a physical game but also a disciplined one that did not draw poor penalties. He was a shutdown guy but he also produced points, and in the game against the Czech Republic he might have been the most valuable USA player, being the glue that held together the checking line of Callahan and Brown. He had a very good Olympics, and I would have preferred him over Parise as captain of the team, since he seemed a better embodiment of determination on the ice than Parise did. That one of the reasons he receives an A from me in contrast to Parise’s D+.

Ryan Callahan, C+: For a majority of the tournament, Callahan simply wasn’t that noticeable to me one way or the other, not standing out as a success or a failure. Basically, this Olympics, he seems to have been the embodiment of doing your job and nothing more. He didn’t have any breathtaking plays, but he did not accumulate tons of stupid penalties, either. He did well in his role as a winger on a checking line, so I feel comfortable giving him a C+ for consistently fulfilling his position as a physical shutdown man.

James Van Riemsdyk, A: When Van Riemsdyk was named to the US hockey team the general consensus was that he was brought in because of his pre-existing chemistry with Kessel on the Toronto Maple Leafs. He proved that he would not be deadweight by being an integral part of the USA’s most effective line, so I feel justified giving him an A for his overall performance in Sochi.

Joe Pavelski, A+: Pavelski was an assist machine throughout the Olympics, a talent that was particularly on display when he assisted on every goal of Kessel’s natural hat trick. He also was not afraid to score for himself, as he did when he got the second power play goal in the game against Russia. Throughout the tournament, he continued to do the little things right like winning faceoffs that made him so effective in Vancouver, and he was a great center for Van Riemsdyk and Kessel. I’m sure that many Maple Leafs fans are daydreaming about acquiring Pavelski from the San Jose Sharks, so I feel that I’m not overrating him by giving him an A+ for his efforts in Sochi.

Phil Kessel, A+: Through the quarterfinals, Kessel was a scoring beast, who even managed to score a glorious natural hat trick against Slovenia. His scoring and his line in general carried the USA through the preliminaries, and he should not be blamed for the fact that he could not keep scoring at such an incredible clip in the medal round, especially since he was one of the few USA players who tried to get and set up strong scoring chances in the Canada and Finland games. It is not his fault that other forwards like Kane and Parise, who should have been able to contribute some more goals and assists, never really showed up to the tournament. Kessel did his best, but he could not carry his team all the way to the podium. In the end, it is hard to give the man who was voted the tournament’s best forward anything less than an A+.

Max Pacioretty, B: Along with Statsny and Oshie, Pacioretty was a hard-working fourth liner who put pressure on other teams and generated legitimate offensive opportunities. I was expecting more scoring from him and that is reflected in his grade, but other than that, his performance was solid and above reproach.

Paul Statsny, A: Statsny fulfilled his role of centering a competitive fourth line very well. He was able to forge a fourth-line that worked hard and was an offensive threat. He ensured that his line put up points, and, along with the Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel line, it was one of the successful ones devised by Bylsma. In the Olympics, Statsny did not disappoint with his efforts, which is evident in his A grade.

T.J. Oshie, A+: Throughout the Olympics, Oshie was a vital part of a fourth line that made life difficult for other teams and gave opportunities to his own. Of course, he will be most renowned for his stellar performance in the shoot out against Russia, where he scored four times on six shots. Whatever you think of shoot outs, it is a challenge not to admire someone who looks as if he is having the time of his life participating in one instead of on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. It is common knowledge among USA fans that Oshie was taken to Sochi for his shoot out prowess, and, under the utmost pressure, he delivered in a stunning show. After that, it would be nearly impossible to claim that he failed to meet expectations, and he was a gracious teammate in his fifteen minutes of fame, saluting Quick as soon as he scored and giving Quick credit in all of his interviews. Even if you feel that shoot outs are a gimmick, Oshie deserves an A+ for his magic tricks against Russia and for being an integral part of the fourth line throughout the tournament.

Blake Wheeler, B-: For the most part, Wheeler was a valuable addition to the fourth line when he was played with Statsny and Oshie, but there was that memorable awful penalty that he took during his first shift in the game against Russia. (Not that I blame him for wanting to smash into Kovulchuck…) Bad penalties cost teams and that drops Wheeler from a B to a B-.

Derek Stepan, C: During the brief time that Stepan spent on the ice, he was neither spectacular not terrible, so I feel like giving him a C is fair. However, it should be noted that I do not have much to grade him on since most of the time he was an undressed extra who would only have seen action if a forward was injured. I give him credit for presumably being a supportive teammate in Sochi, being prepared to step up if someone was injured, and for not complaining about his role on the team basically being to sit out the Olympics. A C is not an indictment of him; it’s just a reflection of the fact that I have nothing really to grade him on this Olympics.

Paul Martin, C: Except for falling ill (which I blame on the primitive sanitation in Sochi, not on Martin), Martin had a pretty unremarkable Olympics. For the most part, he was effective on the defensive side of things, but he contributed little to the offense. He was competent in his position, but another American defenseman could easily have fulfilled the role he did in the Olympics, and we might have been spared the pain of a Martin-Orpik “shutdown” pairing. Martin is not worth the deadweight of Orpik, and, sadly, Bylsma lacked the creativity to separate that duo until sickness forced his hand. Martin mostly met expectations but he added nothing to make up for the baggage of Orpik. A C seems like a just tribute to his work in the tournament.

Brooks Orpik, D-: By the end of the tournament, my faith in Orpik hovered around absolute zero. He was a turnover machine and a positioning nightmare, so I honestly lost track of how many goals against he was on the ice for, but I would be shocked if he didn’t lead the team’s defensemen in that statistic, which is pretty appalling considering he is a veteran surrounded by a ton of rookie Olympians who basically all outperformed him.

At the beginning of the Olympics, when Orpik made a positioning mistake that resulted in a goal, I would throw my remote at the TV screen, bellowing, “Orpik!” By the conclusion of the Finland game, I just moaned in despair and buried my forehead in my hands when he made a blunder and the other team scored. It didn’t take me long to realize that he’d get on the ice, and, like a clockwork, the other team would have a great scoring opportunity.

Even when he seemed to be having a good game like the one against the Czech Republic, he would mar it by taking a stupid penalty and doing bone-headed things like banging opponents into the boards after the play was already completed. He easily had the worst hockey IQ of anyone on the blue line (and probably the entire team), and his teammates suffered for that. Just ask Miller, whose shutout against Slovenia was ruined with some help from Orpik’s ability to give up an untimely goal.

I probably wouldn’t hate Orpik so much if he had been used in a properly limited capacity, but since Bylsma insisted on employing him as a shutdown man with top minutes that sours my impression of him since he could not fulfill the role Bylsma shoved him into. He did bring a physical dynamic to the blue line and he is reasonably fast skater, but he wasn’t deployed in a fashion where his strengths could outweigh his weaknesses. As it stands, because of his own failings and his excessive misuse, Orpik ranks as a disaster on skates and comes away with a D- on my report card.

Justin Faulk, C: As with Stepan, the C is not so much a reflection on Faulk’s ability (I think he is a promising young defenseman, and I would have vastly preferred him to get ice time over Orpik) as it is a testimony to the fact that I did not have a chance to evaluate it, because he spent much of the tournament as the undressed extra defenseman. When he did get a bit of ice time at the end of the Olympics, I thought that his performance was quite good. He has my respect for being ready to step in when Martin fell ill and for not making a stink about being the undressed defenseman for basically the whole tournament. I gave him a C, but he is a blossoming talent, and I hope to see him representing the USA in international hockey again.

Ryan McDonagh, A-: Overall, McDonagh had an impressive Olympics. For the most part, he and Suter made a strong shutdown pair, and, during the game against Slovakia, I thought that he and Shattenkirk were our best defensive pairing that match. He had a couple of great moments made for the highlight reels like his leapfrog defensive work off the boards in the game against Slovakia and the goal he scored for the USA. The low points of his tournament were his own goal off Suter’s skate in the game against the Czech Republic as well as the momentum-dropping two goals he and Suter allowed within eleven seconds of each other during the match against Finland. Still for a young defenseman thrust into a top pairing in the Olympics, he turned in a remarkable performance, and sometimes I even felt like he was a better defenseman than Suter, which is why I ultimately decided to mark him with an A- to Suter’s B+.

Kevin Shattenkirk, A-: During the Olympics, Shattenkirk was actually able to improve the esteem I held him in, because, prior to the tournament, I thought of him as a one-dimensional offensive defenseman who was shaky in his own zone. His time in Sochi showed me that he is a lot more competent in his own end than I had believed, and he was very successful when paired with McDonagh and Fowler. He had a few bad turnovers, and he would occasionally make head-scratching decisions like shooting the puck into a knot of opposing players instead of passing it to his partner, Fowler, but, other than that, he left a positive impression on me. I hope that he can take some pride in a strong Olympic debut, and I’m happy to give him an A- for his good tournament.

John Carlson, B: For me, Carlson was a mixed bag this Olympics. His best game was his first, where he did well when paired with Fowler, and he scored the opening goal in the rout against Slovakia. Unfortunately, he struggled after that, and I simply can’t ignore the fact that he was on the ice along with Orpik for a considerable number of goals against, because his poor positioning was a factor in at least some of those goals if my memory serves me accurately. That being said, he did prevent a mistake Fowler made when pinching the puck from turning into a goal at the end of the Canada game, which left a powerful positive impression on me. On a whole, I thought that the strengths that Carlson brought to the team outweighed his weaknesses, and I look forward to seeing him continue to develop as a defenseman.

Cam Fowler, A: Fowler had a great Olympics. He contributed to the offense with a lot of outlet passes, a noticeable amount of shots on goal, and one power play goal where he made the smart decision of racing up to join the offense closer to the opposing net in the game against Russia that he’ll probably define as the high point of his tournament. The defensive side of his performance was also really strong, as illustrated in the fact that only one goal against the Americans was scored while he was on the ice, and he finished the Olympics with the highest plus-minus stat (plus four) of any USA defenseman. My main criticisms would just be his shot (it still could be improved in terms of power and accuracy) and his occasional hesitancy, especially when he is quarterbacking a power play, which sometimes slowed the team’s momentum. That’s why I continue to say that Fowler is a better defenseman at even strength than he is on the power play, although he can certainly fulfill the role of a quarterback on the power play, and that, when quarterbacking a power play, he is wiser to focus on distributing the puck to forwards than on putting a ton of shots on goal himself. Those are fairly minor quibbles, though, and they don’t detract from Fowler’s overall very impressive tournament. My eyeball and the stat sheet both agree that he wasn’t one of team USA’s weak links on the blue line, so I’m comfortable giving him an A for his work in Sochi.

Jimmy Howard, C-: Just as Faulk’s and Stepan’s scores are more reflective of my lack of an opportunity to access their abilities rather than a condemnation of their Olympic efforts, my grade for Howard is just a testament to the fact that I did not have a chance to see him in action because Quick and Miller played all the games. I give Howard props for accepting his position as a third goalie without complaint and for being ready to step in if injury or extremely poor performance on the part of the other USA goaltenders necessitated it.

Ryan Miller, A: In the only game that he played this tournament, Miller nearly had a second Olympic shutout. (I’ll blame Doc for jinxing him on national television just as he so often did when Marty Brodeur was in his prime and on the verge of another shutout.) Miller also was a good sport about Quick getting the nod as starting goalie, so I feel like giving him an A for his performance in this tournament is justified.

Jonathan Quick, A+: Even if there were moments when his aggressive style did not work as well on international ice as it does on the smaller sheets of the NHL, Quick was in his playoff form throughout the tournament. He was particularly brilliant in the shoot out against Russia, where he went one-on-one against many of the best forwards in the world, and in the game against Canada. He all but stood on his head for that game, and it is amazing for me to think that he might have stolen that match for the USA if Kessel or some other forward had managed to bury a shot or two in Price’s net. All a team can ask from a goalie is that chance to win when they shouldn’t, and Quick definitely offered that. Quick made it possible for the USA to be competitive, but, sadly, they could not reward him with goals when it counted the most. He can have an A+ from me even though it doesn’t come close to being as special as a medal.

 

Quick Overview of Everyone’s Grades:

Leadership Core:

Dan Bylsma C-

Zach Parise D+

Dustin Brown B-

Ryan Suter B+

Forwards:

Ryan Kesler B+

Patrick Kane D

David Backes A

Ryan Callahan C+

James Van Riemsdyk A

Joe Pavelski A+

Phil Kessel A+

Max Pacioretty B

Paul Statsny A

T.J. Oshie A+

Blake Wheeler B-

Derek Stepan C (Nota Bene: Mainly a result of him being the undressed extra forward, not an indication of his performance.)

Defense:

Paul Martin C

Brooks Orpik D-

Justin Faulk C (Nota Bene: Mainly a result of him not playing, rather than an indication of his performance.)

Ryan McDonagh A-

Kevin Shattenkrik A-

John Carlson B

Cam Fowler A

Goalies:

Jimmy Howard C- (Nota Bene: An indication of the fact that he never played, not a condemnation of his performance.)

Ryan Miller A

Jonathan Quick A+

Apples to Apples: Comparison of Everybody’s Grades:

For all calculations of total numbers of players in each category, any player in the leadership group (Parise, Suter, or Brown) will not be counted again as a forward or a defenseman.

A Players:

David Backes

James Van Riemsdyk

Joe Pavelski

Phil Kessel

Paul Statsny

T.J. Oshie

Ryan McDonagh

Kevin Shattenkirk

Cam Fowler

Ryan Miller

Jonathan Quick

Total Number of Leadership Core A Players: 0

Total Number of Forward A Players: 6

Total Number of Defenseman A Players: 3

Total Number of Goalie A Players: 2

B Players:

Dustin Brown

Ryan Suter

Ryan Kesler

Max Pacioretty

Blake Wheeler

John Carlson

Total Number of Leadership Core B Players: 2

Total Number of Forward B Players: 2

Total Number of Defense B Players: 1

Total Number of Goalie B Players: 0

C Players:

Dan Bylsma

Ryan Callahan

Derek Stepan

Paul Martin

Justin Faulk

Jimmy Howard

Total Number of Leadership Core C Players: 1

Total Number of Forward C Players: 2

Total Number of Defense C Players: 2

Total Number of Goalie C Players: 1

D Players:

Zach Parise

Patrick Kane

Brooks Orpik

Total Number of Leadership Core D Players: 1

Total Number of Forward D Players: 1

Total Number of Defense D Players: 1

What the Stats Say:

Our goalies were not a problem for us, since both of the goaltenders who saw ice time in the Olympics received A’s, and Howard, the only goalie who was not an A player, got a C merely because he never got any time in the tournament for me to judge his value to the team beyond not being a nuisance and being prepared to step in if necessary.

For the most part, our defense was strong, as we had three A players, a B and C player who only earned a C owing to his lack of playing time, and merely one D player, who, unfortunately, saw way too much ice time to the detriment of the team.

Our forwards were fairly solid. Six of them were A players, and two were B players. Two more were C players, and one of those was a C player only because he did not receive enough ice time for me to draw too many conclusions about his overall value to the team. What really killed the offense in the end may only have been that the D player had no production to speak of when the scoring well of the A players ran dry.

Our leadership core was a weakness for this team. At best, in the case of the two B players, it was reliable but not spectacular. With the C coach, it was borderline competent, and with our D captain it was just downright disgraceful. Our leaders failing to lead as expected was the downfall of the USA team in Sochi at least according to my grade book.

 

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No Rookie Mistake: Why People Need to Stop Blaming Young Defensemen for America’s Loss in Sochi

After the USA men’s hockey team failed to medal, it’s only natural for fans to play the blame game, pinpointing who is responsible for our ignominy and if we can sue them or if we’ll have to be content with merely burning them in effigy. I certainly plan on flinging some mud around myself in a post grading the performance of each member of the USA’s roster that will evaluate how each person met, failed to meet, or exceeded expectations of his work in the Olympics. For now, though, I will content myself with making an overall statement about who is not to blame and where fingers might more accurately be pointed.

Before I begin defending and ripping into various members of the USA men’s hockey team, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to be a sore loser. Canada, Sweden, and Finland all medaled fair and square, but what was disappointing was how the American team, which went into the medal round as the highest scoring team, was shutout in its final two games. The issue isn’t that we lost. It was how we lost. A team with twenty goals at the end of the match against the Czech Republic should have been able to muster at least one goal against Canada or Finland.

In fact, this should be obvious but since so many armchair GM’s on social networks like Twitter haven’t experienced this brainwave I’ll bore everyone with stating it: a team can’t win a hockey game without scoring at least one goal. It doesn’t matter if your goaltender is Vezina caliber and your top six defensemen are all Norris Finalists. If your team can’t put the puck into the opposite net during the Olympics, your team will lose whether in regulation, in sudden-death overtime, or in a shoot out (which, of course, is akin to deciding the winner of a tied football game by seeing who can kick the ball farthest or hosting a Homerun Derby to determine the victor in a tied baseball game, but does not detract from Oshie’s incredible shoot out skills). In other words and in practical terms, this means that, in an Olympics, a team must score at least one goal before the goalie or the defense can be blamed for a defeat. Without that one goal, as depressing as it sounds, nothing the goalie or the defense does (except scoring) is going to impact the game, because they’re going to lose anyway. Quick could have blocked every shot he faced or let them all in; he wasn’t coming home with a medal unless someone else could place the puck in the opposition’s net at least one time per game.

Now that we’re hopefully all agreed on this basic premise (if we aren’t, feel free to debate in the comment section to bring some pulse to my blog), I’ll suggest that the primary players that need to feel the heat when a team isn’t scoring are—you guessed it—the forwards. The overarching purpose of forwards is to score goals, so if none of them have any points in two consecutive Olympic elimination games, that is a Problem with a very deliberate capital. While it is exciting and wonderful when defensemen score (just as two-way forwards deserve kudos for realizing that a hockey rink has two ends that they can play in), their main duty is to prevent the puck from landing in their own net. Thus, if a team is having trouble scoring, the first suspects in the losing mystery need to be forwards.

In this case, several players can be called in for interrogation right away. Why not start with the captain of our sinking ship, Zach Parise? He was invisible if not downright awful throughout most of the tournament, and, no, the fact that Bylsma placed him on a shutdown line is not an excuse for his disgraceful lack of production. Dustin Brown, not exactly renowned for his scoring prowess, had more points than Parise on a checking line and in the tournament as a whole. Parise needed to provide more scoring and more veteran leadership in general. Instead, all he offered the USA team this Olympics was an endless stream of Chobani advertisements that made me wonder when studies linking Chobani consumption to decreased scoring would be published in reputable science magazines. I realize that Parise was coming off an injury, but if he felt like it was going to be a factor in his Olympics, he should have done the mature thing—the thing we would have expected from a veteran leader—and explained that to USA hockey before leaving for Sochi so a replacement like Bobby Ryan could have been brought in. I still respect Parise as a person and wish him well with the Minnesota Wilds (except when they face the Devils), but I’m not going to pretend that his performance this Olympics was good or even remotely satisfactory when, put bluntly, it left a sour taste in my mouth like expired milk.

Another forward who deserves to be hauled in for questioning is Patrick Kane. If I didn’t know that Patrick Kane was an insanely talented and decorated player in the NHL, I would never be able to guess that based on his Olympic performance. He scored a whopping zero goals in the entire tournament, and his playmaking was sporadic at best and non-existent at worst. He kept trying to score in one-on-four or one-on-three situations instead of learning from his mistakes the first fifteen times that brilliant tactic failed in the Olympics. A Conn Smythe winner needs to be more clutch in two consecutive elimination games, and if he chooses to don Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak during the medal round (and the whole Olympic tournament), American fans should acknowledge that he wasn’t a standout player, or at least not a standout player in the way we might have hoped. He did stand out not in a good way as a pretty tentative turnover machine, though. All this isn’t to say that he shouldn’t make the 2018 squad if NHL players are permitted to participate in the Games in South Korea, but his performance in this one shouldn’t make him a lock for the next one. It is simply disingenuous for fans to imply that Patrick Kane was some sort of MVP for USA Hockey in Sochi when he was closer to being the Invisible Man and to suggest that the USA would have medaled if young defensemen had been left off the roster.

Honestly, it baffles me the amount of vitriol that is directed against young defensemen. Faulk had about a minute and a half worth of ice time in the match against Canada, and, as far as I can see, he did no damage to the USA’s chances of medaling in that time. Carlson may be a bit of a mixed bag with the fact that he and Orpik were something of a magnet for letting in goals during the preliminary games despite not being an actual pairing (they let in at least three goals compared to Fowler-Shattenkirk who had let in zero goals going into the Canada game), but he was the first player to score for the USA and he was overall steady in his zone.  McDonagh may have the facepalm own goal, but he scored a goal against the Czechs in that same game to atone for it, and he was, for the most part, a solid shutdown defenseman when paired with Suter.

Shattenkirk may have made some sloppy turnovers, but he was strong when paired with McDonagh in the match against Slovakia and with Fowler in future games.  As for Fowler, up to the bronze medal game, he was on the ice for no goals against the USA (the match against Finland was such a rout, I honestly can’t remember who was on the ice for every goal, so I’m just going to assume that he was on the ice for at least one of those goals, but he might not have been), scored one goal in the narrow victory over Russia, and generated some solid offensive opportunities with breakout passes and shots on goal throughout the tournament. Even in the game against Canada, he nearly scored off one feed from Kessel, which made him more useful than some forwards on the USA team. He is blamed for trying to pinch the puck with two minutes left in the game against Canada, but, honestly, with two minutes left, it’s better to take the risk of pinching the puck and trying to generate offense to tie the game than not to pinch the puck. A 2-0 loss is not much worse than a 1-0 loss, so it’s a chance that probably should be taken.

In a nutshell, none of the USA’s young defensemen are to blame for the USA’s fourth place finish in Sochi. On a whole, they were strong in their own end and contributed to the team’s offensive efforts. They remained calm and competent when veteran leadership was lacking, and they will be assets to USA Hockey in the future. Instead of deriding them, American fans should be appreciating their efforts, because, if anyone lost the tournament, it was veterans who failed to provide leadership and forwards who could not score. Never forget that it was Orpik who should have been covering the man who scored the goal in the game against Canada, and it was forwards like Kane and Parise who could not get a single point in the medal round.

Rookie Olympians like Cam Fowler and Ryan McDonagh were bright spots in the USA men’s hockey team. The dark bits were seeing players like Patrick Kane repeatedly fail to light up the scoreboard. The USA did not come home without a hockey souvenir because our young defensemen crumbled under Olympic pressure; the team left Sochi empty-handed because veteran players like Parise and Kane failed to meet expectations. Blaming young defensemen for the problems created by veteran forwards is a form of hazing that I will not be a party to on my blog.

Our young defensemen all played very well, and I hope their disappointment in Sochi will only fire them up for future international and NHL success. USA fans should focus on encouraging these promising players rather than tearing them apart, because they could have a major role in how American hockey develops in the upcoming years. Love them or hate them, these defensemen are probably going to be around awhile, so save yourself the high blood pressure and learn to appreciate them.

 

Between the Lines: My Take on US Men’s Hockey Line Combinations from Practice Three

Once again, the media reports that the US Men’s hockey team was running different lines in practice today, and Bylsma seems to be leaving no combination of players—no matter how bizarre—untried. Let’s take a look at some of these insane line combinations that Bylsma barfed onto his roster sheet today.

Forwards:

Brown-Kesler-Kane

Parise-Backes-Callahan

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel

Pacioretty-Statsny-Oshie

Extras: Stepan; Wheeler

Defense:

Suter-Martin

Orpik-Faulk

McDonagh-Shattenkirk

Extras: Fowler; Carlson

Goalies:

Quick

Miller

Howard

Overall Impressions of Line Combinations: For the most part with a few isolated exceptions which we’ve already seen and talked about in earlier posts, I disapprove of these line combinations. It seems as if Bylsma, instead of contemplating his line combinations at any length as you would expect a competent Olympic coach to do, ran the names of his players through a Random Linemate Generator without the slightest regard to how the people attached to the names actually performed in hockey games. Yesterday, I was satisfied with the forward lines; the day before that, I liked the defense pairings. Today I really don’t care for anything that we haven’t already seen.

I just hope that Bylsma was trying to confuse any scouts from opposing teams and that these line combinations aren’t those he’s planning on rolling in tomorrow’s game. Even if that’s the case though, I almost feel that practice would have been better spent skating Herbies to get everyone in shape than trying to create chemistry with these mostly garbage combinations. At the Olympics, practice is too precious to waste time on line combinations we already know are stupid and will fizzle out like a dud firecracker on the Fourth of July. Still, as long as Bylsma is aware that these lines belong in a trash can more than a hockey game, the damage that these terrible line combinations can do is hopefully minor.

Offense Line-by-Line Commentary:

Brown-Kesler-Kane: To be honest, I prefer Pacioretty with Kesler and Kane, but, since this line is a repeat from day one, I feel like we will actually see a Brown, Kesler, and Kane line at the start of the tournament. Right now, I can live with that decision and pray that Brown’s physical style can create opportunities near the net for Kane’s amazing playmaking skills to result in some beautiful goals as happened in 2010. If this line fails to ignite, I believe that Pacioretty will be moved up here to forge more of a pure scoring line with Kesler and Kane.

Parise-Backes-Callahan: I am comfortable with pairing Parise and Backes together, as I indicated in the first post of this series, but I’m not a fan of sliding Callahan in on the right wing in Oshie’s place. Backes and Oshie have a strong chemistry between them in St. Louis, and I think it would be wise for Bylsma to take advantage of that fact in a short tournament like this. Callahan and Oshie are so close in playing style that, in my opinion, there is not a solid justification for replacing one with the other and disrupting the pre-existing chemistry between Backes and Oshie.

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel: This line seems like it is currently the only one set in stone, since it hasn’t been altered in any practice, and I’m fine with this line. For an insight into why, check out either of my two previous posts on the subject, since my fingers aren’t in the mood for typing it all out again.

Pacioretty-Statsny-Oshie: Since Pacioretty and Statsny had a powerful chemistry at Worlds, I’m content with the idea of them being on the same line. Oshie does have markedly better stickhandling skills than Callahan does and that would help him work better with Statsny than Callahan, but I’m not convinced that upgrade is worth breaking the united force of Backes and Oshie.

Wheeler: He’ll only be dressed when the USA can benefit from his size and versatility, because he’s been an extra every day.

Stepan: He’ll only be dressed when the USA wants the flexibility of an extra center for their lines, since he’s been an extra every day.

Offensive Line Predictions Based on all Three Practices: Overall, I think the offensive lines that Bylsma chooses to open the tournament with will resemble the ones he used in the opening practice more than the ones he used in yesterday’s practice, although I could see him employing the two special scoring and checking lines he created yesterday in select circumstances throughout the tournament. The Callahan and Oshie shift is probably one intended to confuse opposing scouts and is not likely to be one used throughout the tournament.

Defense Line by Line Combinations:

Suter-Martin: This pairing leaves me cold. I’m glad that it is absolutely definite that Suter will be the anchor of our number one defensive pairing even if it is totally up in the air at this point who partners with him on the blue line, but I don’t like the idea of Martin playing with Suter. Blue line veterans like Suter and Martin should be split up. In my opinion, Martin is great for a veteran presence on the third pairing, but our four best defenseman are Suter, McDonagh, Fowler, and Faulk, so the top two pairings should be comprised of them with Suter and McDonagh anchoring the first and second lines respectively, but, by this point, that’s probably about as likely as pigs flying.

Orpik-Faulk: All I can say about this pairing is that it is icky. The problem isn’t with Faulk, who is a very promising young defenseman, but with Orpik. In no universe do I want him on the second defensive pairing in the Sochi Olympics. He is the king of boneheaded defensive maneuvers like attempting to clear the crease by shoving an opposing forward into his goalie after the puck has already sailed into the net, and, in a nutshell, Faulk and Fowler are better defensemen when they are blindfolded. Orpik’s role in this Olympics should be limited to that of extra defenseman and penalty kill specialist unless there is an injury on the blue line, but if Bylsma insists on playing him he should at least be on the third pairing with Martin with whom he has some pre-existing chemistry from the Penguins. My hope is that since Orpik and Faulk have been paired twice in the practice and it is doubtful that Orpik will see much action on Olympic ice unless he is handcuffed to Martin that this means Orpik will be an extra defenseman or a scratch for a majority or the entirety of the tournament. It is possible that just as Bylsma’s hints to the media that he would start Miller were misdirection, so to were his comments about playing Martin and Orpik together in the opening game.

McDonagh-Shattenkirk: In this pairing, McDonagh would be the stay-at-home guy, and Shattenkirk would be the one responsible for generating offense. I prefer the McDonagh-Carlson pairing, which I think is what we’ll see since it was used two days in practice, and I’m not wild about the idea of demoting McDonagh to the third pairing when he should be the anchor of our second defensive pairing.

Fowler: Since he’s been used on the power play units so much in practice, I have a hard time imagining that he won’t be dressed at least as the seventh defenseman, but, since he is better at even strength than he is on the power play, I have a lingering hope that he may be paired with Suter as he was for the first day’s practice. As arguably the best skater on the blue line, he shouldn’t be riding the bench in favor of a defenseman with Orpik’s limited abilities. That would just be a nauseating misuse of personnel.

Carlson: Since he’s been with McDonagh on the second pairing two days in a row, I have a difficult time believing that he will start the tournament anywhere except in that position.

Defense Pairings Based on Three Practices: I think that the McDonagh-Carlson pairing is pretty much set in stone and that we’ll be seeing a lot of it on Olympic ice. As for Suter, I could see the coaches pairing him with Fowler and with Faulk (who I hope will be the extra defenseman). That way Fowler and Faulk both can be in the top six, and neither will be exhausted trying to keep up with all the time that Suter spends on ice. If the two of them split the amount of time Suter spends on ice, they’ll still have decent shifts and the benefit of a veteran beside them for their first Olympics. For the third pairing, I would prefer to see Martin and Shattenkirk over Martin and Orpik, so I hope that Bylsma was being disingenuous when he alluded to playing Martin and Orpik together in the game against Slovakia. Of course, it’s possible that I’m looking at this through very rose-tinted glasses since I don’t want to live in a world where Orpik makes a top six in a best-on-best tournament over Faulk and Fowler.

Quick: I would have preferred Miller to get the starting role, because I feel that he has the stronger season, the MVP award from last Olympics (the USA wouldn’t have gotten silver without him in Vancouver and denying him the starting role after the season he is having in Buffalo seems like a shoddy way of saying thanks), and the style that will work better with the angles on international ice. Quick is an awesome goaltender with a Conn Smythe trophy and a Stanley Cup ring, though, so I am confident that he can step up to the occasion, and, if he can’t we can bring out Miller. In Sochi, goaltending will probably be the least of the USA’s worries, so, I’m not going to complain about Quick starting over Miller as I know that many countries in this tournament would love to inherit the USA’s goalie “problems.”

 

 

 

 

Remix: My Take on the US Men’s Hockey Team’s Line Combinations from Practice Two

Today the media reports that the US Men’s hockey team was running some different lines in practice, which makes sense to me, since Bylsma indicated to the media that much of the early practice time would be devoted to figuring out line combinations. I assume that he’ll see which lines and pairings fared best under what circumstances so that he can deploy his personnel effectively in games.

At least, that’s my hope. I have to keep in mind that part of the reason Penguins fans are so disgruntled is that they have many excellent players who are chronically mismanaged as Bylsma has all the pieces to build a puzzle but tries to wedge these pieces where they clearly don’t belong. Let’s cross our fingers that problem does not plague the US Olympic team, because this team will probably medal if it is managed well, but it probably won’t if the players aren’t used properly. In other words, the issue won’t be with the roster, but rather how it is utilized. To gain some more insight into how effectively these players will be employed, let’s analyze the line combinations from the second day of practice in Sochi as released to the media:

Forwards:

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel

Pacioretty-Kesler-Kane

Parise-Backes-Callahan

Brown-Statsny-Oshie

Extras: Wheeler; Stepan

Defense

Suter-Shattenkirk

McDonagh-Carlson

Orpik-Martin

Extras: Fowler; Faulk

Goalies (the starting goalie has not been announced, but you can bet Bylsma will be lynched upon returning to the US if it isn’t Miller or Quick):

Miller

Quick

Howard

Overall Impressions of Line Combinations: As with yesterday’s lines, many of these combinations seek to capitalize on pre-existing chemistry between players from the NHL or prior international tournaments. The forward lines seem to be more traditional in the sense that they have two scoring lines and two checking lines rather than four balanced lines with a cross-section of players. Likewise, the defensive pairings appear to have less of a blending of youth and experience as well as pairings that are less of a mixture of offensive and stay-at-home defensemen.

Offense Line by Line Commentary:

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel: This line seems like it is currently the only one set in stone, since it hasn’t been altered from yesterday’s practice, and I’m fine with this line. To repeat what I said yesterday, this is a line that I’m inclined to give two thumbs up, because James Van Riemsdyk and Phil Kessel have chemistry from working together with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It seems a prudent decision by the USA coaching staff to take advantage of this already existing dynamic rather than trying to produce an entirely new one for this brief tournament. As a center, I believe that Joe Pavelski would complement these two well. I can picture him being able to create opportunities for Kessel to capitalize on, which will be vital, since team USA will need Kessel and Kane to produce points in order to medal in Sochi. This line should accumulate tons of points since it has three of the top 20 goalscorers in the NHL, two of whom have an existing chemistry between them. In other words, this will be one of those two scoring lines that I mentioned earlier.

Pacioretty-Kesler-Kane: Within the framework of today’s practice lines, this is definitely intended to be the second scoring line for the USA team, and I think that it would succeed with that role. Kesler and Kane had a strong chemistry in 2010 that resulted in, for instance, the first US goal in the gold medal game against Canada. Putting Pacioretty on this line also means that the playmaking Kane will have another person who has been sliding the puck into the net lately to work with, which is also advantageous. This is another line that should ignite and not struggle to score.

Parise-Backes-Callahan: Of the lines released today, this will be team USA’s first checking line. This line will be as much of a challenge to play against with Callahan in the right winger position as it was with Oshie, and Parise will ensure that this line remains a scoring threat, rather than just a one-dimensional checking line.

Brown-Statsny-Oshie: Here is the second checking line from today’s practice. It lacks a Parise to make it a scoring threat, but Brown, Statsny, and Oshie will be hard for other team’s forwards to get through, and they will most likely only be used in a shutdown capacity, not a scoring one. Given his low point production this season, Brown’s talents might be better utilized on a shutdown line with Statsny and Oshie than on a scoring line with Kane and Kesle r.

Stepan: As I said in my last post, he’ll be dressed when the USA wants the flexibility of another center for their lines or if a center has been injured.

Wheeler: Like I said in my last post, Wheeler will be dressed when the USA wants the benefit of his size and versitility.

Defense Line by Line Commentary:

Suter-Shattenkirk: Frankly, I don’t like this pairing as much as I do the Suter-Fowler one from yesterday. Of course, the problem isn’t with Suter, because he is a defensive rock, and I wouldn’t want anyone except him anchoring the USA’s number one defense pairing. Shattenkirk is a good offensive defenseman, but, to me, he lacks the shutdown prowess and innate hockey intelligence that Fowler does. Shattenkirk is the lesser defenseman on his NHL pairing, while Fowler has been the stronger man on every pairing he has been on with the Anaheim Ducks. Even as a rookie, he was the one expected to carry his pairing, and this year he has been making Ben Lovejay, a career third-liner, look like a legitimate first pairing defenseman since he has been that smooth, smart, and skilled. He could be amazing on international ice partnered with someone as strong as Suter, but instead Fowler might be warming the bench. This pairing won’t be terrible, since Suter could make a cucumber seem like a reliable defenseman, but it lacks the brilliance of a Suter-Fowler pairing. I wouldn’t hate it except I saw Suter-Fowler first, so whenever I look at Suter-Shattenkirk, I feel a pang of what might have been.

McDonagh-Carlson: This pairing seems pretty much set in stone based on the fact that it remained unaltered from yesterday’s practice. As I said yesterday, I like the blend of McDonagh’s more stay-at-home style with Carlson’s more offensive tendencies. Although both of them are young, they are number one defenseman for their NHL clubs and go face-to-face against the league’s elite forwards, so I trust they will remain a force to be reckoned with even without a veteran presence on their line.

Orpik-Martin: This pairing, which Bylsma hinted will be iced over Fowler-Faulk in the opening game against Slovakia, makes me sick. I hate to see a less talented veteran playing over more skilled younger ones. Orpik, whose greatest strength is his skating, brings nothing to the table that Fowler and Faulk, who are both incredibly smooth skaters, don’t. Both of these young defensemen are more competent offensively and defensively than Orpik. It is blatant nepotism to put Orpik on the ice instead of Fowler and Faulk. Orpik’s role on this team should be limited to an extra defenseman or a penalty kill specialist. I would much rather see Fowler, who is the number one defenseman on the NHL team that has the most points going into the Olympic break, get twenty minutes of action a game than Orpirk. Ever since the roster was announced, I was nervous that young talents like Faulk and Fowler would be shunted aside in favor of a less skilled veteran like Orpik. Yesterday’s pairings overjoyed me because I thought that my fears had been ungrounded. This pairing and Bylsma’s comments to the media about deploying Orpik and Martin against Slovakia have reawakened those doubts.

Fowler: Since he reportedly played the point during power play units at both yesterday and today’s practice, I predict that he would be the seventh dressed defenseman over Faulk, but this is such an underuse of him. I hope Polie advocates for Fowler to be used over Orpik, because there is nothing hockey related that Orpik is better at than Fowler is.

Faulk: He seems to be the odd man out in both the line combinations released to the media, which is a pity. He is a great skater and an amazing young talent. I would have preferred to see him played over Orpik, but I guess with Bylsma that might have been a wasted hope.

Goalie Prediction: I still believe that Miller will get the start over Quick, especially since rumor has it that he has been hinting to the media that Miller might be the man. Starting Miller will not begin to atone for the utter idiocy of playing Orpik over Fowler or Faulk, but it’s a miniscule step in the right direction.

My Verdict: I think that I would like to see the forward line combinations from this practice deployed in the first game against Slovakia, since there is less chance of them going awry, but I would much prefer to see the defense pairings from yesterday. Of course, the latter is probably nothing more than a pipe dream, as Bylsma seems to have decided that the key to USA success in Sochi is twenty minutes a game of Orpik trying to be a shutdown defenseman that will make me knock down my house from banging my head against the walls so much.

 

 

 

 

Line by Line: My Take on the US Men’s Hockey Team Line Combinations

After a day of slaving away at my very satisfying job (because not all of us can be professional hockey players—some of us can’t even skate without tripping over our own blades), I came home to discover that the line combinations or at least those that had been used in today’s practice in Sochi had been announced by the media. Obviously, Bylsma and his assistants will probably do some tinkering as the tournament progresses based on how various players perform as well as the chemistry that develops between linemates and defensive pairings. With that caveat, the line combinations as they stand now are:

Forwards:

Brown-Kesler-Kane

Parise-Backes-Oshie

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel

Pacioretty-Statsny-Callahan

Extras: Stepan; Wheeler

Defense:

Suter-Fowler

McDonagh-Carlson

Shattenkirk-Martin

Extras: Faulk or Orpik

Goalies (the starting goalie has not been announced, but you can wager your house it will be Miller or Quick):

Miller

Quick

Howard

Overall Impression of Line Combinations: I am optimistic about these line combinations, because many of them seek to exploit chemistry already developed in the NHL or previous international tournaments rather than trying to summon lightning in a bottle on command.  Each line of forwards seems to have a balance of scoring, playmaking power and physical, shutdown strength. It seems like the top six and bottom six will be spread across all four lines, rather than confined to two clearly defined lines apiece. The coaches seem to be trying to run three scoring lines and one shutdown line that can also score.

In terms of defense, the coaches have done a good job blending more offensive defensemen with those closer to the stay-at-home end of the spectrum, and all the pairings except for the McDonagh-Carlson one have a veteran to offset a youthful counterpart.

Offense Line by Line Commentary:

Brown-Kesler-Kane: I’m not going to lie. When I first saw this line combination, my initial urge was to arrange an eye doctor’s appointment because surely I must need a stronger prescription since no coach would be foolish enough to put Dustin Brown, whom I was so convinced was only on the team for his shutdown capabilities, with Patrick Kane, one of our most potent playmakers and offensive catalysts. The more I cleaned my glasses and contemplated this line, though, the more it grew on me.

Ryan Kesler and Patrick Kane had a solid chemistry in 2010, and it was a line of Brown-Kesler-Kane that scored the first goal in the gold medal game against Canada. Brown’s aggressive style and fearlessness in crashing the opposing net could clear paths for Kane’s playmaking wizardry to spark magic on the scoreboard. Brown is in a major scoring slump this season, but if he gives Kane the space needed to produce scoring opportunities that Kesler (and Kane) can capitalize on, he could help ensure this line’s effectiveness against other team’s top defensemen.

I’ll withhold judgment on this line until I see it in action. It’s possible that the flames of 2010 will be rekindled between these three forwards; it’s also not beyond the realm of imagination that this line will burn out with nary a flicker. I assume that if the latter is the case, Brown will be switched for Parise, even if Kane and Parise didn’t mesh too well in 2010.

Parise-Backes-Oshie: I actually love this all Minnesota line. David Backes and T.J. Oshie already have been successful linemates with the St. Louis Blues, so the question of whether they will work well together on ice has been answered before the tournament even starts, which is reassuring for coaches and fans who have enough other things to worry about.

In St. Louis, Backes and Oshie form a very strong shutdown line, which is how I think the Parise-Backes-Oshie line will be deployed in the Olympics. As a Devils fan, I watched Parise be a beast on the penalty kill enough to know that he is a forward who is highly responsible defensively, so I think that a combination of Parise, Backes, and Oshie would be extremely difficult to play against.

This should be a line that is capable of shutting down the opposition’s top forwards and potentially scoring their own goals in the process, since a key part of their defense will be generating offense. Nothing could be more devastating to an Alexander Ovechkin than to be battling with Backes and Oshie along the boards in his own end when he is supposed to be lighting up the scoreboard.

To me, the goal of this line is to set the tone every night, lead by example, and to generate scoring chances from their hard work while maintaining solid defensive play. The only potential danger here is that it might be unwise to have a top scorer like Parise utilized mainly in a shutdown capacity. If Kane and Kessel struggle with scoring, Parise may have to be moved to a line that is more obviously oriented toward scoring.

Van Riemsdyk-Pavelski-Kessel: This is another line that I’m inclined to give two thumbs up, because James Van Riemsdyk and Phil Kessel have chemistry from working together with the Toronto Maple Leafs. It seems a prudent decision by the USA coaching staff to take advantage of this already existing dynamic rather than trying to produce an entirely new one for this brief tournament. As a center, I believe that Joe Pavelski would complement these two well. I can picture him being able to create opportunities for Kessel to capitalize on, which will be vital, since team USA will need Kessel and Kane to produce points in order to medal in Sochi. This line should accumulate tons of points since it has three of the top 20 goalscorers in the NHL, two of whom have an existing chemistry between them.

Pacioretty-Statsny-Callahan: As far as I’m concerned, there should be no question marks about Max Pacioretty and Paul Statsny being effective linemates, because they had incredible chemistry when they played together at Worlds. Since Callahan, like Brown, has been in a scoring slump this season, his inclusion here may raise some eyebrows, but I figure that Callahan could be useful on this line. Just as Brown’s aggressive play may create space for Kane and Kesler to work their magic, Callahan’s physical style could give Pacioretty and Statsny more room to produce scoring opportunities. Pacioretty may look like a grinder, but he actually isn’t much of one, so having a guy like Callahan on this line may not be an automatically doomed experiment, but if the test fails, I think that we could see Wheeler’s versatility and size taking Callahan’s place.

Stepan: When the roster was announced, I predicted that Stepan wasn’t likely to see much action unless another center gets injured, in which case, he would sub in for them as necessary. For the most part, I stand by that. However, it is possible that he will be dressed and on the bench for some games while Wheeler sits it out because the coaches want a fifth center they can insert into various lines. Even without an injury, Stephan may end up seeing action in a game or two depending on which team the USA is facing on any given day.

Wheeler: Blake Wheeler is another forward whose time on ice in Sochi will vary based on the teams the USA faces each game. Since Wheeler brings the benefits of size and versatility, there will probably be some nights that the USA coaches elect to dress Wheeler instead of Stepan.

Defense Line by Line Commentary:

Suter-Fowler: This pairing makes my soul soar with the sound of angels singing. I admit that I’m a huge Fowler fan (because he reminds me so much of Scott Niedermayer who is probably my favorite defenseman ever), and when he was named to the team, I was delighted, but secretly still nervous that he would be riding the wooden bench while Brooks Orpik played twenty minutes a night.

My fears were somewhat allayed when the USA GM Polie stated after the roster was announced at the Winter Classic that Cam Fowler might have been the best American defenseman in the league this season, since I figured it would be hard for the coaches when they specifically advocated for Fowler to be there to just use him as a benchwarmer if the team’s GM considered him one of the best US options on defense. I didn’t dare to hope that Cam would be paired with Ryan Suter, though, so this pairing makes me feel like my wildest hockey dreams have all come true at once.

Ryan Suter was a Norris Trophy Finalist, so he will be an amazing rock in a shutdown capacity, and Cam Fowler will probably be far stronger in that role than many assume. Fowler is known as an offensive defenseman, but, his shutdown work has come a long way since he was drafted and shouldn’t be underestimated. Every time the Hawks and Ducks play, Fowler is tasked with shutting Kane down and he almost always does well in that role, stripping Kane of the puck, blocking off rush lanes with good positioning, blocking shots…that’s just one example, but I’m going to assume that Patrick Kane is happy he doesn’t have to go up against Fowler. I even remember Fowler cutting off Crosby on a consistent basis when playing Pittsburg.

This pairing should be a strong shutdown one that can also generate some nice offense and breakout passes. In fact, I’m even going to go out on a limb here and predict that Cam becomes a breakout player this Olympics must as Ryan Suter did in 2010, because his smooth skating, which will be a real treat on international ice, and his smart play combined with the fact that he tends to raise his performance to another level for big games (which the Olympics, by definition, are) will make a lot of jaws drop.

I predict this pairing being very successful and remaining intact throughout the tournament (although, if it tanks, I can picture Faulk sliding into Fowler’s place despite the fact that Faulk’s offensive skills are not as impressive as Fowler’s). It blends Fowler’s more offensive style with Suter’s more stay-at-home techniques, while also offsetting Fowler’s youth with Suter’s Olympic experience. All in all, it seems a promising top pairing, and I predict that it along with the McDonagh-Carlson pairing will see a bulk of the ice time in Sochi.

McDonagh-Carlson: Here is another defensive pairing that meets my approval. Although both McDonagh and Carlson are young and have never been to the Olympics, they are both number one defensemen with their respective NHL teams who play one-on-one against the league’s premiere forwards, so I am confident that they won’t flounder even without a veteran presence beside them. McDonagh, who can be a veritable beast on the penalty kill as well as at even strength, will be the more stay-at-home type on this pairing, while Carlson will be more responsible for generating offense with the forwards.

If McDonagh and Carlson fail to mesh, I can picture the smooth-skating Faulk replacing Carlson, but I don’t anticipate that happening. Carlson and McDonagh should work well together, and along with the Suter-Fowler it should do much of the defensive weightlifting for team USA in Sochi.

Shattenkirk-Martin: This pairing will probably not see nearly as much ice time as the Suter-Fowler and McDonagh-Martin ones, but I think that it will function well enough as a third pairing. Shattenkirk will be the guy responsible for creating offensive opportunities, while Martin will be the more stay-at-home man on this pairing. Martin will also be the grizzled veteran to Shattenkirk’s energetic youth. If this line doesn’t work, we can experiment with Martin and Faulk or even bring the Penguins to Russia by playing Martin and Orpik together.

Orpik: I predict that he will be the seventh dressed defenseman in games where the USA wishes to establish a more physical presence.

Faulk: The silky skating Justin Faulk will probably be the seventh dressed defenseman when the USA seeks to play a more skilled game.

Goalie Prediction: Both Miller and Quick come into the tournament with excellent records as goaltenders, and team USA can be confident with either of these men in the net. That being said, I give the edge to Miller since he has had a stronger season behind what many regard as the worst team in the NHL (some nights, Miller is a one-man team in Buffalo), and he was a major reason why the USA won silver in Vancouver. When he was the MVP of the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament and he has been so magnificent this year, it’s hard not to give him a chance at being the USA’s starting goalie. Obviously, if Miller falters, Quick will take over, and Howard will only see action if both Miller and Quick get cholera from the poop in the Sochi wastebaskets.

Faces I’m Excited to See in Sochi: Ryan Suter

Why does this post even exist?

It has been awhile since I last talked about a Ryan on the US Olympic hockey team, and that statistic is simply unacceptable, because the US Olympic hockey team happens to contain even more Ryans than my fifth grade class in elementary school. Fortunately, hockey players are used to inventing weird nicknames for one another and calling each other by their last names, so this insane amount of Ryans on our team probably won’t result in too much confusion on ice or in the locker room.

In fact, of all the nations competing in hockey at the Olympics in 2014, the United States has the most Ryans by a wide margin, which is something we can all take pride in. We can also feel free to speculate that the real reason that Bobby Ryan isn’t on the team is he didn’t get the memo about only players with a first name Ryan being on the roster. Getting down to business, the Ryan this particular post focuses on is Ryan Suter, so if you don’t know anything about him (perhaps because you just emerged from a coma), prepare for an education.

Who is this Ryan Suter dude, anyway?

Ryan Suter is an American defenseman and alternate captain for the Minnesota Wilds in the NHL. In the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, he was chosen seventh overall by the Nashville Predators, but elected to play one year with the Wisconsin Badgers before joining the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL for the 2004-2005 season. The 2005-2006 season marked Ryan’s rookie year in the NHL with the Nashville Predators. Ryan continued to play for the Nashville Predators through 2012 when, as an unrestricted free agent, he signed a thirteen year contract worth $98 million with the Minnesota Wilds. This decision basically earned him the undying cheers of Wilds fans and the eternal booing of Predators fans, but that’s nothing new in sports.

What good will he be to the USA in Sochi?

As the NHL leader in time on ice, Ryan can be relied upon to be the backbone of the US defense in Sochi. He will be a defensive rock who can be looked to for success in all situations, because he is quite capable of scoring power play goals or tying goals in the last minute of regulation. There also was that game on January 4^th, 2014 against the Washington Capitals where he scored a glorious hat trick, which is a nice feat for a defenseman.

The USA will also be depending on him to provide veteran leadership to youngsters like Faulk and Fowler (both of whom are among the four youngest players that the United States has sent to the Olympics since pros became eligible in 1998) on the blue line.

Ryan will be the cornerstone of the USA defense in Sochi, and he will bring the intangibles of determination, focus, and experience to the blue line, which explains why a letter A for alternate captain graces his 2014 Olympic jerseys. By the way, these are the ghastly jerseys with tacky fake laces that appear as if they were designed by a Kindergartener who was just introduced to gimmicky glitter stars, which for some unknown reason are black even though the stars on the American flag are white.  (On a side note, the Cam America uniform in the spoof video released by the Anaheim Ducks would actually make a better jersey because at least it doesn’t take itself too seriously even if it is wildly impractical.)  The only consolation an American can have when seeing such hideous jerseys is, of course, looking beyond the jersey at the person wearing it, and remembering to trust the person—in this case, Ryan Suter— inside the jersey instead of the terrible Nike organization that brought us the ugly jerseys in the first place.

Why might some not be be so excited to see him don the red, white, and blue?

The only objections to Ryan Suter being on the team that I’ve heard come from Predators fans who are disgruntled by his decision to leave the team and sign with the Wilds, so, if you hear a Nashville fan booing during the Olympics, you can feel confident, since that means  Ryan Suter has the puck, and we can have faith in him not to wet the bed.

Why should we trust this guy? What experience does he have, anyway?

In addition to his NHL experience, Ryan has competed for the USA in ten international tournaments at the junior and senior level. As a junior, he represented the USA in a total of forty-one games, earning seven goals and twenty-two assists. Thus far in his senior international career, Ryan has competed in thirty games for the USA, accumulating three goals and nine assists in the process. In Sochi, he will have an opportunity to add on to those impressive totals, and we can trust him to do just that.

Has he ever won anything, or is he just some perennial loser?

In 2002, Ryan won gold with the rest of Team USA at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge and again at the World Under-18 Championships. He added another gold medal to his hardware collection at the 2004 Junior World Championships. For the 2010 Olympics, Ryan was selected as an alternate captain on the team that came back from Vancouver with a silver medal.

Apart from these team successes, Ryan has some notable individual achievements. In 2004, he was named to the WCHA All-Rookie and Third All-Star team. In 2012, he was selected for the NHL All-Star game. The following year, 2013, saw him gain still more recognition in the NHL, as he was named to the NHL First All-Star team, given the THN Bobby Orr Award for best defenseman, and was a finalist for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, which annually is offered to the best all-around defenseman in the NHL.

Is there anything especially cute about him that would give anyone any extra incentive to cheer for him?

Olympic greatness, which is always adorable, flows through Ryan’s veins. His uncle Gary was a member of the 2002 Olympic team that earned a silver medal in Salt Lake City, and his dad, Bob Suter, was a defenseman on that little known hockey team that defeated the Soviet Union in Lake Placid back in 1980. Ryan likes to tell world how he grew up bringing his father’s gold medal to school for show-and-tell, and he named his son Brooks in honor of the legendary Herb Brooks about whom he was raised hearing so many hockey stories.

Ryan is not ashamed to share how his father taught him to keep his head up and how he dreams of earning a gold medal to match his dad’s in a video that is definitely worth watching because we also learn that Bob Suter totally jinxed the 2010 team by saying that he thought they had a chance to win gold. As long as Bob can keep his big mouth shut and doesn’t take it upon himself to jinx the 2014 team, hopefully, Ryan will be able to return from Sochi with more hardware, so that at least he can win the total medal count if not the gold medal count in the Suter family games.

Faces I’m Excited to See in Sochi: Patrick Kane

Why does this post even exist?

As those of you who have not just landed from Mars are well aware (not that I discriminate against Martians on this blog, of course), the opening ceremonies for the Sochi Olympics will take place on Friday, so I have to hustle if I want to finish fawning over all the American hockey players whom I’m excited to see in Sochi before the puck drops in their opening game. Time is ticking, so I must get typing, in other words. Like a professional sports writer, I’ve got a deadline to meet.

For this post, I’ve chosen to focus my adoration on Patrick Kane, because, for awhile, he was in one of his scoring slumps, and I was afraid that he might be in that trough throughout the Sochi Olympics. However, in Monday’s game against the Kings, he scored two goals and one assist en route to a Blackhawks victory, so he seems to be returning to his usual impressive form just in time to spearhead the American men’s hockey effort in Sochi. I figured that deserved a virtual round of applause in the shape of a blog post, especially considering that Patrick, as he explained through tears to the media in a post-game interview, had just learned of his grandfather’s death moments before the game started and wished to play well as a tribute to the grandparent he had just lost. Patrick deserves a ton of respect for displaying such strength, and that respect, on my part, will involve me explaining to any hockey fans who have been living under several feet of solid limestone since about 2007 who exactly Patrick is and why he is going to be vital to America’s hockey success in Sochi.

Who is this Patrick Kane dude, anyway?

Those of you who missed the implications in the above section will be interested in learning that Patrick Kane is an American right winger (who can sometimes be persuaded to play center, although he doesn’t seem to enjoy that position very much) for the Chicago Blackhawks, the reigning Stanley Cup Champions. In the 2007 NHL Entry draft, he was chosen first overall by the Chicago Blackhawks, making him the first American forward to be selected first overall in an NHL Draft.  Many—including the tactless reporter linked to in the previous sentence who, basically, had the gall to ask whether Patrick’s size made Chicago wary about choosing him even though he had just finished acknowledging that Patrick (who was sitting right there) was probably tired of answering doubts about his stature—questioned whether Patrick would be able to make the transition to the NHL in the upcoming season. Patrick silenced his critics as only he can by entering the NHL as a rookie for the 2007-2008 season, scoring a gamewinning shutout goal against the Detroit Red Wings, and then scoring his first NHL regulation time goal against the Colorado Avalanche in his following game. The rest of his rookie season was just as star-studded, as Patrick would receive the honor of being named to the 2008 NHL All-Rookie Team and of being the recipient of the Calder Memorial Trophy, which is offered annually to the most successful NHL rookie. After that, I imagine all those who doubted Patrick’s skill could compensate for his size had to taste the bitterness of eating their own foolish words.

What good will he be to the USA in Sochi?

Patrick is an extremely talented forward who has only improved the defensive side of his game and matured in his off-ice conduct since representing the United States in Vancouver. It is difficult to know where to begin describing his strengths, but, for starters, he is a gorgeous stickhandler, a skill that he utilizes to score some breathtaking goals worthy of any highlight reel.  This penchant for scoring awesome goals is especially evident when he scores hat tricks against teams like the Canucks or the Kings. He has earned the reputation of being a clutch performer in the playoffs, a trait that was evidenced in 2010 when he scored the Stanley Cup game-winning goal in overtime. Apart from being a clutch performer in the NHL, he is someone who can be relied upon to produce points when needed in the Olympics, since he was vital in setting up Zach Parise’s goal against Canada with twenty-four seconds left that sent the gold medal game into overtime. Patrick is a playmaker, a stickhandler, and a sniper who can perform in clutch situations, so the US will certainly not regret giving him a berth on the roster.

Why might some not be so excited to see him don the red, white, and blue?

I’ve never heard any USA hockey fan argue that Patrick shouldn’t be making the trip to Sochi, but the only reason I could envision anyone doubting his right to be there is some of his youthful indiscretions. As a young player adjusting to the NHL, Patrick occasionally displayed poor judgment off-ice, doing things like getting drunk and being photographed in a state of undress in a limo with girls or beating up a taxi driver in a dispute over pennies. Since then, Patrick has grown as a player and as a person. He is still not captain material by any stretch of the imagination, but he deserves to be on the team, especially because, in his interviews, he is aware of what an honor it is to represent his country abroad and perceives it as his responsibility to play to the best of his ability in the Olympics. Far from seeking to be an embarrassment to the USA in Sochi, Patrick will strive to bring as much glory to the Stars and Stripes as possible.

Why should we trust this guy? What experience does he have, anyway?

Twice during his six seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, Patrick has raised the Stanley Cup. In addition to the seasons he played with the Blackhawks, Patrick was a member of the US National Development Team for two seasons and played for the London Knights of the OHL (Ontario Hockey League). During his time with the US National Development Team, Patrick contributed seven goals and five assists in six games to the United States gold medal finish at the 2006 Under-18 Championships. Again playing for USA at the World Junior Championships in 2007, Patrick earned five goals and four assists toward the USA’s bronze medal.

On the senior level, Patrick has also represented the United States internationally at the 2008 World Championships and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. At the 2008 World Championships, he contributed three goals and seven assists in seven games and earned no penalties in the process. Perhaps more notably, he added three goals and two assists to the United States’ silver medal effort in Vancouver. With his experience in thriving during championship games on the NHL and international stages, there are few forwards Americans can trust more to get the job done for us in Sochi. Love or hate him off the ice, Patrick can certainly be trusted by his coaches, teammates, and fans when he is on it.

Has he ever won anything, or is he just some perennial loser?

Apart from the numerous accolades already mentioned in this post (a Calder Memorial trophy,  two Stanley Cup Championship rings, a gold Under-18 Championship medal, a bronze World Junior Championship medal, and a silver Olympic medal) which form a trophy haul almost any hockey player would be proud to call his own, Patrick has other awards that he can point to in order to prove that he isn’t some perennial loser who bribed his way onto the US Olympic roster. In 2006, he was named to the Under-18 All Star Team. The following year he was recognized as both the 2007 OHL and CHL Rookie of the Year as well as nominated to the OHL All-Rookie Team and the OHL First All-Star team. Since entering the NHL, he has played on three All-Star Teams in 2009, 2011, and 2012 in addition to being a 2010 First Team All-Star. Then, in 2013, he was the recipient of the coveted Con Smythe Trophy, which is annually given to the MVP of the playoffs, making him the first American forward to earn this award. At this point, it may be debatable whether he is a future Hall of Famer, but it is certainly not fair to contend that he is a perennial loser when his copious amount of awards seems to indicate the exact opposite.

Is there anything especially cute about him that would give anyone an extra incentive to cheer over him?

As anyone who has watched Patrick’s post-goal celebrations can attest, he is quite a dancer. Those who followed that link might be wondering who Patrick was dancing around anyway. Ponder no longer. Patrick was jiving around Jonathan Toews, an amazing (and unfortunately Canadian) center and captain for the Blackhawks who often ends up as a straight man for Patrick’s comedy routines. If you have seen even a small fraction of the YouTube videos detailing the silly shenanigans those two talented dudes get up to, it’s hard not to find both of them at least a little adorable, so do a jig and crack a joke every time Patrick gets a point in Sochi.