sibiriak

True, but by that time, most teams only had at most 1 or 2 open spots remaining, Russia kept them open for OV and Semin, US and Canada could have had a pair of reinforcements each, but chose not to keep any spots open. So in practice, anybody not free after the first round of the NHL playoffs was too late for Canada or the US. And I agree this horse have been dead for some time. I was not debating you in the beginning, you just jumped in and made me repeat and expand. Sorry.

Also, my original question to Johnz96 (before you jumped into the discussion ) was:"What "best veteran North Americans" didn't play that could have strengthened their teams? (Apart from the ones busy in the Stanley Cup playoffs or injured.)" Stamkos, Giroux, Neal, Seguin, Lupul, Parenteau, Couture, Pietrangelo, Subban, Price, Kessel, Pominville, Kane, Wheeler, Pavelski, Oshie, Stafford, Malone, Foligno, Higgins, Shattenkirk, Carle, Leddy, Carlson, Gardiner, Bogosian are hardly veterans.

Crosby said that he needed full preseason prep to get to his best shape. He clearly was far from 100%, even if he came back for the playoffs. Iginla is a year older than the oldest Russian player on the championship team - who was Datsyuk. Iginla will be coming up on 35 by the time Olympics roll around. He may still make the Olympic team, but I doubt it. Re: STAMKOS, I'm not a doctor, so I have to take players at their word, when they say they are too hurt to play. Miller sucked pretty much all sesson, so there's a very low probability that he'd have come in and played much better than Howard did, so I doubt that his being there would have changed the outcome for the US.

Stamkos, Staal (Eric)-hurt, Crosby-said, he needed to finish rehab, Giroux, Hartnell, Pietrangelo, Weber were still playing, Thornton, Iginla, St.Louis, Boyle are too old, considering Sochi, Campbell - if that is a Boston one, you must be joking, Lupul, Parenteau, Couture are not obviously better than the forwards who were there. I agree that D and to a degree G could be better with the players you mentioned, but Cam Ward is no slouch either. Thomas is too old for Sochi, Miller is not better than Howard this season. E.Kane was there, I don't know if P.Kane was healthy. Stafford, Kesler, Cole (Carolina one) were either hurt or fresh out of rehab. Byfuglien had legal issues. Wheeler, Foligno, Malone, Umburger, Leddy, Gardiner were not obviously better than the players already there, Carlson(IIRC), Suter, Shattenkirk, Oshie, Legwand, Backes were still playing. So that leaves Kessel, Pavelski, maybe P.Kane, Higgins. All good players but hardly any more valuable to their team than the players other teams were missing. More notable ones: Backstrom (G), Kiprusoff, Pitkanen, Hamrlik, T.Ruutu, Edler, Murray, Paajarvi, Enstrom, Hossa, Visnovsky, Jurcina, Meszaros, Halak, Hornquist, A.Markov, Radulov, Voynov and I'm sure i forgot many more. That's true, but it's really your own internal problem. If Hockey USA or Hockey Canada can't assemble the best team possible, who's to blame? http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/feature/?id=63060 According to this, Yzerman is an executive director, and Lowe is just one of a large management group. And I remember Yzerman saying that WHC participation will be an important consideration when determining the Olympic roster. After this WHC there's only one more left before the Olympics, and who knows what players will be able to go in 2013. They may be going deep into the playoffs, have injuries, or they just may not be picked next year. That's what I mean when i say this may have been the last chance at an Olympic audition for many NHLers.

Canada: Crosby - hurt, out of shape. Iginla - too old. Stamkos - hurt, will have surgery off season, IIRC. Keep searching. US: Miller - in his current form is not an obvious improvement over Howard. Kane and Kessel could've helped, I don't know their injury status. Keep going, you still need 4 D 1.5 G and 4 F.

Yes, why bother looking up actual info, when you can just employ a kindergarten level comeback and stick to your preconceptions. Please give me 3 forwards and 2 D and a goalie for Canada and/or the US, who would be obviously better than the ones there, and available and healthy? And remember that one of the long-term considerations for all teams at the Worlds is to see who can play at the 2014 Olympics, so obviously no 35+ year-olds were to be invited.

Correction, US and Canada won gold and silver only twice since 1998, and coincidentally, when the Olympics were held in North America. In Nagano and Turin Czech Republic and Sweden won gold, and Russia and Finland - silver. So Canada won some and Europeans won some. There's no clear advantage either way, and the sample size is too small anyway. As to the fact that Canada is deep, so what. There still are only 6 players on the ice at a time. In Turin, all that depth didn't help, did it? And if you actually look at Canada rosters at the Worlds, at least in the last 7-8 years, those are some pretty impressive rosters. No. Do you even know who did play for Canada and the US this year?

"Better" teams lost, so they were not "better". And they didn't lose 1-0. USA lost to Slovakia 2-4, and to Finland 2-3, Canada lost to Slovakia 3-4. Goaltender equipment was the same as in NHL. What "best veteran North Americans" didn't play that could have strengthened their teams? (Apart from the ones busy in the Stanley Cup playoffs or injured.) Remember, Steve Yzerman was the GM of this team Canada, surely the players must realize that this may have been their last chance to audition for Sochi-2014? On paper, Canada and USA were "better" than Slovakia, Finland, or even Russia. Unfortunately for them, ice is more slippery than paper.

Actually it's his grandson that's a goalie. He is something like 13 or 14, and he played for Russia in some kids tournaments, but I wonder if that is because he's good or who his grandpa is.

Griffins also have some NHL-experienced players, and neither Canada nor USA went very far in the Worlds for the last 3 years. Canada hasn't won since 2007 and USA hasn't medaled since 2004. So by your logic, the Wings would lose to the Griffins, and not occasionally, but as a rule. And where did the goalie equipment issue come from? The IIHF has the same standards as NHL does. And the goalies there use the same equipment they normally use, NHL-regulation most of them.

That was nice series, I remember it well. I wonder would you feel the same way if the score was 5:6 and not 6:5 in that last game? Or if the ref blew the whistle on Canada for the foul against Bykov just before the GWG for Canada in Game 3?

I'm perfectly aware of the level of interest for the Hockey Worlds over here in North America. And that's fine. Still I kind of doubt that the all-NHL Canadian or US players go to this tourney and than float around and don't try very hard. So I take umbrage when I read comments like the one I responded to. This particular fan might not care about the tournament, but the fact that all-NHL players teams lost to "players not good enough for the NHL", lends a certain arrogance to his post, don't you think? But yes, the Olympics are the true indicator of the international hockey pecking order, and I can't wait to see Canada leave Sochi with their tails between their collective legs.

Datsyuk and Zetterberg haven't played together much, other than on PP, last season either. If you adjust your number to PPG format, you'll see the correlation. Zetterberg does have a chronic back issue, that may limit his GP in the future. How much - we don't know. Datsyuk does not have any lingering health issues I know of. He is only 33 and has at least 2-3 more seasons at near peak physical condition. Datsyuk played the last 3 games in the World Hockey Championship on the same ice and under the same rules, and against the same or better opponents as he played in the first 7. So his point production increased for one reason only - new and better linemates. It was as clear an experiment as one can ask for. All-NHL teams USA and Canada went home after losing in the quarterfinals to the "guys not able to play in the NHL". Does that mean that the Red Wings would also lose to the Griffins?

I am probably biased, but I think that the attitude thing is overblown. Semin probably will take time off during the regular season, no matter what you do to him, but in this year playoffs he really fought hard for the Caps. He was skating hard, blocking shots, which I don't recall him doing before. I think he finally matured and wants to win.

Uh, so that must be the reason why the all-NHL US and Canadian squads went home after the quarterfinals? Where the poor dears too bored to play against such inferior competition? The champion, team Russia, only had 8 NHL players on its 25 men roster. And not all of them were named Alexander or Evgeni

A little illustration on what the stats can and can not do. Playing for Russia in the World Hockey championship, that just ended, Pavel Datsyuk scored 3 pts in the 7 round-robin games. So he must be old and washed up, right? But wait, in the next 3 single elimination games, when the intensity and the competition level rise, he scored 4 points in those 3 games. Why the rebirth? Well, it could have something to do with the fact that he played on a line with Kuznetsov and Kulemin/Shirokov at first, and with Ovechkin and Semin for the 3 playoff games. And let me tell you, that line was dominant. So when comparing stats for various years, one must take into account who else was on the ice. Otherwise, one might think that Pittsburgh's Kunitz (61 pts) was as good as, say, Zetterberg(69 pts), since he got comparable stats. Of course that would ignore the fact that he was playing on the line with Malkin.

Are any of them actually available? Except for Iginla, who ,IMO, isn't going to leave Calgary.

NYR/NJD: 4-2 PHX/LAK: 4-2 I know that the 1st LA-PHX game has been played already, so you can disqualify that pick if you want. I forgot to post the picks earlier, but I swear I wrote boty of them down right after the end of conf. semi's round.

I didn't say that every single fan here hates Fedorov. But you can't deny that a lot, probably a significant majority, do. It does take several thousand fans to boo someone and be heard. The immediate reasons for hate vary, dependent on a player we are talking about, but there seems to be an underlying jealousy/hate toward KHL and Russian players, who do constitute a large majority of its players. As to whether KHL ruins players, the sample size is too small. There haven't been many players who played in KHL and then in the NHL. In fact, I suspect that your sample consists of Hudler and Radulov only. And Radulov has played too few games after his return, to judge. After all he had the most points of all players on both teams in the Nashville series, if he was ruined by the KHL, then who ruined the rest of the players in that series? And if you are referring to his discipline problems, it's not like he was a choir boy here before he left Nashville for the KHL. One might argue that it's the NHL that is turning its players into spoiled primadonnas. In fact, that is precisely the argument that's made on the Russian fan sites. And they have much larger sample size to base their conclusions on.

Man, you have been a member here longer than I have, but you seem to have a short memory. Pavel was bashed herer prior to signing his long term (and as it turned out bargain basement cheap) deal, precisely for the terms of that contract. The prevailing opinion was that he wasn't (as all Russians) a playoff performer and wasn't worth the money. I don't want to spend my time searching for those old threads, but if you wish, you can look it up and see if I'm right. Fedorov was bashed before he left for not being consistent, being a primadonna etc., and after he left, well you know about that one. Yes there were other players who were bashed here for various reasons, and some were bashed more than others. My point is that (especially after the start of the KHL) there seem to be extra hate for any Russian player who (blasphemy) doesn't drop all he's doing and rush to North America to play for (relative) peanuts, on a two-way rookie capped contract. Or for any European player who goes to KHL instead of here. Am I all that wrong?

Oh, yeah. I remember all the "love" Pavel has gotten on this forum prior to signing his long-term contract. Also, you wanna see love for Russians, just try praising Fedorov. Yeah, the one who was booed every time he touched the puck. It seems that a Russian Red Wings (and even more so every other teams') player has to be perfect in all ways to not get bashed here. If Datsyuk wasn't far and away the best Red Wing this season, his name would have been dirt here, too. P.S. If I missed sarcasm in your post, sorry for the rant, but if you were serious...

Listening to you guys hate on Kuznetsovm makes me wonder if you heard that the Cold War was over? I don't have any inside info but here's few reasons he might want to stay home for a couple more seasons: He's 20, he doesn't yet have the muscle mass to withstand the NHL seson, and NHL hitting. He had a shoulder surgery recently, so it would make sense to bulk up to avoid re-injury. He got married just about 9 months ago, could a grandma availability be soon necessary? Guys, this game is supposed to give us joy, not promote bile accumulation. Why so negative?

STL/LAK: 4-3 PHX/NSH: 4-2 NYR/WSH: 4-2 PHI/NJD: 4-2

Round 1 VAN/LAK: 4-2 STL/SJS: 4-3 PHX/CHI: 4-2 NSH/DET: 4-3 NYR/OTT: 4-2 BOS/WSH: 4-2 FLA/NJD: 4-1 PIT/PHI: 4-3 WC Champion: VAN EC Champion: PIT SCF Champion: PIT

Normally, in seasons past, I wouldn't ever think of this, but the way the Wings have been playing for the last 6 weeks... I begin to wonder if it would be better for us to lose to Chicago on Sat., let them play vs Nashville in the 1st round, and play vs SJ/LA/PHX instead. Either one of those teams seems like a better matchup than Nashville right now.