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The Continuing Rise of the Snubbed. |
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The Olympics were incredible. It is hard to say otherwise. They were so good that in fact the chances of the NHL returning appear to be much higher than previously believed. That said, I don't think we will see the NHL players in the games again. I believe the owners and the League simply don't want it anymore...and besides, for Team Canada this is the perfect exit point. As Jerry Seinfeld once said to George Costanza, "“Showmanship, George. When you hit that high note, you say goodnight and walk off.”
You could always argue Team Canada snubbed some players and Team USA snubbed some players, but in the end we will never know the difference any of them would have really made. For Canada the dominance and all around play was about as good as it gets and it will be remembered that way. They survived Vancouver to win Gold, but they won this Gold going away....Of course many will forget just how ENORMOUSLY HUGE the Shea Weber goal was against Latvia and how if team Canada doesn't get that one and somehow loses....well..the whole process would have been questioned and double guessed until the cows came home.
But Weber did score and Canada went on to win their second straight Olympic Gold.
You could argue for guys like Hall, Thornton, and Giroux of course...but in the end it didn't matter for Team Canada.
As for Team USA...the water is a little more murky.
The bottom line is there are too many talented players from both countries and someone had to be snubbed...right?
Let's look at how the Snubs are doing...
On Giroux...
Don't look now, but the player who was skipped over by Team Canada may soon be getting talked about as the NHL MVP of this season. While there are many talented Canadian players for sure, none has scored more than Claude Giroux has scored since the end of November. In fact, no player born anywhere on the planet has.
And it is not only about piling up the points. Claude Giroux is killing penalties, playing solid defense, and scoring HUGE goals at huge times. There have been games that he has literally won by himself this season. Late game heroics of epic proportion.
You can debate if he should or shouldn't have been on Team Canada, but start that debate right after you debate if he is the best all-around player in the world right now. If he isn't the best, he is in the top 3.
On Okposo...
The Team USA GM Consortium sure could have used the scoring of Kyle Okposo in Sochi. Okposo is an unbelievable 8th in the NHL in scoring right now. He is one of 4 American born players in the NHL top 15. I know the argument that Okposo isn't in top ten were he not playing with Tavares, but I think that argument is ridiculous. Okposo's numbers have continued to climb since the Olympics without JT, and he is doing this on a team simply playing out the schedule.
On Ben Bishop...
It's really hard to argue the job done by Team USA's goalies, but Ben Bishop has just set a record for wins by a Lightning goalie. He is 33 with many left to play and his 2.13 G.A.A is just crazy.
On Bobby Ryan...
There are only 3 NHL players who average under 17 minutes a night and are in the NHL top 50 scorers. Nathan Mackinnon, Wayne Simmonds and Bobby Ryan. Bobby continues to have an outstanding season in Ottawa despite the playing time and he is a +9. Compare that to Jason Spezza's -23 and Milan Michalek's -24.
more to come.
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