Marty St. Louis traveled to Sochi as an underdog. Snubbed when the initial selections were made, the diminutive forward was only named to Team Canada after Steven Stamkos was ruled out because of injury. Even then, the general consensus around the hockey world was that he would be a 13th or 14th forward. Jump ahead just a few short days and St. Louis is proving to be much more than a benchwarmer.
After playing the role of extra in Canada’s 3-1 win over Norway, St. Louis took center stage on a line with Sidney Crosby as Canada faced off and defeated Austria by a 6-0 score. Sun Sports anchor Paul Kennedy probably said it best:
From overlooked to skating on #Canada's top line with Sidney Crosby & Chris Kunitz, this is the essence of Marty St. Louis.
— Paul Kennedy (@PaulKennedyFOX) February 14, 2014Finding wingers to play with Player-87 is proving to be an issue in Sochi just as it was in Vancouver. It’s pretty remarkable to think that the best player in the world has such trouble producing with new people, but c’est la vie. I’d argue that, among the guys who have been tried on the Crosby-Kunitz line, St. Louis has been the most impressive and consistent; I include Kunitz in that calculation. When playing together, both Crosby and Marty generated a number of quality scoring chances. They also seem to read well off each other while cycling down low. If there’s a problem on that top line, it’s not St. Louis.
As Mike Babcock starts to see chemistry develop between players all over his lineup, it only makes sense for him to let Marty and Sid build on some of the positives they’ve constructed in their limited time together. When looking at the body of work so far in this tournament (granted, a small sample size), it’s Marty who has set Crosby up for some of his best chances. It’s Marty who has shown that he has enough speed to keep up with the best player in the world. It’s Marty who has found himself in the right position to receive those slick, patented Crosby feeds. And it’s Marty who has gone hard to the front of the net, battled, and created glorious chances. If the coach is looking to change the dynamic on that top line, he shouldn’t remove the one player who has shown chemistry with his best pivot.
Rather than talk about who should play with Crosby and Kunitz, it’s my belief that we should be shifting the discussion to who should play with Crosby and St. Louis.
As always, thank for reading.