Originally posted by crabman82:
But every country is faced with those same issues. Only team I see with an advantage is Russia who has a handful of dudes who could still be nhl players but chose to leave the league and play back home in the khl making them eligible for the Olympics. USA would have a much better team, but so would everyone else.
not every team has same issues. It depends on the strength of a country's players outside the nhl. If you're euro, very good chance you have a number of quality near nhl players. You can get paid as a Star in Euro and be close to home, or be 2k miles away being a scrub in nhl
Russia is clear favorite.
Finland and Sweden are huge disappointments. Going into Olympics id rank as:
1. Russia
2. Sweden
3. Canada
4. Czech
5. Finland
6. USA
Sweden not getting a medal is the biggest shock
Czech have the best goalie not in the nhl. If the Czech goalie was in the nhl he'd be a top 15 goalie, instead he is the top goalie in KHL
The American team made some odd roster choices
They should have built the team around young players with just a few veterans. It's no surprise Terry and Donato, college kids, were our best players. US development has changed so much in the past 20 years that only now are Americans developing high end skills instead of just being tight checking defensive players
Terry and Donato are not even top scorers in NCAA, so we didn't even send our best available players. We had about 15 more ncaa players that are American and better than the players on our Olympic team
[ Edited by SunDevilNiner79 on Feb 21, 2018 at 10:15 AM ]
nice win for team usa.