Canada to start finalizing Olympic roster, zero in on last bubble spots: Catching up with Doug Armstrong
Team Canada’s Olympic management group reconvenes face-to-face for critical meetings starting Sunday.
The three-day meetings, which wrap up Tuesday in Florida, will help further cement the Canadian Olympic men’s 25-man roster, setting up the management and coaching staff to zero in on the final roster decisions with three weeks to go ahead of the Dec. 31 roster submission deadline.
“We’re hoping to walk out of this meeting with a large portion of the group going from pencil to pen,” Team Canada general manager Doug Armstrong told The Athletic on Wednesday. “The players have had two months to show their wares and now after this, we’re really going to home in on the final selection process, take this to the coaches, and find out where they believe the holes are in our group for things that they may need — whether that’s penalty killers, power-play people, faceoffs — and sort of use the last month to confirm that our pen players stay in pen, which we hope they will. We think they will. That’s been the history of these selection processes.
“And then round out the rest. And make sure if we have injuries from that group, we have a list that we’re comfortable with to continue to monitor for replacements.”
The idea is to come out of the meetings on Tuesday with around 70 percent of players in pen, meaning the final focus leading up to Dec. 31 will be on seven or eight spots still being debated.
“Yeah, it’s an arbitrary number,” Armstrong said of the 70 percent. “As you work toward it and continue to chat as a group, the same names are starting to recur, and that’s a positive for those players. So yeah, that would be the goal (70 percent). It can’t be an open sheet forever.”
Joining Armstrong, the St. Louis Blues GM, for the meetings will be the rest of the Team Canada management group: Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill, Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney, Tampa Bay Lightning GM Julien BriseBois, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas, Ryan Getzlaf from the NHL department of player safety and Scott Salmond from Hockey Canada, plus coaches Peter DeBoer and Misha Donskov.
The group last met face to face on Nov. 10 in Toronto, spending nine hours together, after which Armstrong said their list of players remaining on the scouting radar had been chopped down to 35 to 40. Which shouldn’t be confused with Team Canada’s IOC long list, which remains at 90-plus.
The list of players actually on the bubble or on the radar continues to dwindle.
Is Connor Bedard, who continues to make it hard for Team Canada not to take him with an absolute explosion of a season, still one of those players? The Chicago Blackhawks star is a highlight-reel machine.
“Yeah, no, and you look at Morgan Geekie, who is near the top of goal scoring in the league — that’s why you wait as long as possible,” Armstrong said. “Players are going to make this very difficult. I think what we’re finding is our forward group has a lot of nuance to it, a lot of different options, and less in the other positions. It’s going to be a difficult team to make as a forward, there’s no question.”
Especially after already having named five forwards in June.
At the end of the day, head coach Jon Cooper, who has a lot of sway in these roster conversations, wants to coach a certain type of team. That’s important to remember as the final roster decisions are made. All of which will be reinforced in these three days of meetings.
“These are important meetings to just make sure we’re all on the same page as far as style of play — what player represents the style we want to play,” Armstrong said. “We’ve talked to the coaches, and we understand some of the things that are important to them. A lot of things are important to them. And we’re trying to create a team — not an All-Star team, but a competitive team.”
Here’s where I think the forward discussion is at before these meetings:
There are probably two or three spots open from 4 Nations, including one extra forward spot for the bigger Olympic roster: The forwards who weren’t at 4 Nations in the conversation are Macklin Celebrini, Bo Horvat, Tom Wilson, Nick Suzuki, Wyatt Johnston, Mark Scheifele and, yes, Bedard. Can’t take them all. Tough decisions.
And who do you take out from the 4 Nations roster? I think Team Canada will likely swap in Wilson for Travis Konecny.
But then you look at guys like Seth Jarvis and Mark Stone perhaps being replaced? Cooper has a lot of trust in Anthony Cirelli for faceoffs and penalty killing. I don’t see him being taken off. Again, there’s that extra 14th forward spot for the Olympics, too.
The exercise isn’t just adding new names, but the more difficult part is removing holdovers from 4 Nations who gained the trust of Cooper and Armstrong.
Inevitably, some players being left off the final roster will anger many fans and media. But that comes with the territory of running Team Canada.
It’s win or else in Canada, not win or lose.
“There’s no question, just because of the vast majority of players (to pick from), the roster should be scrutinized and picked apart, because that shows the passion in our country,” Armstrong said. “We’re not naive. If you win, you picked the right roster. If you lose, you haven’t picked the right roster.”
There was a chuckle in that last part of the answer.
The pressure is insane on Team Canada to win and to pick the right team. Nobody is hiding from that.
“That’s what makes it enjoyable and special,” Armstrong said. “That passion that the country has for this. That’s perfect. That’s what you want.”
