{"id":310360,"date":"2025-11-26T17:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T17:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/310360\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T17:14:11","slug":"u-s-olympic-gm-bill-guerin-on-star-injuries-crunch-time-for-roster-decisions-dial-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/310360\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Olympic GM Bill Guerin on star injuries, crunch time for roster decisions: \u2018Dial in\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The one thing Bill Guerin can\u2019t control in assembling his Team USA Olympic roster? Health.<\/p>\n

Injuries to Connor Hellebuyck, Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Jaccob Slavin and J.T. Miller, plus the fact that we await the Tkachuk brothers\u2019 returns from injuries (Brady on Friday, Matthew next month) \u2014 does it all keep Guerin up at night?<\/p>\n

Not really, the Minnesota Wild and U.S. Olympic general manager says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know enough about where they are that I have comfort they\u2019ll be ready,\u201d Guerin told The Athletic when asked about the injured players. \u201cWhat I worry about is someone getting injured closer to that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of utmost importance, of course, is knowing that his No. 1 goalie from the 4 Nations Face-Off will be back in plenty of time. Hellebuyck, the reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy winner, is out four to six weeks after undergoing a minor arthroscopic knee surgery over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked to who I need to talk to, and I\u2019m very comfortable with where Connor is at,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cI\u2019m confident he\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team USA named Matthews, McAvoy, both Tkachuks, Jack Eichel and Quinn Hughes as the team\u2019s first six players in June. Now comes the tough part, with five weeks to go before filling out the rest of the 25-man roster ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline.<\/p>\n

The decisions aren\u2019t getting any easier with so many U.S. players putting up numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys are making it hard on me, which is great,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cThat\u2019s what you want. But in the end, you have to do what you think is best. The worst part about it is telling people they\u2019re not going. Because they\u2019re good guys and good players. There\u2019s so many guys that could be on this team, but we just can\u2019t take everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerin was in Buffalo on Sunday afternoon for the Hurricanes-Sabres game, presumably watching World Championship gold medal hero Tage Thompson a day after being in Montreal for Leafs-Habs, where he had Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson to check in on.<\/p>\n

My guess is Thompson would be in if the roster were announced today. Caufield, I think, remains on the outside looking in, but he\u2019s doing all he can to make it hard on Guerin to pass him over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no issues with his game,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cHe competes like crazy. He\u2019s dangerous offensively. It was good to see him play live again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from Caufield and Thompson, forwards like Jason Robertson (notably first in points<\/a> among U.S.-born skaters this season), Logan Cooley (career-high four goals Monday night), Clayton Keller (played very well at worlds in leading Team USA to gold), Cutter Gauthier, Alex DeBrincat, Nick Schmaltz, Troy Terry, Matthew Knies and Alex Tuch are pushing to gain entry after not making the 4 Nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing all he can,\u201d Guerin said when asked specifically about Robertson. \u201cAnd again, these are situations where I know guys want to make this team and guys want to be in this situation. There\u2019s a number of players that we could take that we won\u2019t end up taking because we won\u2019t have the room. And when you look at it, there\u2019s so many guys that are close in the way that they\u2019re performing, in their statistics, in their body of work. It could come down to the fit. What do we need?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Just like with Team Canada, there are two very important things to remember with the Team USA process.<\/p>\n

The first is what was learned at 4 Nations, as far as how hard and heavy the game was \u2014 how little free ice there was at best-on-best. That is absolutely influencing roster decisions for Milan, where the game will also be played on smaller NHL ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I just don\u2019t think you can put into words how tight those games were (at 4 Nations),\u201d Guerin said. \u201cHow little room there was to operate. And how well these elite players can check. In NHL games, they\u2019re not always counted on to do that, but when they are, they can. And not everybody can play in those situations. No matter what their offensive gifts are, if you can\u2019t check, it\u2019s probably not the tournament for you. \u2026 There\u2019s just no room out there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The second thing to remember is that it matters if a player was at 4 Nations. Team USA lost a coin-flip championship game in overtime to Team Canada. Guerin liked a lot of what he saw there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat definitely plays in their favor, the experience of it,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cWe had good chemistry on that team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Bill Guerin liked much of what he saw from his players at 4 Nations, even if Team USA didn\u2019t win the tournament. (Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Which is another way of saying a player\u2019s history is important. It\u2019s not just about looking at current form.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big believer in body of work,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cI appreciate the first two months of the season, but I\u2019ve said this before: this is not Pee Wee tryouts. This is not, \u2018Oh, just take who\u2019s playing well.\u2019 If you did that, you wouldn\u2019t need a general manager or coaches. We\u2019re actually trying to build a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

If one were to read between the lines \u2014 and to be clear, Guerin did not mention names in this way \u2014 the body-of-work case versus current-form case would help J.T. Miller keep his spot on Team USA despite his offensive struggles this season. He kills penalties and was an important faceoff guy at the 4 Nations.<\/p>\n

So Team USA\u2019s final roster may upset fans who wanted more fresh faces. There will be some new players, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be a long list.<\/p>\n

Guerin met with the Team USA management group on Nov. 10 in Toronto and plans to do so again before the Dec. 31 deadline, in person during the holidays, \u201cto put the final roster down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five weeks to go. It\u2019s crunch time. Guerin\u2019s message to his Team USA management group?<\/p>\n

\u201cDial in,\u201d Guerin said. \u201cSee as many of these guys as we can. Give everybody a fair shot at it. Then we\u2019ll make our decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The one thing Bill Guerin can\u2019t control in assembling his Team USA Olympic roster? Health. Injuries to Connor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,10018,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-310360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}