Defensemen<\/p>\n
Matthew Schaefer<\/a> — Aaron Ekblad<\/a><\/p>\n Jakob Chychrun<\/a> — Evan Bouchard<\/a><\/p>\n Bowen Byram<\/a> — Darren Raddysh<\/a><\/p>\n Noah Dobson<\/a> — Brandon Montour<\/a><\/p>\n The Skinny: How did the Schaefer, the 18-year-old rookie for the New York Islanders, respond to being passed over by Team Canada? By scoring a pair of electrifying goals including in overtime against his hometown Maple Leafs to win 4-3 on Saturday \u2026 Raddysh is tied for third in goals among defensemen with 12. Talk about being a late bloomer \u2026 Chychrun, 27, is tied for the League lead with 15. \u2026 Mike Matheson<\/a> of the Montreal Canadiens, Owen Power<\/a> of the Buffalo Sabres and Darnell Nurse<\/a> of the Edmonton Oilers also are worthy of consideration.<\/p>\n Goalies<\/p>\n Scott Wedgewood<\/a><\/p>\n Mackenzie Blackwood<\/a><\/p>\n Jet Greaves<\/a><\/p>\n The Skinny: Wedgewood was a finalist for the third spot for Team Canada but was edged out by Darcy Kuemper<\/a> of the Los Angeles Kings. \u2026Wedgewood and Blackwood have combined to go 31-3-5 for the juggernaut Colorado Avalanche. \u2026Greaves, the 24-year-old undrafted rookie with the Blue Jackets, has a 2.64 goals-against average and .910 save percentage and is one of the feel-good stories of the season \u2026 New Jersey Devils veteran Jake Allen<\/a> could also be considered here.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/p>\n Forget 2026 for a moment and fast forward four years down the road. At that time, Bedard will be 24; Macklin Celebrini<\/a>, who was picked to represent Canada this time around, will be 23; and Schaefer will be 22. How’s that for a young core to build around? By that time, they’ll be Canada’s new kids on the block, poised to take the torch from the Connor McDavid<\/a> and Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>. Or at least share it, anyway.<\/p>\n POWER PLAY PLUS<\/p>\n Hockey is played with only one puck on the ice at a time.<\/p>\n That could be an issue for Vegas Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy, the Team Canada assistant who’ll be in charge of one of the most talented power plays we’ve ever seen come next month in Italy.<\/p>\n Cassidy had the same duties at the 4 Nations Face-Off. In that tournament, Canada only had four power-play opportunities and converted on one of them, a brilliant goal in their opener against Sweden when Sidney Crosby<\/a> fed a between-the-legs pass to fellow Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, native MacKinnon, who ripped a one-timer into the net.<\/p>\n It was a preview of just how spectacular this power play could be in Italy.<\/p>\n Canada returns the pieces of that power play to its Olympic roster. Think of the potential here. It has the top two scorers in the NHL, MacKinnon and McDavid. It has a likely Hockey Hall of Famer in Crosby. It has the defending Norris Trophy winner, voted as the NHL’s top defenseman, in Cale Makar<\/a>. The remaining spot could be up for grabs, although the inside track would seem to go to the Panthers forward Sam Reinhart<\/a>, who ha scored 48 power-play goals since the beginning of the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n It’s not like Cassidy can slice the pucks up into five pieces like it’s a piece of pie.<\/p>\n “It’s a nice issue to have, isn’t it?” Cassidy chuckled during a phone interview this weekend from Chicago, where the Golden Knights were preparing to play the Blackhawks.<\/p>\n “The biggest thing I think is going to help this time around is the fact that I know these guys a bit now. I know what they like to do, their tendencies, what they’re all comfortable with. That’s a big deal because prior to 4 Nations, I didn’t know them very well other than from coaching against them.”<\/p>\n One potential dilemma he faced entering 4 Nations: MacKinnon and McDavid, as Cassidy puts it, “like to play the same spot on the power play” for their individual NHL teams. It was McDavid who quickly supplied a solution at 4 Nations.<\/p>\n “Connor immediately said: ‘No problem, I like to move around in those situations anyway. I’ll volunteer to shift,'” Cassidy recalled. “That says all you need to know. He’ll do anything to win. They all will.”<\/p>\n Cassidy said the familiarity gleaned at 4 Nations will be invaluable in planning details such as who will be the puck carrier at full speed for zone entries, especially when you have three of the fastest skaters in the sport in McDavid, MacKinnon and Makar at your disposal.<\/p>\n “Coming out of 4 Nations, the feeling process is over,” Cassidy said. “We can go there and immediately get to work. It puts us ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n “I’m not sure there’s really going to be a lot of power play opportunities at the Olympics. But when they do arise, they are going to be so valuable, especially in a short tournament like this where every game matters.<\/p>\n “I can’t stress enough the importance of the me knowing the guys and the guys knowing me going in. It allows us to get to work right away.”<\/p>\n OLYMPICS STOCK WATCH<\/p>\n A look at who’s hot heading into the Games next month<\/p>\n Mika Zibanejad<\/a>, F, Sweden (New York Rangers)<\/p>\n How do you celebrate being named to your country’s Olympic team in the morning? In Zibanejad’s case, you score a hat trick that night in an outdoor game in Miami in front of a capacity crowd of 36,153 fans at the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic, many of them wearing short sleeves. You can’t make this stuff up. His five points (three goals, two assists) were the most ever by a player in an NHL outdoor game, breaking the mark of four set by Jordan Kyrou<\/a> of the St. Louis Blues in the 2022 Winter Classic. “It’s hard to grasp the whole day like that,” Zibanejad said afterward. “It was a great 12-16 hours.” Was it ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defensemen Matthew Schaefer — Aaron Ekblad Jakob Chychrun — Evan Bouchard Bowen Byram — Darren Raddysh Noah Dobson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-392885","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-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392885","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=392885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}