Kypreos Analyzes Canada's Olympic Hockey Camp Roster

Hockey Canada recently announced the 46 players that have been invited to its men's Olympic orientation camp, to be held in Calgary in late August. We spoke to Olympic hockey analyst Nick Kypreos to get his reaction to the list of invitees. Here are some highlights of our conversation with him: 

Talk about the job Steve Yzerman's staff did identifying and inviting role players. Do you see a lot of great role players on this list?
I look at guys like Jordan Staal. To me, he is the prototypical role player. He's got tremendous skill. He fits so nicely behind Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. Why couldn't he fit behind Crosby and Ryan Getzlaf and be that horse that leans on the other team. I don't know if there's a better penalty-killer in the world right now than Jordan Staal. Dan Cleary is another great one. So is Milan Lucic - if Lucic makes this team, he will go up and down his wing and try to hit everything in sight. You have to go back to the Canada Cup in '91 when Lindros made the team as a junior, before he played for the Philadelphia Flyers. It was amazing he made the team at like 18. Milan will be a little older than that. If Lucic makes this team, he'll have a similar role to Lindros in that Canada Cup - to hit everything that moves. He's absolutely there for his muscle. Remember this game will be played on NHL ice, not international ice. It will be a very North American type of game. 

What do you think of the pool of goaltenders they invited: Roberto Luongo, Martin Brodeur, Cam Ward, Marc-Andre Fleury and Steve Mason?
I wish that Marty Turco didn't have an off year. That obviously cost him an invitation to this camp. That doesn't mean he can't find a way to play exceptionally well for Dallas and find a way to go to Vancouver. But you can't argue with Cam Ward's ability to carry Carolina. We know what Marc-Andre Fleury did in winning the Stanley Cup and that earned him the right. It's unfortunate, but those guys simply earned the right to take Marty's spot. Mason falls into that category too - he flat-out outplayed other Canadian goalies and earned his right. He single-handedly put Columbus in a position they've never been in, a playoff position. There are no flaws in the five guys going. I think Chris Osgood is a strong goalie and his record speaks for itself in Detroit. I don't think his game can go to places that the other guys' can. I don't think anyone believes he's a good as them from a skill perspective and that's why he wasn't invited.

Steve Yzerman said it was very important in this kind of tournament to take only guys who have an extremely low margin for error. Did they do a good job of identifying players like that?
I don't look at this team and see a lot of river-boat gamblers. To win championships, it's not high-risk, high reward mentality. That's what Yzerman is talking about. The game is based on percentages. You want to make the pass that gives you the best odds of succeeding. You have young guys in Jonathan Toews, Steve Mason and all the young kids that are relatively new to the pros. They will follow the lead of your veterans: Jarome Iginla, Joe Sakic, and Ryan Smyth. The whole idea is not to use guys that take big chances. There are still a few on the team, but we'll see if they buy into the. But it's not too safe - there are guys out there that love to handle the puck, like Sidney Crosby, Steve Nash, and Vincent Lecavalier - these guys are capable of great individual efforts. Of course there are times you will have to gamble. But I don't believe Yzerman and his staff want to see a lot of that. I don't see it as an overly safe team but they want to make percentage plays.

What do you think of 19-year-old Drew Doughty getting invited?
I really like that. The majority of the media that cover the NHL in the east don't get a chance to see him play. But I think this guy could have easily been rookie of the year if he played in a market like Toronto, New York or Montreal. Doughty is the best defencemen for Los Angeles and will win his share of Norris Trophies before his career is over.

Why do you think Marc Savard wasn't invited?
I said all along that it would have been really difficult for him to make the team. I think he's really grown as a player. But there are horses at both ends of the ice, and he doesn't fit that equation yet at this point in his career.

Why do you think of Steven Stamkos not being invited?
I'm sure Stamkos is very disappointed in light of the great world championship that he had and he was a top player. He's so close, he's on the cusp. It's not what he did, but who you would have to take off the list to put him on and what role he would have to play. Could he play on the third or fourth line as a role player? Or for him to succeed, does he have to be on the top line? If he can't play third or fourth line duty, you have to have a guy like Dan Cleary who can play limited roles and an Andy MacDonald can play third or fourth line. That's why Stamkos isn't invited. You likely can't get the best of him in that limited capacity. But he could be a guy who gets out to a strong start out of the gate and plays his way onto the roster. Remember Steve Yzerman got cut from Team Canada early in his career and can certainly understand. The old saying goes that if Yzerman got cut scoring 150 points in an NHL season, then anyone can.

Brian Burke reached out and called certain veteran ‘warriors' of USA Hockey that he chose not to invite, but Steve Yzerman chose not to call anyone that he didn't invite to Canada's camp. What do you think of Yzerman's approach in comparison to Burke's?
I think it should be black and white. There's only one reason to get a phone call, and that's to say ‘would you like to come to Calgary?' How many guys can he call? Look at all our great Canadian players. There could have been 100 guys you could have called and said ‘sorry, you can't come'. We've said this many times - we could send two or three teams. The Americans aren't in the same position. Yzerman's calls would have been triple the ones Burke had to make.

In general, do you like the camp roster?
It's safe to say that there's a wide-ranging scope there, and that's what you have to have to have a good hockey team. You can't have four No. 1 centremen and five top no.1 defencemen. There has to be a certain protocol followed. There has to be a wide range of players and different roles for them to play. I'm very comfortable with the 25 forwards, 15 forwards and five goalies they picked. There is the next generation coming up. A guy like Joe Sakic has a lot to offer if he can stay healthy. But the days of guys like Mario Lemieux and Rob Blake - guys who were instrumental and stuck around for a long time - most of those kind of guys are gone now, and it's time to pass the torch to the young guys. I am very comfortable with this list.

SOURCE:  http://www.ctvolympics.ca/