Deserving Players Still Left Off Canada's Olympic Roster

The familiarity factor for the Team Canada roster at the Olympics has been on another level. Doug Armstrong (GM) selected Jordan Binnington and Colton Parayko from his St. Louis Blues, selected Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point, and Anthony Cirelli from Jon Cooper's Tampa Bay Lightning, and the injury replacements, Sam Bennett and Seth Jarvis, both played on the 4 Nations team for Canada. On top of that, the defense selected were all the same and there were very few changes made to the roster, despite others being much more deserving.

Let's start with the forwards. On Team Canada is Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, Sam Reinhart, Mitch Marner, Nick Suzuki, Sam Bennett, Bo Horvat, Macklin Celebrini, Tom Wilson, Mark Stone, Brad Marchand, Hagel, and Jarvis.

This leaves out Mark Scheifele, Wyatt Johnston, Connor Bedard, Zach Hyman, Travis Konecny, Morgan Geekie, and more. Scheifele ranks fourth in points (68) and seventh in goals (27) by Canadians this season. Johnston ranks fourth in goals (29) and eighth in points 59). Bedard ranks sixth in points-per-game (1.2) and is part of the future. Hyman is McDavid's perfect winger and has proven it for five years. Konecny would be a returning play and beats out multiple Canadian forwards in points-per-game while having grit. And Geekie ranks third in goals (32).

On defense, players not having that great of seasons like Drew Doughty, Thomas Harley, and Parayko are on the team, with lots of criticism towards Travis Sanheim's return. The others include Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Josh Morrissey, and Shea Theodore.

Missing are Evan Bouchard, Matthew Schaefer, Darren Raddysh, Mackenzie Weegar, Jakub Chychrun, and more. Bouchard not only leads all defensemen in the NHL in points (63), he ranks sixth among Canadian skaters in points and eighth in points-per-game (1.09). Schaefer has been stellar this season and ranks sixth among Canadian defensemen in points (39) while playing a ton. Raddysh ranks third amongst Canadian d-men and has 52 points in 49 games to go along with his 17 goals. Weegar is on a struggling team and hasn't put up the points he has in the past, but he's still a shutdown defenseman with offensive ability. As for Chychrun, he is fourth among Canadian defensemen in points (46) and has 21 goals already.

Binnington is the only real mess of a pick, and it's because of the GM and his winning the one important game at 4 Nations against the US. He's 8-17-6 with a 3.65 GAA, .864 SV%, and a -18.52 GSAx, which is terrible. Out of all 25 Canadian goalies who have played a game in the NHL this season, he has the worst SV%. Legitimate options that were snubbed include Scott Wedgewood, Mackenzie Blackwood, Jet Greaves, Jake Allen, and even his own goalie partner, Joel Hofer, has played so much better.

There were always going to be deserving players left off of an Olympic Team like Canada, but it was a bit much this year.