Men’s Olympic Hockey – Team Canada Preview

Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

It’s almost time for men’s Olympic hockey to begin!

Team Canada has arrived in Sochi and the first practice has taken place. Coach Mike Babcock seemed satisfied with his roster of Canadian men and has already been matching up possible line-ups.

The first line saw the familiar faces of Chris Kunitz (Pittsburgh Penguins), Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins), and Jeff Carter (L.A. Kings) while Jonathan Toews (Chicago Blackhawks) centered Patrick Sharp (Chicago Blackhawks) and Rick Nash (New York Rangers) on the second line. John Tavares (New York Islanders), Ryan Getzlaf (Anaheim Ducks), and Corey Perry (Anaheim Ducks) made up the third group.

On defense, Duncan Keith (Chicago Blackhawks) and Shea Weber (Nashville Predators) were paired together while Marc-Edouard Vlasic (San Jose Sharks) was with Drew Doughty (L.A. Kings). Jay Bouwmeester (St. Louis Blues) stood next to Alex Pietrangelo (St. Louis Blues) and Dan Hamuis (Vancouver Canucks) was paired with P.K. Subban (Montreal Canadiens).

I’m sure that these line-ups are not written in stone and we can probably expect to see some changes, depending on what Babs has up his sleeve, but the defensive pairings looks solid to me while the forward lines could use some tweaking. In the scheme of things, I trust Mike Babcock and I’m sure he will make the right decisions to lead his team to a gold medal.

There is still no word on who will get the start in net for Team Canada. It’s the best-kept secret of this year’s Olympics.

The Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team is scheduled to play their first game on Thursday, February 13th, against Team Norway just after Team USA takes on Team Slovakia.

Go Team Canada!