Neutral-Zone Crap: Owen Power 'a no-brainer' for Canada's Olympic team
Both Canada and USA will have some top college players who are playing in the WJC at their disposal and it could hit the University of Michigan particularly hard. All that...and more
When Cale Makar was a freshman at U-Mass Amherst in 2017-18, he was faced with a vexing decision. After helping Canada to gold at the World Junior Championship and earning a berth on the post-tournament all-star team, Makar was asked by Hockey Canada to play for the Olympic team. He turned down the opportunity.
Four years later, Owen Power, and possibly teammate Kent Johnson, of the University of Michigan will be faced with the same decision. With the NHL and NHL Players’ Association deciding to stay away from the Olympics for the second straight cycle, the national federations of the game’s traditional hockey powers are having to scramble to fill their rosters. And while the bulk of Canada’s roster will be filled by professionals playing in Europe and those who played in the recent Channel One Cup in Moscow, there’s no reason to believe Power won’t be invited. After all, the first overall pick in 2021 played in the World Championship last spring and averaged 20 minutes a game playing with and against veteran international players and NHLers.
“It’s a no-brainer,” said a source close to Power. It’s expected talks will begin between Hockey Canada and Power as soon as the World Junior Championship ends in early January. But will he accept? Almost certainly. It’s unclear what kind of commitment Hockey Canada and USA Hockey will be seeking from their Olympic players, but with a 12-day tournament that runs from Feb. 9 through Feb. 20, players would be able to participate in the Games without missing too many games of their college seasons. Depending upon when teams expect to have their teams assembled, the players could miss as little as three weeks of action. Or as much as eight if they test positive while over in China.
Along with Power and Johnson, both of whom are playing for Canada in the World Junior Championship, Canada could also approach a player such as Carter Savoie of the University of Denver, the Edmonton Oilers prospect who has 12 goals in 16 games in his sophomore season. As far as USA is concerned, there are a number of players who will likely be considered. World Junior teammates Jake Sanderson, Matty Beniers and Brock Faber could be asked, along with Brendan Brisson. With Power, Johnson, Beniers and Brisson all playing for the University of Michigan, the Wolverines could be ravaged by the Olympics.
‘WE DON’T LIVE IN A VACUUM’
Speaking of the Olympics, it’s difficult for even the most ardent supporter of international hockey to fault the NHL and NHLPA for coming to their decision. With 50 games already postponed, and surely more on the way, the league will need the time it had blocked off for the Olympics to make up some of those games.
With 134 players and seven coaches in COVID protocol as of Thursday, it’s fairly absurd to suggest the league will be able to pick up the season with games two days after Christmas and carry on without any more postponements. In fact, there’s speculation the league will be shut down until New Year’s Day, which would put another 43 games in limbo to go with the 50 that have already been postponed.
More than one hockey person has opined that testing and COVID restrictions have gone to far in the NHL. Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman openly wondered why asymptomatic players continue to be tested regularly, but he’s probably about six months ahead of his time. We will all get to the point where that might work, but with the Omicron variant sending numbers soaring, we’re certainly not there right now.
A lot of people, such as Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, are of the opinion that the chances of some of the fittest athletes on the planet having a bad outcome are very, very slim. And they’re absolutely right. With the exception of Tyler Bertuzzi, you’re dealing with an all-young, all-healthy and all-vaccinated group of people. But it would be ridiculous, at this point, at least, to think we’re in a position to let our guard down about this. And even though the athletes are resilient, they go home to their families, interact with parents and grandparents and move about in the general public.
“We don’t live in a vacuum,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at the University of Toronto who is advising both the league and the NHLPA on the pandemic. “You have responsibility to public health and you have to abide by the rules of where you work and play. It’s not yet endemic, it’s very much pandemic. You’ve got an Omicron variant that has a doubling time in the population of two or three days that is rapidly sweeping through that is going to clog up hospitals. How can you just put your head in the sand and just say this doesn’t exist? It’s crazy. Of course you can’t do that.”
And as far as the Omicron variant is concerned, there is speculation that it is less severe than previous ones, but if we’ve learned anything in the past 21 months, it’s that information regarding this pandemic should always be date stamped. The truth is, there’s no concrete evidence at the moment that Omicron is definitely a milder strain.
“Here’s what we do know,” Dr. Bogoch said. “We know (a) it’s definitely more transmissible; (b) it definitely chips away at some of the immunity you build from vaccination or recovery from infection; and (c) vaccinations still help. Two doses are good, three doses are better. They still keep you out of hospital, they still reduce the risk of people getting infection. That’s all we know now.”
FUN WITH NUMBERS - SITUATIONAL SCORING
Every other week, we’ll take a look at a stat unique to Hockey Unfiltered. And it has to do with situational scoring. In hockey, there’s an old saying that suggests they don’t ask how, they ask how many. Well around here, we don’t simply ask how many. We want to know how many mattered.
So here’s the bi-weekly update to Hockey Unfiltered’s Situational Scoring Race. And, as the name suggests, it measures situational scoring, specifically which players produce offense at the most crucial times in the game.
As always, there are a couple of things to note, the most important being that goals are weighted more heavily than assists, with goals worth one point and assists worth half a point. In this system, goals can be worth more than one point and assists worth more than a half a point. For example, the first goal of a game is automatically worth two points, one for being the first goal of the game and one for putting that player’s team ahead in a game. An overtime goal is worth three, one for putting the team ahead, one for being the game-winner and one for the overtime goal. If that is the only goal in a 1-0 game, it’s worth four.
It can all be a little confusing, so here’s a glossary:
FIRST: When a player scores the first goal of the game.
AHEAD: Any goal that puts a team ahead at any point in the game, including overtime.
TIED: Any goal that pulls a team into a tie at any point in the game.
COMEBACK: A goal that is scored when a team is trailing by two goals or more and is part of a series of goals that eventually ties the game, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the game.
WINNER: A game-winning goal, but not by the NHL’s definition. The game-winner in this category is the goal that puts a team ahead in a game to stay. So in other words, you could have a 7-6 game and maybe the first goal of the game was the game-winner.
OT: Overtime goal.
SO: Only shootout game-winning goals are counted in this category.
NHL: Where the player stands in the actual NHL scoring race.
Apologies for the way it looks, but this is a one-man operation here and that one man happens to be a luddite.
DRIBS AND DRABS
Clearly, there are not enough hockey podcasts out there. To fill that enormous void, Hockey Unfiltered has added a podcast to its content. Co-host Dylan Waugh and I did the dry run Thursday morning of Hockey Unfiltered with Ken Campbell - The Podcast, with an eye to going with a weekly show in the New Year. It can be found on this platform (and will be sent right to your Inbox if you’re a subscriber) and lots of other places where you can access podcasts. Here’s our very professional promotion:
When Naheed Nenshi was mayor of Calgary, he had little time for any strongarm tactics from the Calgary Flames when it came to building a new arena, and he dismissed their threats as empty. It appears his successor, Jyoti Gondek, is just as determined to get at least a decent deal for the taxpayers of Calgary. Gondek did not flinch when the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation informed her of its intentions to pull out of the Event Centre project over cost overruns. Good for her. Good for Calgary. Let the billionaires pay to have their own monument to the rich built…Connor McDavid had 50 goals and 154 points in 85 games during the calendar year of 2021. That’s basically a full NHL season. He outscored teammate Leon Draisaitl by 21 points over the course of the year. There’s a very good chance that in 2021 we will have seen McDavid at the height of his powers…If the NHL shuts down for an extended period, the World Junior Championship will have the hockey landscape all to itself. That won’t make a difference in Canada, where millions of people spend two weeks paying acute attention to and ardently cheering for two dozen teenagers before going back to ignoring them the minute the tournament ends, but there could be increased exposure south of the border for a team that is trying to become the first U.S. entry to win back-to-back gold medals.
Great points. I wasn't aware that Canada was going to ask minor pro and college kids to go to Beijing and risk being quarantined for 3 to 5 weeks. If I'm Owen Power, or anyone else... why would I do that?
Nevermind that nobody should be going to Beijing at all until they stop their atrocities... a different topic I suppose. But We should all stay clear of that place.