Which Canadian, American Olympic men’s hockey players aren’t getting the attention they deserve?
The men’s Winter Olympic hockey tournament hasn’t kicked off yet, but it’s about to get interesting.
With NHLers returning to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, everyone’s keeping an eye on the best of the best. But like in most international tournaments, your depth matters. Sure, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and David Pastrnak are among the greatest players in the world. But with so many all-star caliber players taking part, it’s easy for NHL first-liners to be overlooked.
During a segment on Daily Faceoff Live on Tuesday, host Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton broke down which three NHLers aren’t getting enough love heading into the main event:
Tyler Yaremchuk: “The most overlooked player on either the Canadian or American roster is ____.
Carter Hutton: “Well, this was a tough one for me, right, because these players aren’t really overlooked, right? They’re superstars. But I think the one for me for Team Canada that I don’t think has got a lot of light shed on him is Nick Suzuki. With how good this player is, how well-rounded, how he makes everybody better… you look at the Montreal Canadiens and everything runs through Nick Suzuki. So I think he might be that Swiss Army knife and player for Team Canada. Going into it, we think about the big dogs, We think about the X-factors, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Macklin Celebrini. Suzuki might be an X-factor, too.
“And then on the other side of it, for Team USA, the guy who scored the winning goal for USA at the World Championship to break their drought was Tage Thompson. I think Thompson can be the X-factor in this tournament. His ability to protect the puck, his speed, his size, and his range make him, in my opinion, the game-breaker player they missed from the 4 Nations Face-Off.”
Tyler Yaremchuk: “Also, with that big body, and the neutral zone being as small as it is, Tage Thompson takes two two strides and he’s from blue line to blue line on this ice in Milan. It sounds dumb to use the word overlooked when we’re talking about superstar players, but I think we’re kind of forgetting that they didn’t have Quinn Hughes on that blueline last year. And that top pairing, Charlie McAvoy was great, but now you have Hughes on that top pairing with McAvoy. And you want to talk about a duo that can bring a little bit of physicality with McAvoy. We saw that last February in Boston and Montreal, but now you pair that with the elite puck of Quinn Hughes and it’s like, yeah, if there are any two defensemen that you can throw together that can go and try to mitigate the likes of Connor McDavid and Nathan McKinnon, it’s a Charlie McAvoy Quinn Hughes pairing.
“I think back to the playoffs a couple of years ago when Hughes went toe-to-toe with McDavid. So I think, again, we’re maybe overlooking, again, maybe not the best word for this, but the impact of Quinn Hughes on this blue line and what he could bring, like again we’re forgetting that he wasn’t there a year ago. USA obviously was right there with Canada and beat them in the round robin of that tournament.”
You can watch the full episode below:
PRESENTED BY DAILY FACEOFF’S OLYMPIC COVERAGE
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