How should Canada deploy its goaltenders during the Olympic preliminary round?
While Canada’s men’s team heads into Milan as favorites to be competing for a gold medal, some wonder how they will approach the goaltending position.
Canada has three NHL starters on its roster heading to the Winter Olympics: Jordan Binnington of the St. Louis Blues, Darcy Kuemper of the Los Angeles Kings, and Logan Thompson from the Washington Capitals. Last year at the 4 Nations Face-Off, Binnington took the reins and stood on his head, leading the Canadians to the championship.
However, with Binnington showing some questionable play with the Blues this season, and Kuemper and Thompson having no Olympic experience, Canada head coach Troy Ryan might consider deploying the goaltenders equally during the preliminary round.
On Monday’s episode of Oilersnation Everyday, Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin was asked how Canada should use its goaltenders during the group stage.
Liam Horrobin: “Obviously, the goaltending is going to be a debate, whether they go with Binnington or whoever it may be. How would you handle the goaltending for the first game on Thursday?
Matt Larkin: I think the advantage here is that Canada plays its back-to-back right away because it kind of forces you to play more than one goalie with those first two days. To me, you have to treat Czechia as the most important game. It’s the toughest opponent in Canada’s group. I think you have to give Binnington that first start. He earned it. We can hate on him as much as we want, but he’s playing on a bad St. Louis Blues team this year as well. And if outdueling Connor Hellebuyck in the final game of the Four Nations wasn’t enough to keep the crease, then what is? You’ve got to give Binnington that first look.
“And it tells you something. If he looks good in that first game, ‘okay, great. And with how we know Binnington can translate his play with a better team in front of him, he could still be our guy.’ If he looks shaky, then that next game against Switzerland, it really matters. It could be an audition for Darcy Kuemper or for Logan Thompson, and you can kind of react from there. Third game, you have options, right? Canada could win its first two, and then it doesn’t matter with France. You could either just give your starter some time off or you could give them some reps because maybe you get a bye to the quarters. You wanna keep them in a rhythm.
“But the good news overall, I think it’s important for people to know, you can experiment with your goaltending in this tournament format because you will play a playoff game no matter what. Even Italy and France will have a playoff game just based on the way the tournament’s structured. So the stakes are a little different than in previous years, decades ago, when you had to make sure you got out of your group. Well, everybody gets out of their group. So to me, it’s more important for Canada to experiment and figure out exactly who the best goaltending option is.”
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…