Winners of the last two Olympic gold medals in men’s hockey, Canada is a likely favourite at the World Cup this September. Naturally, the announcement of their preliminary 16-man roster was not-so-patiently awaited by every Canadian hockey fan.
One of the big questions was whether they would name Carey Price to the roster, given that he has been out for some time with his knee injury.
First 16 players named to Team Canada’s World Cup of Hockey roster. #WCH2016 | Read: https://t.co/iWIynLbTNr pic.twitter.com/GQYH5ZoIby
— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) March 2, 2016
Not a ton of surprises on this Canadian roster, though there is of course still time before they reveal the full 23-man roster. One big surprise however, is the idea of Marc-Edouard Vlasic being named over P.K. Subban. That comes off as an egregious error to me.
Many have cited turnovers, and defensive deficiencies as reasons for Subban to be excluded from team Canada. In fact, those accusations are entirely baseless.
Subban has the 3rd lowest relative turnover rate among team Canada hopefuls (lower is better). pic.twitter.com/GCO2PXchBP
— Andrew Berkshire (@AndrewBerkshire) March 2, 2016
Subban should be on this team. As you can see in that image above, he is actually among the best of the team Canada hopefuls in the one category for which he is most often criticized. Of course, he isn’t necessarily going to be left at home altogether, as there is still time for them to decide to bring him along.
As for Carey Price, there is still time for him to heal, so it makes sense that they named him to the roster pending confirmation of his availability. If he is healthy, is has been confirmed that he should be the starting goaltender.
