HabsCast Hockey Blog

It’s now time to take a look at the defensive side of this year’s Team Canada, that means both the defensive corps and the goalies.

On defense, Canada is lucky to count on six guys who are returnees from the Super Series that took place a few months ago. In fact, the only defenceman who didn’t play against Russia is Montreal Canadiens’ very own P.K. Subban. So these guys are somewhat experienced and will be led by none other then the captain of the team and arguably the best player of the WHL right now, Karl Alzner. Alzner, a 19 years old mobile player and excellent puck-handler, also took part in the gold medal conquest in Sweden last winter, though he was 7th defenseman and didn’t see much ice time. His experience in big situations will be really useful to this team. The second best defenseman has to be Guelph Storm’s Drew Doughty, who is one of five undrafted players who will be playing on this canadian team and expected to be (one of) the top drafted defenseman in next year’s entry draft. Doughty was exceptionnal against Russia and is the only D with Team Canada who’s averaging over a point a game with his junior club this season. One thing to watch for is the fact that most players on the team’s defensive unit (Josh Godfrey, Logan Pyett and Thomas Hickey) are known as being good offensive threats but also as guys who tend to compromise things when playing in their own ends. That’s not even counting Subban who is nothing less than horrible, defensively speaking. This team could also be seen as a bit weak on the left side, Alzner and Hickey being the only two left-handed defenseman. All these facts tell us that we will probably be a very offensive team and a lot of weight will lie on our goalies shoulders.

Talking about goaltending, nobody can predict who of Jonathan Bernier and Steve Mason will get the lion’s share of ice time during the tournament. It will likely depends on who has the momentum coming out of the first round. But the interesting thing is that both goaltenders can bring something different into the game; Bernier being a smaller quicker goaltender with NHL experience and very good abilities around his net while Mason is a very big butterfly goalie with good rebound control, not unlike a certain Carey Price. I do think Bernier will be the one in front of the net for the last game but we shall see.

I’ll talk to you for one last time before the start of the tournament when we’ll take a look at the other teams and players to look at during the holidays.

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