#PS4 - It's All About The Rings

In this fourth chapter of Hardly a Stat Holiday, I provide no insight whatsoever, but instead attempt to engage you in a purely frivolous analysis on the eve of Team Canada's first game in Sochi.  I’ve calculated each team’s total points earned in the Olympic Games over the course of their players’ entire careers.

To give some indication of what little can be taken from this in terms of KL success, KL points this season are almost “perfectly uncorrelated” with career Olympic points; the coefficient of variation is 0.0028.  In addition to listing players who have made it to the most prestigious international stage, I’ve included players who earned a trip to Sochi, whether they are in fact lacing them up or not. These are highlighted and totalled parenthetically to give at least some basis for keeper league pride and shame.  Belated, prelated, and unfeted Happy Family Day to all. Let’s get to it.

The Mackhawks GM is soon to become the president of my blog column fan club.  For the second straight piece, they find themselves atop the rankings, with an Olympic total of 83 points.  A lot of their KL success can be attributed to the aging vets still getting it done, and their invitation to Sochi once again confirms this. 

An all-time 78 point showing by the Shizzarks has got to make their GM feel a bit better at this juncture of the season.  I mean… it’s really all Teemu though, who alone has more Olympic points (37) than the entire rosters for nine GMs in our league.  Oh, and here’s a fun trivia question: who has the most career NHL points among active players never having played in the Olympics?  Can you guess who’s second?  What about third?  Hint: THEY ARE ALL ON THE SCHIZZARKS.  I feel this says something, though I don’t know what.  (NB: I’ve included Spezza because he actually went to Turin with the team, but never suited up). 

Given their namesake, the Dicklas Lidstroms have appropriately put up a strong Olympic showing.  This year, however, the Sochi dream has been marred by injury for two prominent forwards, Gaborik and M. Koivu.  Fitting too, that Sami Salo is kind of the injured ice hockey player poster child.

Just when I thought I was good at creating blog posts that avoided all G-Phil accolades, ugh… twelve Olympians going to Sochi this year.  FIVE defenders.  And he already put up 4 more points in the first game this morning.

I see a lot of Czechs and Canucks on the Moilers, who would all probably fair better playing for Canada… something something Petr Nedved.

The Powder Rangers boast the most Olympians if you include the ones bound for Sochi—and those that would have been but for broken tibias.  Fourteen is an impressive lot from this ethnically diverse squad, but aside from Jagr, they haven’t realy done much historically.  Lookout though, Juicy says he’s playing the best hockey of his life.

You can add six more to the Winter Claassics’ Winter Games total with Hiller’s shutout this morning and the ever talkative "Gabby" Landeskog’s helper.  The only other thing I’ll say is I wish Marleau had taken the Saku “I’m not good enough anymore so I’ll take myself out of the running” Koivu approach to these 2014 games.  Hope I’m wrong.  The Claassics have also interestingly dropped or traded 4 current Olympians in Erat, Gionta, Eriksson, and Olli Jokinen.

The Fylanders are really the Austrian Islanders, which has its humour bound by the fact that Austria is entirely landlocked.  Fy should have dropped Brunner for Raffl long ago to really complete the triumvirate.  Or convinced Brunner to play for Austria.  No-one would have questioned it.

Evgeni “now back-up” Nabokov keeps the Los Samjawors Kings’ Olympic total respectable. Aptly, it’s pretty much all on Sid’s shoulders otherwise, because Denmark, Belarus, and Germany are not playing in Sochi.

The Rordiques are characterized by a bunch of disappointed Bonhommes in Ryan, Malone (that’s two separate snowmen), and Mike Richards. Players like Del Zotto and Grigorenko also went from having outside chances of playing in Sochi to having developmental meltdowns.

This is just so pathetic looking. The Patrik Stefans' Olympic showing is led by two players that should enter into an early retirement pact. And I’m embarrassed for the USA that Eric Cole ever played for them. Of course, the biggest travesty of all is that Anton Khudobin did not get the call to Sochi.  Lastly, and a spoiler alert, just when you think I might have reason to smile by OEL’s performance today, I traded him for a stroke victim... details to come from the Commish.

The W-Benham/Scranton Parkers remember a better time when host cities bore double-barrelled names such as Garmische-Partenkirchen.  Up and down, this KL roster has a bunch of mediocre Europeans, including impostors Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Matt Niskanen, and Marty Havlat (Havlat is an impostor of an NHL caliber player).

The Joshfrey Krupels exemplify exactly why this post is completely meaningless.  Ryan Miller put on an absolute show in Vancouver 4 years ago, but is a current non-contributor to the Krupels scoring roster.  More to the point, however, Matt Duchene, Claude Giroux, and Kyle Okposo have put up 166 points in the NHL this season, and none have played a game for their respective nations at the Olympics.  Duchene is rumoured to be warming either the bench or the press-box in Sochi, while Giroux and Okposo are arguably the biggest snubs of the tournament, having tallied the highest NHL totals of any two players staying home.

The Milan Micahleks boast the second most Olympians in Sochi (10) and the most debutants (7).  That number could have been higher had Vrbata, Baertschi, and Colin Wilson not been blatantly overlooked.  Haha, minus whoever that last guy is.

The Teeyotes have the double honour of owning the fewest Olympians ever and sending the fewest players to Sochi.  Teehan tl;dr.

 

  

Ilya Kovalchuk.