Earlier today, there were three more Olympic hockey rosters released and they came from Slovenia, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. If you want to take a look at the rosters, they are available here. You can also see my team previews for both Slovenia and Switzerland.
If the media storm that came out after the Czech team was named is any indication, you can see how much the Olympics mean to the hockey world:
That last one is tongue-in-cheek, but you get the idea.
The best tweet of the day that I saw in relation to the side from the Czech Republic is this:
When we go through the roster position by position, you’ll see what Mr. Mirtle means.
Goaltending
The three goaltenders are Ondrej Pavelec of the Winnipeg Jets and KHLers Alexander Salak and Jakub Kovar. We’ll start with the NHLer.
For a long time now, Ondrej Pavelec has been a subpar NHL goalie. You can say it’s his team or his defense or whatever, but the fact remains that Pavelec has the second-worst save percentage of any goalie with at least 200 games played since 2009 in the NHL at .907. At best, that’s a passable mark for a backup goalie, in reality it’s a bad mark for any starting goalie. Whether or not Pavelec can turn his game up a notch when the Olympics comes around is another question. It’s not like they have a killer qualifying group either; the Czechs have Sweden, Swizterland, and Latvia in Group C with them.
Should Pavelec falter, one of the younger goalies will have to step up in his absence. In short, it’s not look pretty in net for the Czech Republic, who has long relied upon the great Dominik Hasek (and recently Tomas Vokoun) to backstop them to success. It’s easy to forget it was the Czech Republic who won the first gold medal with NHLers back in 1998; Hasek allowed two goals total in the quarter-and-semi finals before shutting out Russia in the finals to snag the gold. I can tell you for certain that Ondrej Pavelec is not repeating that performance.
Defensemen
The defense corps is a mix of both NHL and KHL players, though all have some level of North American hockey experience.
The anchor will be Marek Zidlicky, the stalwart defender for the New Jersey Devils who has been pretty much a 40-point guy since the 2005 lockout. Zidlicky can run a power play, is great at five-on-five and can kill penalties when asked to (though he doesn’t do it that often). Expect him to log a lot of big minutes for the Czechs.
After Zidlicky, a lot of the puck movement from the defense will have to come from Tomas Kaberle. Say what you will about him, he was an elite offensive defenseman in his heyday, which was as recently as three years ago. He’s only 35-years old, he’s not dead, and a wide open Olympic ice surface could see Kaberle figure prominently into the Czech attack.
After those two, there’s a whole mess of “defensive defensemen”, if you want to call them that. Ladislav Smid of the Flames, Zbynek Michalek of the Coyotes and Michal Rozsival of the Blackhawks are not known for their offensive prowess, but they are all experienced defensemen who can play tough minutes against some of the NHL’s best.
The defense corps is rounded out by Radko Gudas of the Lightning, Lukas Krajicek (formerly of the Panthers and Lightning) and Michal Barinka, a former second round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks.
As you can see, the Czechs don’t have many defensemen with the offensive upside that some other countries have in, say, a Ryan Suter, Erik Karlsson or P.K. Subban. If they are going to succeed – and help their netminders keep the nets clean – they will need to stop attacks before they can start by playing aggressive at both blue lines and getting the puck out of harm’s way immediately.
Forwards
The real problems for the Czechs lie up front, where they left off Radim Vrbata and Jiri Hudler.
Vrbata, for what it’s worth, has 58 goals since the start of the 2011 NHL season, good for 32nd in the entire NHL. It ties him with the likes of Rick Nash and Marian Gaborik, and puts him ahead of names like Andrew Ladd and Daniel Sedin. For a team that could struggle to score – and might have to score a lot considering their goaltending – it’s a bit odd that Vrbata was left off the roster.
It’s about the same for Hudler. There have been 74 forwards since the start of the 2011 season to amass at least 110 points in the NHL and Hudler is one of them. Over that span of games in fact, Hudler has a better point-per-game pace than fellow countryman Tomas Plekanec, who will probably centre the top line. It’s all very, very odd.
Jaromir Jagr will take part in his fifth Olympics for the Czech team and it could be his sixth if professional players were allowed to play in 1994. That is quite the feat. Joining him on the team and in the over-40 club is 42-year-old Petr Nedved. Yes, that Petr Nedved who was once a 40-goal scorer and actually played for Team Canada in the Olympics in 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway.
Besides Jagr and Plekanec, the Czechs will be looking at Patrik Elias, Ales Hemsky, David Krejci, Milan Michalek, and Jakub Voracek for goal scoring. There’s not a misstep in there, they are all worthy Olympians.
Their more “checking” forwards, and I use the term loosely, will be Roman Cervenka, Michael Frolik, Martin Hanzal, Jiri Novotny, Ondrej Palat and Vladimir Sobokta.
The problem is that Cervenka and Novotny just aren’t very good hockey players.
I can buy Cervenka a little bit, he showed flashes of success at the NHL level. Novotny, however, could never succeed in the NHL and has managed just 32 points in 78 games for his Prague club in the KHL. This team will struggle to keep the puck out of its net, so it could use all the goal scoring help it can get. Leaving Vrbata and Hudler off the team in favor of guys like Cervenka, Novotny and the nostalgic Nedved is a mistake.
With better goaltending, I would say this team can challenge for a medal. If by some miracle they do get that goaltending, they will probably make it out of their group. With that said, Sweden is a lock to advance and Switzerland looks stronger every year. When I look at any roster, I always look for the game-breakers; the guys who can change the momentum of an entire match with just one shift. I don’t see (m)any of those on this Czech team, so it will be an uphill battle for the entire tournament which will not be aided by leaving two of their better offensive players behind.
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