Best Canadian Forwards (points-wise) in 2014

After yesterday's post on the top American forwards, I decided to just to extend it to our brothers up north. While Canada didn't announce the team New Year's Day like Team USA, it has still been almost a full year and it's interesting to look at their plethora of forward talent.

Unlike Team USA, you can't argue with results because Team Canada did win gold, but the team did struggle to score at times. Team Canada's leading scorers were two defensemen, Drew Doughty and Shea Weber with 6 points each in the 6 games played. Canada won thanks to it's strong defensively play and stellar goaltending. Canada wasn't a slouch offensively, registering the most SOG of any country in the tournament (241), but were only tied for 3rd in goals (17).

Sochi Team Statistics can be found here.

Again, if I had more time, I'd do P/60, some #fancystats, etc. Just hoping for some discussion!

Statistics from 1/1/2014 through 12/29/2014

Top Sorted by Points: 

Players in orange were not named to Team Canada.

The top two Canadian scorers of 2014 were Claude Giroux (also the top point-getter of the last 4 NHL seasons) and Tyler Seguin, both who were not named to the Olympic roster. Of those two names, SEguin is interesting to me mostly because his teammate Jamie Benn was named and they have fantastic scoring chemistry which is something Canada really considered when naming the roster (Kunitz/Crosby).

Tyler Bozak is sort of a standout name. As Points/Game will show below, injuries definitely have an effect on this list (Tavares being so low, only played 55 games) . Canada of course has a bright future with Seguin, Johansen, MacKinnon (and McDavid on the way) at the Center position.

Top Sorted by Points/Game:

The Kunitz decision was still a head-scratcher and Giroux must really not be happy (you could argue Seguin's youth was a factor in the decision). Comparing this to the USA list, I just get unhappy.

If you go by P60, Seguin would be first, Giroux 2nd, and Crosby 3rd.




So, how does the forward roster constructed by Doug Armstrong, Kevin Lowe, Ken Holland, and Peter Chiarelli Poile, Ray Shero and Brian Burke (among others) seem now looking back?

Happy New Year all!