Nagano to Sochi: Canada's all-time Olympic numbers in the NHL era

Photo from olympics.cbc.ca.

Salt Lake City, Vancouver and now Sochi. In the five Winter Olympics since NHL players were allowed to compete, Canada has won gold in three of them. And while more zealous fans will tell you that we should have had all five, the best team on paper never wins a hundred percent of the time.

It can take a very under-appreciated resiliency to be the best and live up to it. To stick to sound and systematic play -- especially when it only gets you a 2-1 win against an Arturs Irbe-less Latvian team. Or just two measly assists through five games from the best player in the world.

But here we are, just barely recovered from a deprived sleep schedule and with ultimate bragging rights for at least four more years. And thank Price, because we all know how much longer four years can feel after having left Gretzky on the bench in Nagano.

Since 1998, Team Canada has played a total of 31 games. That is nearly half a regular season's worth of the most scrutinized hockey known to man. Makes for a pretty decent sample size. Which makes you wonder where Sidney Crosby's pair of Olympic performances might stack up against, say...Joe Sakic's. Or Steve Yzerman's. Or where Shea Weber and Drew Doughty rank among the Scott Niedermayers and Chris Prongers of yesteryear.

One can only Google so hard until they take matters into their own hands. If there's already an all-time list out there, well, it's not in the first 10 pages of a standard Google search. So go, go gadget Excel spreadsheet. The career rankings of Team Canada players since 1998:

Finland: The little hockey engine that very consistently could

How many times can a team succeed before you stop calling them underdogs?

Nevermind that they have the world's most likable player in captain Teemu Selanne. (And around these parts, the most likable ex-Canuck in Sami Salo.) Or that they just won their third consecutive Olympic medal by toppling the generally-hated Team USA. In international competition, Finland has been as endearing to the hockey world as they are efficient and successful.

Eddie Lack: All-Rookie Team front-runner?

Lack is exceeding all expectations this year. And maintaining his entire
team's fading dignity in the process.

His numbers are among the league's elite. With a 2.22 GAA and .922 save percentage, Eddie Lack is tied for eighth and ninth in the NHL, respectively. Yet with a 8-8-3 record, he is one of only two goalies with a .500-or-worse record among the league's top 15 in GAA. The other goalie? Cory Schneider.

That speaks volumes. Because unlike the dispatched ginger in his tenure here, Lack has accomplished his top-level stats on what is now a truly mediocre team. The next-highest ranking goalie without a winning record is Justin Peters at 7-9-4 with Carolina.

My Team Canada, BTD style

Hockey Canada, I demand to have equal say as Corb Lund and Gerry Dee. Milos Raonic be damned. Here's my Team Canada:

UPDATE: Well, 21/25 ain't bad. It appears that Hockey Canada doesn't hold Logan Couture, James Neal, Eric Staal or Corey Crawford in the same regard that I do.

Bo Horvat at the World Juniors: Not Canada's first-line centre, and that's okay

Horvat didn't turn in the ideal offensive performance,
but he was among Canada's best overall players.

It isn't often that Canucks fans are blessed with a Canadian poster boy for the World Juniors. In the last three years before 2014, the Canucks didn't have a single Canadian in the competition, period. (#ShouldHaveBroughtCorrado.) Between 2006 and 2011, Canucks management took a total of three Canadians in either of the first two rounds of the draft -- Taylor Ellington, Yann Sauve and Cody Hodgson.

Not only was he whose name we do not speak Hodgson (2008) the last player to even suit up for Canada at the Juniors before Horvat, he is likely the most successful Canucks prospect at the tournament of all-time. And well, we all know how that ended up for Vancouver. So with both Hodgson's infamous end as a Canuck and the team's recent dearth of high-end Canadian prospects in mind, it was with great anticipation that Horvat was earmarked as the country's number one centre.

Drayson Bowman: Vancouver's kinda-sorta hometown product

Six years after his draft, Drayson Bowman appears to be finally
sticking with Carolina. So what has that go to do with Vancouver?

(Photo: romec1, Flickr)

Back in the Memorial Cup days of the Vancouver Giants -- a far cry from the current "Under Construction" era -- I always paid a little extra attention when the Spokane Chiefs came to town. Nowadays, it's anytime the Canucks play the Carolina Hurricanes.

Why, exactly? There's a little-known fact about a Carolina winger who has very slowly started making a name for himself since being drafted from Spokane in 2007. Born in Michigan and raised in Colorado, 24-year-old Drayson Bowman also called Vancouver home for a brief period in his mid-teens.

Raymond and the top five "how come he never did it here" ex-Canucks

So...what do these three players have in common?

This past Thursday, I took a look at Mason Raymond's very well-publicized revival in Toronto. And while I may have been a little premature about Todd Bertuzzi "beating the odds once again" (six games without a point since my post), Raymond is just now coming off a career-high 5-game point streak, upping his season totals to 8 goals and 9 assists in 23 games.

With nearly a third of the season through, it seems like May Ray's awakening has some legitimate staying power. At his current pace, he'll have 28 goals and 60 points by season's end. But without repeating why Raymond's scoring rate would likely not have occurred if he had stayed in Vancouver (see the previous post), it nonetheless constitutes a cruel, cruel joke, given the Canucks' current offensive vacuum.

For years, fans in Vancouver waited patiently, err... passionately for Raymond to put forth this kind of secondary scoring. It's the kind of "he really couldn't have done that here?" scenario that a self-deprecating Canucks fan can really feast on.

So with Raymond's current run with the Leafs in mind, here are the top five players who put in their best years only after handing in their Canucks jerseys.