Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider might not like it, but there was no fierce debate among Team Canada’s coaches and management after Steven Stamkos was ruled out for the Olympics.
The group held a formal vote and St. Louis was unanimously chosen over Flyers captain Claude Giroux and the remainder of the field. That revelation comes after Snider suggested that St. Louis made the team due to “politics” because Tampa Bay Lightning GM and Team Canada executive director Steve Yzerman “had to pick his own guy.”
Snider added that anyone who thinks that Giroux doesn’t belong on Team Canada doesn’t know anything about hockey.
Detroit Red Wings and Team Canada coach Mike Babcock countered the argument that St. Louis’ addition was politically motivated.
“It would have been easy for Steve to say, ‘Marty is on the team because I said he’s on the team,’” Babcock told the Tampa Bay Times. “That, to me, is not how you manage. In the end we feel we had an opportunity (for input), and that’s all you can ask for.”
Given how rich and deep Canada’s talent pool is, it was inevitable that there would be amazing players left off the team, as was initially the case for St. Louis and still is for Giroux. That being said, St. Louis won the Art Ross Trophy last season and has 55 points in 57 contests in 2013-14 despite losing his superstar linemate, Stamkos.
He’s performed at an elite level without any meaningful decline or off-season since 2002-03 and was also one of the biggest omissions from Canada’s squad in 2010. At the age of 38, this will probably be his last Olympics.
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Stamkos ‘excited’ for St. Louis, but being ruled out of Olympics was ‘a little shocking’