Hockey

When it comes to naming names for Canada's 2010 men's Olympic hockey team, executive director Steve Yzerman has become a master at keeping his thoughts to himself. There are many good reasons for this, not the least of which is that much can change between now and Dec. 31, when Canada will officially unveil its 23-man roster. It can change again before the actual puck drop on Feb. 16, against Norway, as a result of injuries.

So when he was asked last week if the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-André Fleury looks as if he's emerging as Canada's No. 1 puck stopper, based on his strong play in last year's playoffs and his impressive start, Yzerman nicely parried the thrust.

"I won't say who I think has the inside track on being the starter because first of all, we don't need to do so at this time," Yzerman said. "Once we name our team in late December, in the six-week period before the Olympics, we can really focus on the three goaltenders that we name and really determine who will start based on how they're playing in the month of January leading up to the Olympics."

Yzerman - in the midst of a busy week in which he was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame - acknowledged the obvious: that among the five goaltenders who attended the August orientation camp in Calgary, Fleury's stock was clearly on the rise. While the two other youngsters under consideration, Cam Ward of the Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets 'keeper Steve Mason have had their ups and downs this year, it's been mostly smooth sailing for Fleury.

Yzerman spent last week meeting with the rest of his managerial staff - Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, Edmonton Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe and St. Louis Blues assistant GM Doug Armstrong - in Detroit, where they presented their scouting reports a month into the season. Red Wings coach Mike Babcock, the coach of the Canadian team, also participated. Babcock, according to Yzerman, stays in touch with members of his coaching staff, to get updates as well. The meeting was designed to narrow the focus from last August, when 46 players were invited to attend the orientation camp.

Just as Yzerman predicted, a handful of players who didn't attend may have forced themselves into contention with their strong early-season play.

Two noteworthy new candidates up front: Tampa Bay Lightning sophomore Steven Stamkos and Brad Richards of the Dallas Stars. Among Canadian-born players, Stamkos is among the early-season goal-scoring leaders. Richards, despite missing a couple of games this season, is in the top 20 of overall scoring and putting up nearly a point-and-a-half a game, on average.

But this raises a problem, as Yzerman likes to point out. Adding a new face to the final 23-player roster means someone with an impressive pedigree needs to be bumped.

Yzerman and his group can select just 13 forwards, seven defencemen and three goaltenders. Taxi squads, which were utilized in the 2006 Turin Games, will not be part of the equation this time around.

Injuries will ultimately determine some roster spots. Two of the Boston Bruins' mainstays, centre Marc Savard and winger Milan Lucic, are both on the team's injured reserve list. Of the two, only Lucic was invited to the camp and he was an intriguing long shot, a rough-and-tumble winger who could provide energy. The suspicion was that both Savard and Lucic needed monster starts to factor into the final roster. Their injuries - plus the Philadelphia Flyers forward Simon Gagné's groin injury - have lessened their candidacies considerably.

The Chicago Blackhawks' young captain Jonathan Toews was another player getting some positive notices out of the orientation camp, but his slow goal-scoring start, and the concussion that has sidelined him for a couple of weeks, may hurt his chances. It's the same for Vincent Lecavalier (Tampa) and Eric Staal (Carolina), candidates to play a swing role because they can play centre or the wing. Neither enhanced his chances with his first-month's performances, and now Staal is injured.

In goal, Ward's chances took a similar hit when he was severely cut by a skate blade on the weekend. The Hurricanes starter is expected to miss up to four weeks.

In many minds, Ryan Getzlaf of the Anaheim Ducks was pencilled in as the team's No. 2 centre behind Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. Getzlaf, slowed by off-season surgery to repair a sports hernia, is only now rounding into playing shape. However, his résumé, which includes a Stanley Cup championship in 2007, will keep him firmly in the mix, especially since his Ducks' linemate, Corey Perry, is already in double digits in goals.

The injury kept Getzlaf from participating in the on-ice portion of the orientation camp in August, but he didn't think that set him back, in part because of his past history with Babcock, who coached the Ducks in Getzlaf's first two years in the organization. Even playing for Babcock so briefly, Getzlaf said, gave him a thorough understanding of how he wants to play.

Ryan Smyth, known as Captain Canada for his long association with the national team, is also off to a strong start in his new home of Los Angeles. Smyth would be a candidate for a supporting role, but is battling two other players with a similar sort of game - Brendan Morrow of the Stars and Shane Doan of the Phoenix Coyotes. Morrow and Doan are captains of their respective teams and perennial 30-goal scorers. In a tournament where every Canadian forward will be asked to provide offence, all three represent an encouraging fallback position.

In goal, it is unlikely that either Martin Brodeur or Roberto Luongo's positions are in jeopardy, unless Luongo's injury luck continues to run badly. Still, Yzerman was willing to go this far in terms of assessing Fleury's chances: "Marc-André, he went to the Stanley Cup finals two years ago, to Game 6. He played two Game 7s in the finals. He has become a top goaltender. I think he's more confident than ever. I believe he's playing better now than he was last year. With his confidence and his ability rising, obviously it's really enhanced his position within the Olympic team."

Foreign Affairs

Russia

Turns out Russia has its own controversies relating to roster selection for the 2010 men's Winter Olympics hockey team, and they stem from the same issues facing Canada: too many good choices.

When the Russians unveiled their short list of Olympic candidates, it didn't include former Ottawa Senators whipping boy Alexei Yashin, even though it ran 50 names deep and included such failed NHLers as Oleg Saprykin and Andrei Taratuhkin.

According to Russian hockey sources, Yashin, who remains a viable player in Russia's Continental Hockey League (KHL), isn't under consideration for two primary reasons: the team's depth down the middle and his skating, which isn't at the level coach Slava Bykov wants in order to play the Russian up-tempo style.

The suspicion is Bykov wants to play the two Washington Capitals stars, Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin, as two-thirds of one potent line. He'll build a second scoring line around Pittsburgh Penguins centre Evgeni Malkin, and a checking line around perennial Selke Trophy winner Pavel Datsyuk, the Detroit Red Wings' forward who finished fourth in the overall NHL scoring standings in each of the past two years. With that sort of depth, it is hard to imagine an opening for Yashin.

Internally, some thought Yashin should be a candidate because of his seniority, but others point out Russia won consecutive world championships without him, and so don't need to change much offensively.


ROSTER PROJECTION

Canada's projected 23-man roster (November edition)

Forwards

Rick Nash-Sidney Crosby-Jarome IginlaDany Heatley-Ryan Getzlaf-Corey PerryPatrick Marleau-Joe Thornton-Jeff CarterBrenden Morrow-Mike Richards-Shane DoanMartin St. Louis

Defence

Scott Niedermayer-Shea WeberChris Pronger-Dan BoyleJay Bouwmeester-Drew DoughtyDuncan Keith

Goalies

Marc-André Fleury, Roberto Luongo, Martin Brodeur

FLASHBACK

1936 Games

Canada's Olympic hockey dominance ended at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in a controversial way.

The Canadians rolled through the opening round, beating Austria, Poland and Latvia with ease and outscoring the opposition 24-3.

They opened the second round with a surprising 2-1 loss to Britain, a team on which 11 of the 13 players had trained and played in Canada. Canada bounced back with a 15-0 rout of Hungary and 6-2 win over Germany.

Following the second round, Olympic officials decided that results of those games would be carried forward to the final round. Despite subsequent wins over the United States and Czechoslovakia, Canada finished second.

Even though Britain played the United States to a scoreless overtime tie during the medal round, it won its first Olympic gold medal in hockey.

The silver was Canada's lone medal at the Games.

STOCK UP Drew Doughty

The Los Angeles Kings' defenceman might seem like a long shot because of his youth and inexperience, but the 19-year-old has been on the radar of Team Canada's executive director, Steve Yzerman, since last spring. The NHL sophomore has not disappointed. After an atrocious outing in his first game of the season, Doughty has settled down. He was fourth in points among defencemen heading into last night's games, shows good hockey sense, isn't intimidated and doesn't let errors cripple him. As a result, he might be seriously pushing his way into consideration.

STOCK DOWN François Beauchemin.

One of the longer shots on the blueline because he missed almost all of last season with an injury, the Toronto Maple Leafs rearguard looked good in Team Canada's summer orientation camp. He was also Scott Niedermayer's long-time partner with the Anaheim Ducks before joining the Leafs in the off-season, which made him an intriguing possibility, given how familiarity and instant chemistry will be important in a short tournament. Still, Beauchemin struggled out of the gate, as did the Leafs, and he needed to do a lot more than that to muscle his way into serious consideration for a spot in the lineup.