First Few Plrs For The Olympics Are Out!!

[Peck]

Well the first few are out and here they are for the first few countries....

USA=
Chris Drury
Mike Modano
Jeremy Roenick
Doug Weight
Tony Amonte
Bill Guerin
Brett Hull
John Leclair
Keith Tkachuk
Brain Leetch

hmmmmm good if they get a brick wall for their net......in other words need some devensive players in there........

Can=
Mario Lemeiux
Joe Sakic
Steve Yzerman
Owen Nolan
Paul Kariya
Rob Blake
Chris Pronger
Scott Neidemayer

nice but i'm not sure about lemeiux.....his health worries me.....

SWE=
Peter Forsberg
Mats Sundin
Daniel Alfredsson
Markus Naslund
Nicklas Lidstrom
Mattias Norstrom
Mattias Ohlund
Tommy Salo

not sure about ohlund especially his eye and needs a decent backup............

RUS=
Pavel Bure
Alexei Kovalev
Alexei Yashin
Darius Kasparaitis
Sergei Gonchar
Oleg Tverdovsky
Dimitry Yushkevich

they'll go all the way

FIN=
Teppo Numminen
Janne Niinimaa
Kimmo Timonen
Saku Koivu
Teemu Selanne
Jere Lehtinen
Sami Kapanen
Juha Ylonen

Koivu is a gamble amd same with Ylonen although he brings the defence they need and also goalie is their main question

CZE=
Dominik Hasek
Jaromir Jagr
Milan Hedjuk
Martin Rucinsky
Petr Svoboda
Martin Straka
Patrik Elias
Petr Sykora

isn't hasek gonna retire? and also svoboda isn''t gonna hold out until 2004

[lmanchur.]

Thanks for brining this up, Peck!... I wrote an article on Sports Central on this issue (http://www.sports-central.org/sports/nhl/articles/article67.shtml) a while ago, predicting these players, and if you refer to last week's NHL column (http://www.sports-central.org/sports/nhl/articles/article70.shtml), you can see that I ended up predicting everyone at a rate of 75%!

However, I still think it's too early to tell who will win the gold. I'm not so sure that Russia can do it this year.... I'm not so sure that the Czechs will even be in the final game... Right now, I would have to say that Canada and Russia are the best teams, but it's hard to tell.

Obivously, Team USA is concnetrating on offense right now, naming just one defenseman to the list. I can't even THINK of another American defenseman besides Brian Leetch!... let me think....ummmmmmmmmmmmm..... nope.... not comming to me... (It's early in the morning... give me a break!)... but it's obvious they're concentrating on offense which is a bad thing. They also don't have a decent goaltender.

Goaltending will definitely cost a lot of teams.

Canada, right now, is the best overall team, but that's only 8 skaters!... we have to wait until December, when the final rosters are announced, to make our official predictions!

[PeterDewar]

Back up...

Russia all the way, don't think so. No offense.

Canada, I agree with Lee, is the strongest. The USA needs some help and all the other teams are pretty close overall (excusing those questionable players).

[lmanchur.]

Originally posted by PeterDewar
Russia all the way, don't think so. No offense.NO OFFENSE FROM RUSSIA!?!???? Their top line is Bure-Ya$hin-Kovalev!!!.... Fedorov centers their second line... last time I checked, Bure was leading the NHL in goals scored this season!.. and I don't think that has changed in the past three minutes!!!

[Peck]

LEe i was bout to say the same thing!!!!! Russia has the most speed and offence n with the rocket...yashin and kovalev they would have np to put the biscuit in the net......

so kkk Canada might be the strongest but in 98 everyone predicted that and who came on top????? n by the way Russia lost last year by one goal just ONE.......

[PeterDewar]

LOL

Sorry guys, but you misunderstood. I never meant no offense as in playing skills, I meant no offense to Peck in that I disagreed with his pick for Russia to win it.

I understand the mix up and apologize.