Team Canada snubs Edmonton Oilers' Evan Bouchard, can't risk the big mistake

Evan Bouchard’s strengths are good enough to earn a spot on any hockey team in the world.

His ability to thread the needle with a tape-to-tape pass to send a teammate on the breakaway, his booming shot from the point and the way he can quarterback a power play aren’t just great, they’re all-time great.

When it comes to pure offensive instinct, there aren’t many players on the planet who can match his talent.

But in a single-game elimination tournament where one careless mistake can cost you a gold medal, Team Canada decided it can’t afford the risk.

So, once again, the Edmonton Oilers’ most elite defenceman has been left off the national team and won’t be joining Connor McDavid at the Olympics in Italy next month.

Bouchard wasn’t even in Canada’s top nine when they were picking the Four Nations Cup team — they named eight players off the start and added 23-year-old Thomas Harley when Alex Pietrangelo was injured right before the tournament — and he didn’t make the cut again this time.

He’s on the stand-by list, meaning he might get a call if there’s an injury or two, but that’s as close as he got when GM Doug Armstrong announced his team Wednesday morning. Canada went with the same eight defencemen from Four Nations: Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Josh Morrissey, Shea Theodore, Colton Parayko, Travis Sanheim, Drew Doughty, and Thomas Harley.

“It’s a tough decision, a lot of good good players in the league, a lot of good Canadians in the league,” Bouchard said after the Oilers morning skate. “It is what it is. Everybody has their own opinion. You have to live with it.

“And if something happens and I get the call, I’ll be ready.”

It appears the well-documented flaws in Bouchard’s game, whether it’s costly turnovers in his own end and at the offensive blue line or nonchalance when it comes to protecting the area around Edmonton’s net, must have seemed too big a gamble for the Canadian management team.

In their eyes, the defensive side of his game tipped the scales against him. When every player on the other team is a star talent, untimely giveaways are even more likely to wind up in the back of the net.

But watching Bouchard from a coach’s perspective, Kris Knoblauch says the good outweighs the bad by a country mile.

“I think so,” said Knoblauch. “He made some mistakes early on in the season and Evan would tell you that he didn’t deserve it if you just looked at his first 10 games of the season. But since then he’s really ramped up and played really well. When he’s on the ice he just makes everybody better.

“You talk about high-pressure play, I don’t think you can get anyone to play his position better than he has the last two runs in the playoffs. If I’m picking that team there is no doubt he’s on it.”

Bouchard’s numbers are bolstered by being on a team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but his ability to generate offence is elite. He is second only to Makar in points by Canadian defenceman this year, Edmonton’s power play ranks among the best of all time, and his ability to elevate his game on the big stage has him second only to Bobby Orr in post-season points-per-game by a blueliner.

But Canada’s basket is already overflowing when it comes to offence. And Makar, a two-time Norris Trophy winner, would be the power play QB.

Canada wants players who can move the puck, protect the house and not give the other team anything easy and the way they see it, the 26-year-old only checks one of those boxes on a consistent basis.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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