According to NHL.com's All-Star Game roster projection, Montreal Canadiens' Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson are likely to miss the weekend's festivities.
The NHL has announced a new format for the All-Star Game this season; it will be a mini-tournament featuring five teams: Team Canada, Team USA, Team Finland, Team Sweden and Team World, which will allow players who are not from one of the four countries to get an opportunity to play. It’s hardly surprising to see the NHL try to rejuvenate the ASG formula, which had become stale and which players didn’t really want to participate in anymore.
By appealing to players’ national pride, the NHL is capitalizing on the nationalism that seems to be all the rage right now, especially with several American players seeking trades to American teams. The league has released projected rosters for the five teams, and no Montreal Canadiens player has been projected to make Team USA, despite both Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson being spectacular American players.
Granted, neither made the gold-medal-winning Team USA at the Milano Cortina Olympics, but GM Bill Guerin made it clear that he wanted his side to play a big, heavy game, which worked for them. However, in an All-Star weekend tournament between countries or not, no team will be playing a particularly physical game. Players are hardly going to risk injuries for a made-up tournament that means nothing.
Caufield and Hutson may not have big bodies, but both play exactly the kind of game you’d expect to see in an All-Star Game. Both are very skilled, and Hutson has great hands; he could deke his way out of a phone booth (well, back when those existed, look it up, kids; they weren’t very big at all). As for the sniper, he’s got more than just a great one-timer in his toolbox now and can score from in close thanks to his deeking skills and ability to roof the puck.
That being said, the projection could mean very little, since most of the players (eight out of 11) will be selected by fan vote, and if they both make the 30-player list that fans can vote on, it wouldn’t be surprising to see both find their way onto Team USA.
The projected roster included two defensemen in Quinn Hughes and Zack Werenski and seven forwards in Matthew Tkachuk, Matt Boldy, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Jason Robertson, and Tage Thompson. In net, NHL.com selected Connor Hellebuyck and Jeremy Swayman.
Mind you, if Caufield and Hutson miss out on the ASG weekend festivities, they’ll be able to rest up for the second half of the season, which certainly wouldn’t hurt.
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