The Toronto Maple Leafs and their fans were ecstatic on Wednesday to hear that Mitch Marner had made the roster of Team Canada.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans were less enthusiastic about the perceived snubs. That Team Canada would leave John Tavares off the roster is an insult, but to take Colton Parayko over Chris Tanev such an obviously bad decision that it feels personal, even though it obviously isn't.
But if Leafs fans are disapointed, Edmonton Oilers fans, not to mention the friends and family of beloved NHL superstar defenseman Evan Bouchard, are absolutely livid.
Leaving Bouchard off the roster is pure criminality that borders on negligent.
Sorry Leafs fans, John Tavares not close to the biggest Team Canada snub
One could argue that John Tavares over Brad Marchand is an easy decision. One could say that Zach Hyman who scored 60 goals last year between the playoffs and the regular season, should have been automatic.
And obviously it's just plain silly that Dougie Hamilton is not on the team, considering he's easily in the top 7 NHL defenseman counting all nationalitities.
But how Doug Armstrong and company arrived at the decision to exclude Evan Bouchard is anyone's guess. Bouchard doesn't look at good as he did last year simply because the Oilers are struggling. More specifically, their goalies are struggling.
Last season, the Oilers won Bouchard's minutes 94-58, which means they destroyed teams when he played. That is nearly 62% of the goals and those are elite results. But they were deserved: Bouchard's Expected Goals rating was also 62%.
Most of the time, when NHL player's teams are so dominant when they are on the ice it is because of really hot shooting luck or really good goaltending luck. Rare are the 60+% results that are actually deserved.
Flash forward to this season and the Oilers are still just about the best team in the NHL whenever Bouchard is on the ice. They are possessiong the puck 62.5% of the time, which is up from last year. They are getting an even higher percentage of the total shots than they were getting last year.
And, if you put all the stats together, you can see that Bouchard has a 59% Expected Goals rating, which is ELITE. Out of every single NHL defenesman to play at least 400 minutes this season, it's tied for the second best mark with Rasmus Sandin (plays easier minutes) and Mattias Ekholm (Bouchard's partner).
Only Quinn Hughes has better numbers than Evan Bouchard. Or, to put it another way, only the guy who is a Hart Trophy front-runner and a Norris Trophy lock is playing better than he is.
Then why isn't he on the team? The Oilers are only winning his minutes 22-21 this year, which is just how small sample size results work. We're only a quarter of the way through the season, and as Bouchard plays more games, his results will slowly inch towards his expected results. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
Team Canada didn't just make an error here, they made the single biggest blunder they have ever made in making an NHL roster for international competition. Evan Bouchard should not only be on the team, he should be one of it's leaders.