Team USA Releases Their Official Men's Olympic Roster

There is no longer a question as to who has made the USA Olympic team roster. After this afternoons Winter Classic, team officials released the roster to the players, and the public.

Some surprises, some no brainers. Here is the official roster, with some brief information on the players to give you a picture of what each player brings to the table. I haven't been able to watch every team, and every player, so a lot of this is just basic stats. If we're lucky, Ger will come in with some advanced stats to throw in as well.

One of the important things to keep in mind with the goaltenders is that Buffalo and Detroit are playing really bad hockey lately, which is why a lot of the stats are so low. As with all players, the USA coaches are not just looking at recent play.

Forwards

• Zach Parise (Minnesota)- 15g, 12a this season. Out with a foot fracture that will be healed by the time the Olympics come around
• David Backes (St. Louis)- 16g, 15a so far this season. Currently out with an upper body injury, and battled concussion issues this season.
• Ryan Callahan (New York R.)- 7g, 6a in 24 games with the Rangers this season. Has been battle concussion symptoms for most of the season.
• Dustin Brown (Los Angeles)- 7G, 6A for LA. Having a rough season so far, and may end up with the worst season of his career if he doesn't turn things around
• Patrick Kane (Chicago)- 23g, 30a so far this season. Leads all American players in points, and is second overall in the NHL. Just ended a 14 game scoring streak.
• Phil Kessel (Toronto)- 20g, 17a in Toronto this season. He's second in the league when it comes to shots taken. If he continues on this pace, he'll hit the 30 gaol mark for the 5^th time in 6 seasons
• James van Riemsdyk (Toronto)- 14g, 15a for Toronto so far this season. Cooled off in Dec (1g, 4a since Dec 11^th)
• Ryan Kesler (Vancouver)- 15g, 12a for Vancouver this season. 6^th in the NHL for shots taken, and has 5 game winning goals.
• Joe Pavelski (San Jose)- 16g, 12a this season. He's been a mainstay in the Sharks line-up all season, and is tied for 2nd place on the team in points.
• Max Pacioretty (Montreal)- 17g, 4a for Montreal this season. Tied with Kesler for game winning goals
• T.J. Oshie (St. Louis)- 6g, 27a this season (9^th place in the NHL for assists). Nearly a point per game player this season.
• Derek Stepan (New York R.) 7g, 14a so far this season. Tied for 3rd on the Rangers team for scoring.
• Blake Wheeler (Winnipeg) 15g, 16a in Winnipeg this season. Scored 10 of those goals in December, and has consistently been solid for Winnipeg.
• Paul Stastny (Colorado)- 11g, 14a for Colorado this season. has had a fairly consistent, and good, season so far

Defense

• Ryan Suter (Minnesota)- 2g, 22a for Minnesota this season. Workhorse averaging 29:42 TOI a game, 4^th on the team for scoring
• Ryan McDonagh (New York R.)- 6g, 17a for the Rangers. Averaging 24:40 TOI, 4^th on the team in scoring
• Kevin Shattenkirk (St. Louis)- 6g, 22a so far this season. Averaging 19:50 a game, and 5^th on the Blues
• Cam Fowler (Anaheim)- 4g, 21a in Anaheim this season. 23:59 TOI average, 4^th on the team in scoring
• Justin Faulk (Carolina)- 3g, 13a for Carolina. Averaging 24:03 TOI, 6^th on the Hurricanes in scoring
• Brooks Orpik (Pittsburgh) 1g, 7a in Pittsburgh. Has missed 8 games this season due to a concussion, but returned to play with the Penguins on Saturday
• John Carlson (Washington)- 7g, 8a in Washington.24:41 TOI average, and is 10^th on the team in scoring.
• Paul Martin- 2g, 9a for the Penguins this season so far. 25:16 TOI average, and 12^th on the Pens in scoring. He has missed 19 games this season with a broken leg

Goalies

• Ryan Miller (Buffalo)- Miller has played 28 games with 10 wins. His SV% is .927, with a GAA of 2.69. Most likely the starter for Team USA. (Remember, not based off just this season)
• Jonathan Quick (Los Angeles)- After two really good seasons with the Kings, Quick has only played 16 games this season due to a groin injury (it looks like he'll be on an AHL condition stint starting this week). He has 10 wins, a 2.35GAA and a .905 SV%
• Jimmy Howard (Detriot)- Howard has played 22 games for Detroit this season, with 6 wins. His GAA is 2.76 and his SV% is .906. He missed 8 games with a knee injury in December.

The US Women's team released their roster this afternoon as well. Make sure to check out Angelica's post about it here.

-UPDATE-

Ger here. I'm working out some fancystats for the US roster. I'll update this post with the numbers for each group of players. I have the forwards done now, and will be adding the defencemen and goalies later after I compile the data.

Forwards

Below I have listed the scoring stats for the forwards who made the cut, along with Kyle Okposo and Bobby Ryan, just for comparison's sake. Along with their overall Points/60 and Even-Strength Points/60, I also added their current Sh% and career Sh% to see if their numbers are being boosted by unsustainable shooting, and I added their On-Ice shooting percentage, because an unusually high percentage might suggest that the player's regular linemates are shooting above their talent level and boosting the player's assist totals.

The following table is sorted by EV P/60:

• Looking at the numbers for Ryan and Okposo, it's hard to understand why they missed out. Ryan seems to have been painted as a powerplay specialist, yet he is outscoring everyone but Parise and Kane at even-strength.

• I know he has missed some time through injury, but Callahan's offensive rates are pretty poor. At least Dustin Brown and Derek Stepan have the excuse that they're shooting well below their career average so far; Callahan is shooting above his.

Rather than painstakingly listing each player's Corsi, zone-start, Quality Of Competition and Quality Of Teammates numbers, I'll just show you a player usage chart that illustrate all of this.

The following interactive chart is from HockeyAbstract.com. You can change the Y-Axis setting to 'Quality Of Teammates (Relative Corsi)' to get an idea of which players are benefiting from being on the ice with better teammates:

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• It's funny that certain players seem to group together by this chart. Would it be a bad idea to keep thosep layers together at Sochi due to their experience playing similar situations?

• By that logic, Stasny-Backes-Oshie looks like a perfect shutdown line. They're playing tough minutes and doing a damn good job.

• Maybe Pacioretty-Kesler-Kessel as one of the scoring lines, with Parise-Stepan-Kane as the other one. That would leave Brown-Pavelski and one of JVR, Callahan or Wheeler as the 4th line. The latter 3 are probably good enough to move up the line-up, so it's pretty hard to pick that line-up.