Nashville Predators: Top Players Getting Snubbed From Winter Olympics
Roman Josi
We’ve come to love Roman Josi as Predators fans, and it would be fun to watch him on the international stage. He has some success internationally for Switzerland, mostly in the 2013 Ice Hockey World Championship as the tournament MVP. He’s also been selected to the Olympic team for Switzerland once in his career.
Switzerland is already a respectable hockey country and should fare well in this year’s Olympics. I’m not sure they will be able to battle for gold medal. Even getting on the podium for a bronze will be a huge accomplishment.
With Josi aboard, you could make an argument for them as a top contender. Josi would no doubt be one of the top defenseman and draw plenty of the spotlight. His speed and offensive skills as a defender is sometimes taken for granted by Predators fans who get to see him all of the time.
P.K. Subban
P.K. Subban would be just a small part of an already loaded roster if NHL players were participating. I can promise more Predators fan would be paying attention to Canada’s success with Subban on the Olympic roster. He’s a larger than life player that is no stranger to the international spotlight.
In the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Subban saw very little action for Canada. In fact, just 11 minutes of action in one game, a blowout over Austria. Subban’s growth in the last four years would make him a key player on Canada’s team now.
Subban did get a gold medal from those Olympics, just adding to his already great list of accomplishments. Being the professional and class act that he is, he was never bitter over not seeing much playing time in the Olympics, per NHL.com. You put Subban in these Olympics in PyeongChang, and he’s looking at another gold medal and being a bigger contributor. Canada has favorable odds to win the gold medal.
Filip Forsberg
The Nashville Predators have several important players on the roster that call Sweden home. No stranger to electrifying goal scoring is the still young Filip Forsberg. This would no doubt be his first invitation to the Olympics as he would be representing Sweden. He’s got 13 goals and 11 assists in just 19 games of action internationally. He has called the NHL’s decision to not participate in the Olympics as a “terrible decision”, per Joe Rexrode of The Tennessean.
A player of Forsberg’s offensive firepower instantly makes average teams dangerous contenders. Sweden has decent odds to win silver or gold, but Forsberg would join a loaded crop of Swedish NHL players. Elite players like Erik Karlsson, Patric Hornqvist and Henrik Zetterberg are just a few that would be on the Sweden roster.
There’s a couple other Predators that would possibly represent Sweden, with one of them being a lock to join Forsberg. Other toss ups for Sweden would be Calle Jarnkrok, Pontus Aberg and Mattias Ekholm.
Viktor Arvidsson
As a Predators fan, I’m spoiled to get to see Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson anchor the same line. How exciting would it be to see them play together for Sweden? I would have a hard time rooting against them, due to their being so many Sweden-born players on the Predators.
Arvidsson has this motor that’s rare to see. His ability to skate into open ice and create scoring chances out of seemingly nothing is what makes him so electrifying. He would absolutely be representing an already talented Sweden team in the Olympics. People from around the world who don’t get to see the Predators play often would get the luxury of seeing just how great of a roster the Predators have, and that Arvidsson is one of the best. He’s currently leading the team in goals along with Kevin Fiala at 18.
Craig Smith
It’s not a lock that Craig Smith would make the USA Olympic roster, but I think he would sneak on. There are a lot of great USA-born players that are actively playing in the NHL. Smith has some stiff competition, but he’s really peaking at this time in his career. He even sometimes get overlooked by Predators fans as the steady contributor that he is.
Team USA, without the NHL players, is mostly assembled with minor league players and players competing in leagues overseas. Not sure they stand a chance in the Olympics to get a medal. With the growing crop of American talent currently in the NHL, I would like their chances better. Smith has 10 goals for Team USA in international competition.
Pekka Rinne
You didn’t think I’d leave out Pekka Rinne, did you? That would be blasphemy. Rinne just doesn’t seem to slow down as his career is over a decade long. It’s almost as if he keeps getting better, instead of letting father time catch up.
Rinne would spearhead a Finland team that has a fairly good chance of getting a medal, and maybe even making the gold medal game. With Rinne between the pipes, Finland would be a dark horse to win the gold. That’s how much I think of Rinne, and how locked in he would be to represent his native land.
What’s really cool for Rinne and this year’s Olympics is that he’ll be cheering on brother, who will be playing for Finland, per a New York Times piece by Andrew Knoll. We all know Rinne is as classy as they come, but it has to be tough for him to miss out on representing his nation as one of the best goaltenders in the world. His quote to Rexrode of The Tennessean sums it up: “That’s always been my dream”.