Quote:
Originally Posted by Weitz
But don't all the teams outside of Canada and USA have players on their Olympic teams that played in the KHL?
Why would Russia or Sweden or anyone want to send players to a tournament that likely doesn't benefit them.
|
Same reason they did in the Canada Cups and previous World Cups the players want to play and it promotes hockey which does help them.
Finland had 8 guys, two of which are now in the NHL on their team and they were all low level guys. I don't know enough about Finnish hockey to know how bad they would be hurt by switching out Petr Kontiola with the next best guy from the Finnish League or Sami Lepisto with a guy who can actually play defense.
The Czechs had 4 guys including their 3rd string goalie and left off Hudler and Vrbata which likely could replace the KHL guys easily.
Sweden and Switzerland both had nobody from the KHL.