Weegar over Rielly??? Chabot over Rielly??

Mo is an absolute pylon in his own end. He's only really good for puck movement and there's enough of that on this team.

Spurgeon over Theodore or Pietrangelo is crazy

Then why is Chabot there, he's even more clueless in his own zone than Rielly. To add (this isn't just my bias) but I think Rielly is being severely overused in TO and the pressure is starting to get to him... Going from playing upwards if 28 mins a night to 18 will allow him to play better.

Hamilton does not make this team over Theodore, Pietrangelo, Ekblad, Chychrun, etc. With Makar you already have a solid PP qb and Hamilton is nowhere near good enough at defense to make this team

Is this for the 2024 winter Olympics? Or the 2025 WCH? Either way by the time it happens I think someone probably gets pushed out of the starting lineup by Bo Horvat. And I think Shea Theodore is a lock to make the team over guys like Weegar or Chabot.

Another thought: Does Nuge make the team just so he can play on PP1 with McDavid and Hyman? One of the greatest power plays in history and Nuge is an elite special teams player. He could easily slide into that 4th line and play a responsible 2way game, not to mention he's currently 2nd in the entire league for points by a Canadian this season

Rielly f*cking sucks lmao. He doesn't hold a candle to anyone on the defense.

That's just wrong man. You're being a homer and you know it.

Horvat shouldn't make Team Canada at any point in his career. He's been a good 2nd liner his entire career. He just isn't good enough to make Team Canada right now and never will be.

Shea Theodore is a good choice, but I can't justify him over Weegar who is excellent defensively or Chabot who is a dynamic offensive talent who isn't a liability defensively

RNH is the same case as Horvat. Good 2nd liner, but he's not nearly as good as his point totals suggest. No reason to put him on the team solely for the powerplay when there are far more talented players who are better than him both on the PP and at 5v5.

Hamilton is incredible at 5v5. He's had dominant possession and scoring chance metrics for essentially his entire career. It would be stupid to not take him.

Jared Spurgeon might be the most underrated player in the NHL. Guy doesn't put up points which is why idiots on this site don't like him, but he's one of the best two-day defencemen in the league.

To clarify, in my defense, I didn't put Chabot there.

Mo has never really had any good defensive metrics over the years. There's a reason he's never really been able to win a Norris. While he's able to put up 50-60+ points (on stacked offensive toronto teams), his defensive metrics are usually not that good. Team Canada has good puck movement already, and as it stands, Chabot is better defensively than Mo.

I'm not denying Spurgeon being underrated, there's just no way I'm slotting him on the back end over Pietrangelo (Theodore I can see, because of his middling defensive stats).

And I'd probably choose to have Pelech over Chabot. Having Pelech (being probably the best DFD in the league) allows for a good shutdown player and penalty killer.

This is very funny... the number 1 defensemen on the number 4 team in the NHL "f*cking sucks lmao" and that I'm a "homer and know it" bc of my response to Rielly having more points in the last x seasons (including this one even though Rielly missed games bc of an injury which I still don't believe he's recovered from) and has a better plus minus (even though +/- doesn't mean a lot... -72 to -16 career wise and -5 to -12 season wise is pretty big). Don't even get me started on Weager either...

It's fine to be bias against the Leafs... but don't make it so obvious that a 'homer' like myself can easily detect it

The original comment wasn't supposed to be directed as an attack on you, it was more of a "I disagree with you."

Obviously, Rielly isn't a Norris candidate, nor should he ever bc he's not able to produce numbers like Karlson is this season. Where I do see how Rielly's defensive metrics haven't been great over the years, you have to remember the amount of time he's on the ice per game and with whom. IDK if you remember but for a time, Rielly's defensive partner was either Ron Hainsey/Nikita Zaitzev/Jake Gardiner/Tyson Barrie (I love Gardiner and no disrespect to him, he isn't the most reliable defensive defensemen for Rielly) whereas Chabot has played a more sheltered (as in not playing half the game at times) role with Artem Zub (whose job is to cover Chabot defensively).

Finally, the eye test, I've seen north of 100 games of each of them and frankly (even with lacklustre defensive partners/my theory of him playing hurt rn), Rielly plays better.

Rielly is bad defensively. There is no way around that. I don't care if he's the #1 guy (which is debatable) on the Leafs. The simple fact of the matter is that he is too poor defensively to be considered for this team I don't care about his point totals because he is a defenceman, his job is to help prevent scoring chances and goals against his team, and he doesn't do a good job of that. That's the simple truth.

Weegar is one of the best 2-way d-men in the league. That is the truth, your opinion does not matter. He excels at preventing scoring chances and limiting the opposing teams' possession.

Saying that Rielly is not good defensively is not being biased against the Leafs, it's the truth. Not my problem if you don't like it.

If a defensemen's job is just to prevent goals... then why is Chabot there??? Why is Makar there then??? A defensemen's job is to work with the other 4 guys on the ice to create opportunities (as a unit) for their team and prevent others from scoring opportunities at the same time... That's why Makar is one of the best defensemen (arguably) of this generation. Next, ever since Weegar has been in the spotlight (all the way back from when Ekblad got hurt and he had to step up), he's been invisible (at best). To say he is one of the best 2-way d-men in the league mind boggling considering Sutter doesn't play him PP and Calgary as a team, being 16th in the league for goals against this season and Ottawa being 1 better at 15th.

I'm done with arguing with you bc it's obvious that you don't like the Leafs (as much as you won't admit it you do... you don't have John Tavares in the lineup either even though he's outproducing you 3LW, 4LW and your 4RW while playing 2nd line minutes compared to everyone else on your team playing 1rst line minutes...

Final point, Zach Hyman shouldn't be playing 1LW for Team Canada. He's having a successful season (points wise) bc he's playing 1PP with McDavid and Draisaitl and 1rst line with McDavid and Evander Kane/Nugent Hopkins