The Olympics haven’t been kind to Slovakia since the NHLers started going to the Games back in 1998 in Nagano, Japan.
In the four competitions since the best in the world starting playing hockey at the Olympics, the Slovakian side has performed as such:
- 1998 (Nagano): Failed to qualify for final tournament, including a loss to Kazakhstan and a tie with Austria
- 2002 (Salt Lake City): Failed to qualify for final tournament, including losses to Germany and Austria.
- 2006 (Turin): Lost in quarter-finals after going 5-0 in the round robin.
- 2010 (Vancouver): Lost in bronze medal game to Finland.
While they haven’t had a medal over those competitions, they have improved over the last three competitions and certainly are more than capable of walking away with a medal this time around.
First things first, the Slovaks will be without arguably their top scoring forward in Marian Gaborik. Gaborik had been struggling with injury for most of the year, and in fact most of his career, and the final nail in the Olympic coffin came when Gaborik broke his collarbone in his first game back in December and will be out through the Olympics. You can’t just replace 40-goal scorers with the next man up, so it will be a collective effort of their other skilled players to make up the difference.
The Olympic orientation camp list is available here.
Goaltending
The goaltending for the Slovaks this year will feature the tandem of Jaroslav Halak of St. Louis and Peter Budaj, the backup to Carey Price in Montréal. These are the two obvious choices.
Halak hasn’t been too good of a goalie for about a year now. In his last 44 regular season games, Halak has managed just a .904 save percentage. That’s a pretty poor performance considering the team he’s playing behind.
We have to be wary of small samples, however. In the 204 regular season games before that for Halak, he had posted a .918 save percentage, the ninth-best such percentage for any regularly-appearing goalie between 2006 and 2012. I would anticipate that Halak gets the starting nod but will have a short leash because of the guy behind him.
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Peter Budaj has had a .915 save percentage over his last 40 games, a pretty good mark over that stretch. Again, be way of small sample sizes: in Budaj’s 242 games previous to that, he had the worst save percentage of any goalie with at least 240 appearances from 2005-2011. The Slovak coaching staff knows that and that’s why I assume Halak gets the nod.
For the third goalie, it would come down to Rastislav Stana from CSKA Moscow of the KHL and Jaroslav Janus, a former Tampa Bay draft pick who has also made his way to the KHL. I would look for Janus to get the nod as the younger goalie.
Defensemen
You can’t talk about Team Slovakia and their defense corps in specific without mentioning Zdeno Chara.
I hate to point out coincidences, but Chara was left off the Slovakian team in 1998 (rightly so, he was a rookie 20-year old defenseman at the time) and again in 2002 (less rightly so, he had five goals and was +21 for the Ottawa Senators at the end of December 2001 when the team was being picked; he was an alternate but did not play a single game). He was brought in 2006 and 2010, which just happen to be Slovakia’s best two Olympic performances. Coincidence maybe… Maybe.
After Chara, three NHLers in Andrej Meszaros of the Flyers, Andrej Sekera of the Hurricanes and Lubomir Visnovsky of the Islanders would seem to be locks to be on the roster. The last of which is a bit more tenuous, as Visnovsky hasn’t been on the ice since October after suffering a concussion. He’s a very good puck-moving defenseman that will also leave a big hole if he’s not ready to go.
One former NHLer that will most certainly be there is Milan Jurcina. The 30-year old has over 400 NHL games to his credit and has been overseas for a year now. Another former NHLer, and former first round pick, Branislav Mezei will also likely be there.
Two final names to look for are Ivan Baranka (a former second round pick) and Branislav Mezei (a former first round pick). Now, they are both left-handed shots and there are already Meszaros, Chara and Sekera who shoot left-handed so there is only so much room for guys on that side.
Forwards
Besides the aforementioned Gaborik who is not going to be there, there isn’t a whole lot of offensive punch here.
It’s definite that Marian Hossa of Chicago will be there, as well as his brother Marcel, the former first round draft pick who has now been overseas since 2008.
There are NHLers that will be joining the Amazing Hossa Brothers but it’s not exactly a who’s who of goal scoring: Tomas Jurco (DET), Tomas Kopecky (FLA), Michal Handzus (CHI), Tomas Tatar (DET) and Richard Panik (TBL) will all be in Sochi, but none of them are striking fear in opposing goaltenders. Not yet at least, as Jurco and Tatar may become the goal scorers they were drafted to be at one point.
There are some former NHLers that could find their way to Sochi via the Slovakian hockey team and that includes Ziggy Palffy and Miroslava Satan (pronounced shah-tan, for the uninitiated).
The rest of the guys will be filled in by overseas professional players, some with North American hockey experience, like Tomas Surovy and Branko Radivojevic.
However, a game-changer in Marko Dano is one name to look for. The Blue Jackets’ first round pick from 2013 is just 19-years old, but has already appeared in one World Championship for Slovakia in 2013, where he did put up a couple of points in just five games, and was a point-per-game played over two years at the World Junior Championships. Dano has a strong offensive game all-around, and has the skill to change the momentum of a game with one rush. I’m not saying he will, but he has that ability.
Veteran-heavy Slovakia is older than most teams and will need to rely on good team defense to win 2-1 and 3-2 games. By good team defense, I mean Zdeno Chara playing 30+ minutes a night, of course.
