Adam Fox’s Olympic snub looked outrageous back in February. Now, with several of the Team USA players around him forcing their way out of town, it doesn’t look quite so absurd.
When Fox was left off the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, I thought it was an absolute joke. He’s one of the NHL’s best defensemen and one of the best U.S.-born defensemen, period.
By all rights, he should have been there. But Bill Guerin is a tool.
Still, after watching how things have played out since the Olympics, I’m fine with Fox missing Milan and staying home to drink his milk instead.
Since then, four Team USA players - Vincent Trocheck, Brady Tkachuk, Dylan Larkin, and Connor Hellebuyck - have either been traded or asked to be traded. A fifth, Quinn Hughes, had already forced his way out of Vancouver.
And sure, there are reasons you can understand in a few of those cases. I’ve said it before: the Detroit Red Wings made their bed with Larkin by ignoring his repeated requests for any sort of meaningful help.
Brady Tkachuk wanted to play with his brother. The Vancouver Canucks were, and still are, a toxic tire fire.
Hellebuyck is trickier, with conflicting reports about whether fans turned on him - including threats to him and his family* - after the Olympics or after it became clear he wanted out and would not play for the Winnipeg Jets.
*To be clear: whenever those threats took place, the people who made them are chickenshit cowards, not passionate fans.
The bigger issue is what came next. It’s not just that these players wanted out. It’s that they decided they didn’t want to play for the teams they were on, and then narrowed their options to only three or four other clubs - teams that were never realistic trade partners in the first place.
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The next question is whether New York should push that evaluation further. Morrow is averaging 13 minutes per game, but the Rangers may be better served by giving him a chance on the second pair alongside Marcus Pettersson to see how his game holds up with more responsibility. For a team trying to sort out its blue line, the answer could say a lot about how quickly Morrow is ready for a bigger role. [Read more 🡒]