The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Steven Ellis

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

Steven Ellis joins Jeff Marek on The Sheet to recap a disastrous tournament for Team Canada, look ahead to the next steps, and preview the remainder of the WJCReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The big story that started last night and bled into today is the Czechia win over Canada, eliminating them from the World Junior Championships for the second year in a row in the quarterfinals. Same team is the culprit, Czechia. With that we get to Stephen Ellis, who's still on site in Ottawa, where I suspected the sun came up for a lot of teams, but maybe not for Team Canada today. Stephen, nice to see you again. I recognize what those hotel rooms look like. I'm sure you're missing your own bed

by this point of the tournament, but nonetheless, welcome aboard. We'll start wide brush and then build down sort of reverse pyramid style. Opening question for you, Stephen Ellis, what happened? Floor is yours. Well, first off, it was sunny for the first time today, I think since the start of this tournament. So that was a change for Ottawa. Look, man, Canada, I just, you look at this team and the skill that they had in theory and the ability to go out

there and play all situations in theory and the blue line that should have looked really good in theory and everything just seemed to collapse and you look at all this like yet to go back to the skill a guy like Easton Cowan should have had a significantly better tournament Gavin McKenna all the hype surrounding him, that was unfortunately the weakest Team Canada tournament we've ever seen from him. Granted, the oldest competition he's ever had to play against. It looked like you had at any given time you had five players playing for themselves on the ice and not playing as a team. And with all that talent and you can't convert, this will go down as one of the most disappointing Team Canada losses, maybe the most because of just the raw talent and how many potential top six NHLers that this

group's going to have. Like I know a lot of people look to this team and say weak, weak, weak, but like Berkeley Catten's great and, and Easton Cowan is having a great year in the OHL and Cal Richie is going to be a great two-way threat. So there's a lot of talent, just absolutely no execution. You know, I'm not sure if you heard me at the top. I don't know if you know Simon Schenberg, former COMS Director of the Double IHF. I'm sure you've acquainted with Simon over the years. And he brings up a couple of really interesting points

and one that always, that one that really stuck with me when I first read it. And it winks at something that Hockey Canada used to excel at and has now in the last two years gotten away from. It's a great line, skill can grit, but grit can't skill. You know, the hockey Canada philosophy coming off of 2006 in Italy was skill adapts. Let's just get the most highly skilled players

and put them in all different positions. It doesn't matter if they're used to limited minutes, used to playing on the penalty kill, used to playing whatever, the most highly skilled players can adapt to any role. Canada got away from that completely. Does that resonate with you when you look at the roster? Who was there? Like make no mistake about it, like you're right, there is some elite level talent on this team. There's also There is some elite level talent on this team. There's also a lot of elite level talent. This is part of the big story.

A lot of elite level talent that was left at home to watch this thing on TSN. Does the skill can grit, but grit can't skill line resonate with you? Absolutely. And you know, as much as I love a guy like Cole Bodewin, obviously got kicked out of that game, but that's a guy who could probably fight the Hulk and come out on top. This guy is so strong and does so many great things away from the puck. But we saw him play on the top line when they needed to get a bit more scoring. And that did not work. We saw Gavin McKenna, we saw him playing as much as I was okay with Luca Panellin making the team.

Clearly that wasn't working there either and McKenna was kind of wasted with players. Again, we know what Berkley Katten could do. He scored over 50 goals. But what we're seeing from him is he's a better playmaker. So we didn't have a pure goal scorer on that line. Why was Rakoff and Marton not playing together? Again, doesn't make a lot of sense. When I looked at how this roster was going to be built, the way they were taking things at selection camp, it looked like, okay, you're going to bring Goche, he looked really good. Tanner

Howe looked really good. Does that make Cateford a bit of an odd man out? Maybe. What about Panelli at that point? I liked him, but there was just going to be a lot of guys out there that are not the most skilled players, but do other things out there to be very effective. And all of a sudden you've got a true bottom six, which that doesn't work. And if it works for some other teams in the tournament, it's because they don't have the pure skill and the pure talent to work with. Like the United States won gold last year. They didn't run 13 scoring forwards.

They had guys who are really good at those roles, but they were really good at those roles better than anybody in Canada in those similar roles. Will it be checking? Will it be defensive centers? And that's why United States won gold last year and looked like they can do it again this year. When Canada, you're trying to put players in situations they're not used to and you're trying to play a certain way. It didn't work. And ability to make better changes on the fly, just to me, just was astounding. It was, Dave Cameron's not coaching team Gannett again.

I think that's pretty clear. Yeah. I think there's a few things there. I don't think Dave Cameron's coaching team Canada again. I don't expect to see Mike Johnson on the bench again. I don't expect to see Peter Anhalt as the general manager of this team. You know, Chris Lazari, I'm going to sound very ageist here, but here I go. As an older guy, I'm allowed to be ageist, Stephen.

You know, you essentially had three of the key people here in Dave Cameron, Peter Anholdt and Mike Johnson. These are all gentlemen in their late sixties. And if anything, and I think there probably is a recognition, just talking to some people this morning around Hockey Canada, I think there is a recognition that they need to, when it comes to their decision making, bring in more people under the tent who are younger,

who have younger, fresher, newer ideas, because clearly the old way either to construct or deploy a team at this level. Quick pause. The women's program is still number one. Paris still number one as well. This is the one pocket here where there is a significant issue for Hockey Canada. It is in definite need of an injection of new ideas. And one of the things I kept thinking about, Stephen, this entire term and watching Team Canada is what's going through Chris Lazarie's mind? You know, he's 41, 42 years old, very progressive coach,

forward thinker, won the Memorial Cup with Saginaw last year, like a really, you know, a successful and smart, on the younger side of things kind of coach. Does it not, does this not sort of look to you like the end of that era? I don't want to say it's going to be completely the end of the old boys network, but the beginning of the tearing down of that wall?

We hope so. I've talked to guys who coach triple A level that could easily be OHL coaches that don't want to go up to the OHL because you can make a lot of cases more money coaching AAA. So you're probably missing out on some pretty bright minds that know how to mold these young kids and know how to work on the development angle. And you know, it's you look at the hunters and everything they built in London. Like imagine if you try that again, and you'd

probably go out there and you could put a C level team from Canada, but you'll be competitive because that's just what the hunters typically do. I think the style of hockey that you see work in the NHL, like you look at a lot of teams at grits and you want that sandpaper for the playoffs, the grind that is, you know, the two, three months of playoff hockey, but in a short tournament, the Radko Gudis's of the world are not going to be the one shining. It's the guys who can go out there and be like the Connor Bedard or the Trevor Ziegres and a lot of cases just pure skill is what wins at a level like this and that's partly because we're moving to a game that has just built on skill. Kids aren't kids are watching Pavel Barber videos and how to hockey and all these guys on TikTok and YouTube to learn how to become more skilled players and

The skill development paths that we're seeing at the lower levels is so much better than it's ever been So it's again, it's not like a lack of talent is a problem for Canada. Like you they won the last two u-17s They've won almost Darvyei Hylinka ever in the history of the tournament. They just won the u-18s a few months ago He had bronze the year before that like these these guys have good, I've shown just, they are capable of winning games, but it felt like there was a lot of old school thinking in this team and in the way that everything worked out. And again, you look at the results, it just did not work.

Quickly from the chat, David Hartford says, for Steven Ellis, you mentioned creating a mock team for Canada 2026 juniors. Does this team have a star factor like Bedard a couple of years ago or does it involve more OHL synergies or both? From David Hartford. There's a mix of all of that. So that's a great question.

I think Gavin McKenna obviously is the star power there, but you should see Michael Misa there. I think we'll see Porter Martone back. Matthew Schaeffer will be eligible to play. I don't think we'll see him back. But then you're looking at a lot of guys who've been on winning teams at the U-17 and U-18 level. Specifically, the U-17s, that's a good sign that they've won the last two years

because they've had this tendency to separate and have two to three teams. The last couple of years, they've only sent two teams. And I think that's been able to just give them a better chance at winning. tendency to separate and have two to three teams. The last couple of years, they've only sent two teams. And I think that's been able to just give them a better chance at winning. So you've got these guys that have won these international tournaments against a lot of these players we're seeing at the World Junior. So I think you're gonna have really good goaltending, probably some of the best goaltending depth Canada has ever had.

Where you're gonna have the two guys from this year, Ivan Kovac and George will be back, Evan Gardner, the Columbus Blue Jackets prospect probably should have been there this year and Joshua Ravensberg and might be a first round pick in the NHL this year. So that's really good goalie depth. I think their defense is going to be hard to play against. We should see land in DuPont on the team. The next kind of star, Kale McCarr level of hype. Maybe I shouldn't say hype because Kelle McCarr wasn't super hyped in that draft year but

like this is a special prospect and land in duPont a 2009 board player you know yeah and you're looking at a team that might have Liam Green Tree a guy who could get 60 goals this year as your 13th best forward on the team like that's a team that probably would beat this year's group and if they don't win gold especially as we do expect teams like the United States and Sweden to fall down a little bit, that will be a big problem. Really quick. Tomorrow, there will be a, I'm guessing, for lack of a better term, State of the Union address from Hockey Canada, just afternoon Eastern at the Canadian Tire Center. Jonathan Goldblum will be there, Chair of the Hockey Canada Board,

President and CEO of Hockey Canada, Catherine Henderson will be there, Scott Salmon, Senior VP of High Performance and Hockey Operations, and Dean McIntosh will be there as well. There's no really way to predict how this thing is gonna go. I think we have an expectation

of what the nature of the questions are going to be, but what do you expect tomorrow at this presser? A lot of the questions I think that you've asked today and like a lot of it is just kind of, you know, for me, I don't think this is something where you break the whole team down, you start from scratch. Cause again, you look at all these other levels, the U17, the U18, they're winning those tournaments

and they're showing that they still have the best talent. I think the key thing here is they just can't overthink this tournament anymore. They got to stop looking at this and saying, oh, this lineup might work in the NHL. No, this is you've got the most skilled any country, but the biggest player pool. There's no excuse to be leaving off guys that are 60, 70 goal OHL players because you want to bring someone who can throw some hits because you're probably not going to play that guy a lot anyway so give yourself the best opportunity to win don't overthink this just take the best 25 players possible

and it'll be interesting if we do see kind of a full revamp of everyone who's running that team but I like people are thinking like hockey the Canada hockey and the junior hockey is a big problem right now I'm not convinced of that because they keep winning at all these other levels. Really quick, the favorite now, clearly the United States or will the Swedes have something to say about that? It's not clearly the United States.

Sweden's gonna put up a fight, but I'd be putting money on the Americans. There's a lot of returning players. Those returning players are looking good. And if Trey Augustine's hot, again, that's a tough team to bet against. Looking like repeat for USA. Okay, Stephen, excellent work. What's next, by the way, at Daily Faceoff for you? What do you got cooking? Well, I'll be watching a little bit of the U18 Women's Tournament, of course, seeing how that

one goes out. But I'm going to be having my Canada 2026 roster breakdown comes out tomorrow. And on Monday, I'm going to have scouting reports on every NHL prospect from the World Juniors. Wow. Get some sleep in there son. We worry about you. I was up at 3am. Find a pillow every now and then. Will you Stephen Ellis?

Alright there he is from Daily Face Off. No one knows the prospects better than Stephen Ellis. I'm going to go ahead and close the video. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Music Music