Rallying Krei! It would be nonsensical to leave Chris Kreider off Team USA roster
You’re making your lists, checking them twice, and I’ve got to say that if you do not have Chris Kreider on Team USA for Four Nations (as most don’t), what in the world are you talking about? Of course, the only list that counts is the one handed in by Team USA (and Minnesota) GM Billy Guerin, whom I have known for 30 years to be an astute hockey mind.Well, maybe for the past 20 or so. I’m not going to debate which winger would be excluded by naming Kreider to the squad.
It is immaterial to me when speaking about the second-highest American-born goal scorer since 2021-22, the leading American-born power-play-goal scorer in that span and the leading American-born shorthanded-goal scorer over the past three-plus seasons. Beginning with 2021-22 — during which then Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant unlocked Kreider’s immense production potential by giving him the first penalty-kill assignment of a career that commenced during the 2012 playoffs — Kreider has scored 129 goals, seventh in the NHL and second among Yanks to NHL-leader Auston Matthews’ 169. Over that span, Kreider has scored 52 power-play goals, third in the NHL, while establishing himself as a net-front auteur.And No.
20’s 10 shorthanded goals is most in the league. The 33-year-old from Boxford, Mass., has represented his country in six different tournaments, twice in the World Juniors, four times in the World Championships.He is a mentor and an elite goal scorer, and there is no debate about whether he belongs on this team. I’ll scribble this out for you on a napkin: KREIDER FOR AMERICA. It is obviously insane to assign disproportionate weight to a team’s season opener.
But sometimes they can be symbolic. And I just wonder after the Red Wings’ opening, 6-3 defeat to the Penguins in Detroit — 24 hours after Pittsburgh had been used as a speed bag by the Rangers while Detroit was fresh — whether GM Steve Yzerman is going to have Joel Quenneville on speed dial? Yzerman ...