On August 1, Hockey Canada unveiled the 42 NHL players invited to participate In the Olympic orientation in Calgary later this month. The first Six were announced in JuneAnd now Connor McDavid, Cale Makar and Sidney Crosby may be accompanied by Jordan Binnington, Mitch Marner, Mark Scheifele and John Tavares, among others. Although the official team schedule will be announced for some time, Canada still seems to be entering the tournament as a gold medal favorite.
However, one name was suspected of the list – Ottawa Senators defender Thomas Chabot. Hockey Canada cannot record everyone, and some players will simply not be cut, but not invite that chabot, raises some important questions. He is one of the most productive defenders in the NHL since 2018-19 and proven that he can be an excellent international competitor, so why didn’t he give the chance to try out?
It is impossible to know that the Hockey Canada process has selected their first list of 42 players, but the exclusion of Chabot points to one thing – Hockey Canada is trying to build a team of roll players, just as they did at the World Juniors from 2025, and, as we saw at that tournament, does not work.
Chabot’s career deserves an invitation
Although Chabot has never been one of the best defenders of the NHL, he has been a reliable attacking threat on the blue line of Ottawa. Since his debut in 2016-17, he has on average more than 11 goals and 30 points per season, which brought him into a major company. Since 2018-19, only eight Canadian defenders have placed more points than he, and three of them have already been named the provisional schedule of Canada.
The 2018-19 season was a crucial moment in Chabot’s career, because he recorded a career-high 14 goals and 55 points. That is the 15th highest total that a Canadian defender has taken since that season. But that season also saw him conquer his first medal from the world championship. Playing on the second pair next to Troy Stecher, are seven points bound for the third highest total among defenders at the tournament, but the Canadians were just short of Finland in the final. It was not his first world championship for the first time in 2018 for Canada as a 21-year-old and it would be his last because he returned as a team captain in 2022, but it was his best as a professional.
Chabot has also built up a reputation as a defender at a big minute. There was a piece of 2019-2022 where he led the NHL with an average of 26:09 a night and played for the senators in almost every situation. Unfortunately, playing many injuries led to different injuries, so that he loved 65 games off the ice for the next two seasons, but he still remained his scoring pace. Despite the injuries, he scored 20 goals and 71 points over that period. If he had played every game, he would have had almost as many points as Charlie Mcavoy, Morgan Rielly or Devon.
If we record statistics until last season, Chabot is still among the best ice age averages in the NHL with 24:46. Of the eight players who scored more points than he since 2018-19, only two-makar and Kris Letang-Lake time on ice on average, with Makar on average one second more. Chabot has not adopted a heavy workload in recent seasons, but that has enabled him to concentrate on what he does best: move the puck. In 80 games he set nine goals and 45 points, his best total since 2018-19. But it was also the 18th highest total among defenders last season and the eighth highest among Canadians. Of those who have set more points than he did, only Jakob Chychrun was not invited to the Olympic camp of Canada.
Canada’s questionable decisions about Defense
Admittedly, points are not everything when it comes to putting together a national team, but it is difficult to claim that Chabot should not have at least an invitation about some of the other observed others.
Two defenders probably received invitations due to large offensive seasons in the past and the hope that they can recapture that magic at the Olympic Games. Brandon Montour is a solid attacking defender, but he has only put twice as more than 40 points in his 10-year career. Last season he scored 41 points with the Seattle Kraken while recording a team-stretcher min-22, and in 2022-23 he recorded 73 points with the Florida Panthers. The same applies to Noah Dobson, who broke out in 2023-24 with a 70-point season with the New York Islanders, but last season nowhere came close to that Exalted Total with 39 points before he was moved to the Montreal Canadiens on the 2025 version.
Aaron Ekblad is an interesting recording, as he was suspended for 20 games Back in March to violate the conditions of the performance -enhancing resource program of the NHLPA. However, he was eligible to return to the Florida Panthers for the Play -Offs, where he placed 13 points in 19 games and his team helped to claim his second Stanley Cup in the franchise history. He was once one of the best two -way defenders in the NHL, but he has taken a step back in recent seasons.
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However, the majority of Canada’s defense is only the same group of the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. Only five of the 13 invited defenders were not in that team, including Montour, Dobson and Ekblad. Mackenzie Weegar and Evan Bouchard were the other two newcomers, who both undoubtedly earned an invitation for the Olympic team, but perhaps in the bubble because of the previous experience of the team together.
There is the issue of skill. Of the 13 invited defenders, eight right-shot defenders were, while the five left-handed shots were all in the 4-nations face-off team. Right-shooting defenders are nowadays highly sought after in the NHL, but are they so valuable that a team can ignore their left side? Canada could easily have invited a left-shot defender to give them an even 14 to work in training camp, but their random number may have done some players more a place.
The problem of the World Juniors 2025
Canadian fans would rather forget the World Juniors from 2025, but there are many lessons that can be learned from fifth place in the team and collapse against Latvia in De Ronde Robin, the largest of which provides as much talent as possible. Sam Dickinson was forced to do a lot of heavy lifting After Canada left both Zayne Parekh and Carter Yakemchuk at home, the latter did not even receive an invitation for their development camp. “We understand that these are difficult decisions to take and worthy players often do not cut,” Senators General Director Steve Staios said After the schedule of Canada was announced. “However, it was special that four players who were selected in the top nine of this year’s NHL version were omitted from the camp schedule.”
Also left of the Canadian world Junior Squad were Michael Misa, Tij Iginla, Beckett Sennecke and Andrew Cristall, who all had incredible seasons with their junior teams. Instead, however, Canada chose to make players more suitable for playing grinding, such as Tanner Howe, Ethan Gauthier and Mathieu Cataford. Those players were not waiting for a place in the national team, but afterwards Canada struggled to score During the tournament, the question raised whether the management made the right choices.
The Olympic team of Canada is starting to form in the same way. Instead of players such as Chabot, Dougie Hamilton, Johnson, Dylan Guenther or Pierre-Luc Dubois, Canada Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Anthony Cirelli, Travis Sanheim and Carter Verhaeghe invited. All those players have done enough to earn an invitation for a national team try-out, but to have only the last group implies that Canada is trying to find the right attacks for the bottom of the bottom. This will leave talent at home, which will almost certainly bite them when they need it the most. It also ignores valuable veterans such as Claude Giroux, who should also have received an invitation, but at the age of 35 it makes sense that Canada is looking for younger.
The senators will still have representatives at the Olympic Games; Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle were already mentioned as One of the first six For their respective countries. It is also almost guaranteed that Jake Sanderson will join Tkachuk to Team USA, and Leevi Merilainen and Nikolas Matinpalo have a decent chance to make Team Finland. But most senators fans will still encourage the Canadians, and Team Canada does the same as what they have done in the past different tournaments. The exclusion of Chabot reveals a striking problem that Hockey Canada refuses to tackle, and that can mean that their gold medal drying in both the world juniors and Olympic games will extend for another year.
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