LA Kings : Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Season Finale

THUMBS UP TO JAKE MUZZIN AND MARIAN GABORIK FOR BEING SELECTED TO PLAY AT THE 2016 WORLD CUP OF HOCKEY

(Photo credit to Kings.NHL.com)

Last Friday, the final rosters for each country for the World Cup of Hockey were named and to a lot of people’s surprise, Jake Muzzin made the cut and was selected to play for Team Canada along with his already chosen LA Kings’ teammates, Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter.  Gaborik was also named that day to play on Team Europe who had already selected “Gabbo’s” friend and linemate Anze Kopitar.

Muzzin’s selection of course didn’t come without controversy in Canada as he was picked over the 2013 Norris Trophy winner and 2014 Sochi Olympic Gold Medalist P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens, (though PK. only played one game in Sochi). Team Canada’s executive director Doug Armstrong, (aka the GM of the St. Louis Blues) seems to have pick Muzzin over Subban because of Muzzin’s outstanding analytic based play in comparison to Subban, who has a reputation for being a better offensive player than a defensive one.  Subban being a part of the Canadien’s historical collapse last season may have been a strong factor as well, even though Canada also selected Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers, who went MIA in this year’s playoffs and just had surgery for an injury.  In Muzzin’s defense, he has been praised by the analytic crowd for some time now and was an important clog of the Kings’ machine that won the 2014 Stanley Cup and the 2015 IIHF World Championship Gold Medal for Team Canada.

(Photo credit to Kings.NHL.com)

Gaborik is a regular at the International stage and normally plays for his native Slovakia such as the 1999 & 2000 World Junior Championships, 2004 World Cup of Hockey and the 2006 & 2010 Winter Olympics games.  He was selected but did not get to play at the 2014 Sochi games due to injuries while playing in a poor season with the Columbus Blue Jackets, (but was redeemed later that year by winning the 2014 Stanley Cup and leading those playoffs with 14 goals after being traded to the Kings!).

(Photo credit to BlueJackets.NHL.com)

We here at CaliSports News, as I’m sure as well as everyone else across the vast Kingdom are very proud of both Muzzin and Gaborik and give them a huge Thumbs Up, (and of course to Quick, Kopitar, Doughty and Carter) for being recognized and selected to play for their countries in the next best on best tournament while representing the Los Angeles Kings! Well done!

Sidenote – Former LA King (though the Kings do still have the rights to him), the shamed, banished and deported Slava Voynov was selected by Team Russia as well. I’m not sure how this is going to fly with the NHL and NHLPA, (who run the World Cup event), but Russia is getting a quick Thumbs Down for trying to pull this off. CaliSports News’ Editor-in-Chief Mario Hicks wrote about this situation on Friday when the news broke and here is the link to that.