The final handful of Canadian players are on their way to the IIHF world hockey championship but the core of the team is already here.
After a busy few days of working the phones, general manager Dave Nonis rounded his roster with four additions — forward James Neal, goaltender Jonathan Bernier and defencemen Carlo Colaiacovo and Marc-Andre Gragnani. Those players will largely be given depth roles with the team.
"Barring injury, we don't have any intention of adding anyone else," Nonis said Friday morning before Canada opened the tournament against Belarus. "I think once you have a team you should let them come together as a team and take a run at it. We wanted the bulk of our team to play in France and to play in Prague and to come here ready to compete. That's what we did.
"These players are going to be good additions, they're going to be helpful for us, but the players that are here today … by and large those are the guys who are going to drive this team."
A number of top players declined invites following disappointing losses in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Canada would love to have added past Olympians like Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith or Brent Seabrook, but each of the Chicago Blackhawks decided he needed time to let his body rest.
Others expressed an interest in coming over, but weren't granted clearance from their NHL teams after being examined by doctors.
"The Stanley Cup playoffs, I think, take a lot more out of players than people recognize," said Nonis. "There's some guys that are very banged up.
"There's a lot of surgery time that's been booked in North America this week."
The new additions bring Canada to 24 players, but Nonis probably won't face a roster decision because forward Antoine Vermette is nursing a lower-body injury. Each country is permitted to register 23 players for its first three round-robin games and can expand to 25 afterwards.
Vermette is still expected to make an appearance during the tournament.
"At some point, he's going to play for sure," said coach Ken Hitchcock. "The injury is not significant, but he's not 90 or 100 per cent right now so we're not going to put him in."
There will be a choice to be made in goal.
James Reimer was given the nod for the opening game, but Devan Dubnyk and Bernier could each see playing time as well. All three are young players — Dubnyk is the oldest at 24 — and none of them has been promised the No. 1 role.
"We'll have three guys now with NHL experience, three guys that have had good years and it'll be up to Hitch and his staff as to how he wants to use them," said Nonis.
Bernier (Los Angeles), Neal (Pittsburgh) and Gragnani (Buffalo) are fresh off first-round playoff losses while Colaiacovo has been on hold since his regular season ended with St. Louis more than two weeks ago.
Nonis kept in contact with him during that period and applauded Colaiacovo's willingness to wait for a final decision.
"He easily could have put his feet up or gone to the lake and he didn't," said Nonis. "He was very, very happy when I spoke to him last night [and told him] he'd be coming."
The Canadian GM wouldn't reveal the total number of players who declined an invitation, but did mention that roughly 95 per cent of them had a good reason to make that decision. A small minority left him scratching his head.
"By and large, players had legitimate reasons," said Nonis. "A couple I would say didn't, but that's always a player's choice. I personally would never make that choice.
"I think you play as long as you can and you play for your country whenever you're asked."
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