Giguere and Team USA

Battle of California

Ever wonder why Giguere hasn't been considering for Team Canada Olympic wise. He has represented his home country in his career. He had been in the World Cup wearing Canada's colors. In 2000-2001 his stats show he was there but he didn't play any game. 2003-2004 he was in the World Cup where he played two games and won both of them where he had a shutout and had only one goal scored against him. Those two games accumulated his save percentage has a .50 and in total he played 120 minutes. At least he represented and played for his country at least once in his career but is the World Cup enough? 2006 Olympics Canada has the same exact goalies (with the exception of Turco; Marc-Andre Fleury is in place of him for Van2010) as they do going into the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Giguere has seen it all in the NHL he has played with Anaheim for nine years, after the Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 he signed a No Trade Clause, he has to waive his NTC if he wants to be traded. He'll give a list of teams he wouldn't mind going to if he were to waive his NTC; Giguere is one of the main faces of the Anaheim Ducks franchise. In his career with the minor league teams, the Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes), the Calgary Flames and the Anaheim Ducks his career goals against average is 2.51 with a career total of .914; he has as of December 26, 2009 he is 214-175-36-32 (wins, losses, over time losses, shut outs) in 2003 he was only the fifth player in history to win the Conn Smythe Trophy on a losing team. In 2007 he helped Anaheim win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history and on the West Coast. There is only one other team who won the Stanley Cup currently in the Pacific Division: Dallas Stars (1999)

While Giguere doesn't have a long list of NHL awards, he is still a very good goaltender. In reality, Canada most likely cannot look past Brodeur and Luongo. Brodeur is a legend he has broken just about every single record ever set by a goalie including most career wins passing Patrick Roy who when he retired had 551 wins and most currently Brodeur has passed by one game Terry Sawchuck's shutout record. Sawchuck had 103 shutouts. Broduer has three Stanley Cups all with the New Jersey Devils and all three of those came with the Ducks current Ducks Captain Scott Niedermayer. Here are all of Brodeur's records:

* Most regular season wins (557)
* Most shutouts (record achieved during 2009–10 season)
* Most shutouts, regular season & playoffs combined (118)
* Most overtime wins (45)
* Most consecutive 30-win seasons (12)
* Most consecutive 35-win seasons (11)
* Most 40-win seasons (7)
* Most games played by an NHL goaltender (record achieved during 2009–10 season)
* Most total minutes played by an NHL goaltender (record achieved during 2009–10 season)
* Only NHL goalie to score a game-winning goal
* One of two NHL goalies (Ron Hextall) to score a goal in both the regular season and the playoffs

Luongo, as Giguere doesn't have a long list of NHL awards/records, and he has never won the Stanley Cup; you can also judge on the teams he's played for such as the Florida Panthers before he was controversially traded to the Vancouver Canucks; who he carried last season and into the playoffs. Luongo can be said to be an odd goalie he can come up big but sometimes he is absolutely terrible. Overall, he is a very talented goaltender. In regards to Brodeur this Van2010 is most likely his last Olympics, as in 2014 he will be 41 years of age. Brodeur has played with the Devils for 14 years. One of the main reasons in 2006 Giguere had a huge target on his back; he was being constantly criticized for the size of his pads they were too big. The controversy carried into much later after 2006 he has currently changed his pads to a smaller size.

Giguere is and has been ovelooked for all those reasons.




TEAM USA:

There's talking about Brian Burke's selection for Team USA people are stating how the American team is relatively weak especially on the blue line. This assessment is disagreeable. Burke stated during the summer he was going to go younger with the Olympic roster and he kept with his word. And the Ducks fans know Brian Burke, he's not exactly one who would break his word of promise. Now with the omissions of an American Legend Mike Modono the exclusion of him has been surprising, there were also Bill Guerin and Scott Gomez who were on the omissions list. Here is the roster for Team USA:


USA Olympic Team

Forwards:
David Backus
Dustin Brown
Ryan Callahan
Chris Drury
Patrick Kane
Ryan Kessler
Phil Kessel
Jaime Langebrunner
Ryan Malone
Zack Parise
Joe Pavelski
Bobby Ryan
Paul Stasny

Defensemen
Eric Johnson
Jack Johnson
Mike Komisarek
Paul Martin
Brooks Orpik
Brian Rafalski
Ryan Sutter

Goalies
Ryan Miller
Jonathan Quick
Tim Thomas

The team for the most part except for three player are inexperience at the Olympic level. While the US is inexperienced this team has strong defense, such as Eric Johnson, Jack Johnson, Oprik and definitely Rafalski. Offensively Team USA is very good as well Bobby Ryan, Ryan Kesler, Zach Parise, Patrick Kane. Gritty fowards, hard hitting defenseman the US isn't weak we're inexperienced at most. THN has made a very good assessment of the USA. The United States will match up well to Canada and Russia this roster will not be obliterated by those two countries. In fact they'd be fairly even match ups.

Ryan Miller has showed huge strides and he is the main reason for where the Sabres are, he has stood on his head and he has impressed many, becoming one of the best American born goalies. Tim Thomas won the Vezina Trophy laslt season and while his stats have fallen this season he still is a very good goalie and his name will ring around every where especially younger American born goalies. Jonathan Quick, maybe he was a surprise and he'll most likely be the third goalie behind Miller and Thomas but there had been a tough decision for that position; Craig Anderson. His season with the Avalanche has been nothign short of amazing, he got off to a very hot start. Quick has also been a hot goaltender for the Los Angeles Kings; last season, he was overlooked and he hadn't exactly done things to establish himself near the beginning of the season and most of the season. Erik Ersberg was the No. 1 goalie or Los Angeles, but Ersberg would be beat out by Quick. Anderson and Quick is a tough decision to chose for the American third goaltender spot but Burke wnet with Quick over Anderson. Quick could be good enough next Olympics to back stop Ryan Miller; as with Brodeur this is most likely Tim Thoma's last Olympics he'll be 39 in 2014 unless he decides play in 2014 maybe he will?