Olympics Watch!
Valtteri Filppula and Ville Leino were officially invited to the Olympic camp for Team Finland, joining a plethora of other prospective Red Wing Olympians. The list of invitees is up to – by my count – 12:
Sweden :: Jonathan Ericsson, Tomas Holmstrom, Niklas Kronwall, Daniel Larsson, Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, [Andreas Lilja – but it’s probably not to be], [Johan Franzen, who wasn’t invited but will probably still be on the team]
Finland :: Valtteri Filppula, Ville Leino
United States :: Brian Rafalski
Canada :: Dan Cleary
Russia :: Pavel Datsyuk
Slovakia :: Tomas Tatar
Of the 20 players FOR SURE on the opening day roster, 11 have garnered invitations — with Griffins goaltender Daniel Larsson and 2009 Draft Pick Tomas Tatar joining them. This means that more than half of the Detroit Red Wings could potentially be playing at the Vancouver Games.
I wonder if Kris Draper, Darren Helm, Jimmy Howard, Brett Lebda, Kirk Maltby, Derek Meech, Chris Osgood, and Brad Stuart feel left out.