Team Canada has named its rosters for the upcoming 2017 Sochi Open and the Tournament of Nikolai Puchkov which both will take place in August. 

Heading into the Olympic year, Team Canada will play in two exhibition tournaments in August to give the brass a better look at what they could have heading into Pyeongchang. The Sochi Open, which will take happen between August 6-9th in Russia. The tourney will mark the first pre-Olympic games for Team Canada as GM Sean Burke looks to build a roster that will bring home Canada’s third straight gold medal.

From there, Canada will then play in the Tournament of Nikolai Puchkov in St. Petersburg with a second roster that was released yesterday. Both rosters are made up of many ghosts former NHLers that are currently playing in and around Europe, and it will be up to Sean Burke to put together the best possible team that he can. The thing that really stuck out to me was seeing just how many ex-Oilers (bolded) will be filling roles on these teams, and some of the names may surprise you.

From TSN:

Forwards: Justin Azevedo, Gilbert Brulé, Brandon Buck, Kevin Clark, Andrew Ebbett, Bud Holloway, Rob Klinkhammer, Brandon Kozun, Ben Maxwell, Brandon McMillan, Eric O’Dell, Daniel Paille, Mason Raymond, Max Talbot, Linden Vey

Defence: Chay Genoway, Geoff Kinrade, Patrick McNeill, Maxim Noreau, Mat Robinson, Jonathan Sigalet, Karl Stollery

Goaltenders: Justin Peters, Kevin Poulin

Forwards: Taylor Beck, Sean Collins, Cory Emmerton, Ryan Garbutt, Andrew Gordon, David McIntyre, Jacob Micflikier, Trevor Parkes, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, Derek Roy, Greg Scott, Paul Szczechura, James Wright

Defence: Cam Barker, Carlo Colaiacovo, Stefan Elliott, Marc-Andre Gragnani, Kevin Klein, Shawn Lalonde, Craig Schira

Goaltenders: Kevin Poulin, Ben Scrivens

After seeing the guys that could potentially be representing Canada in the Olympics I can’t help but think that this tournament could be a lot funnier than I initially expected. I don’t know if Canada will have a chance at the threepeat with this talent pool to choose from, but it will definitely keep things interesting. I’m predicting a lot of waist-high breakout passes and weak goals on the glove side which means that the games will likely be a lot more wide open than in Olympics past.

Closer to home, this list highlights just how bad the Oilers have been over the past 10 years when you consider how many of the guys played prominent roles on the team and have since been banished to Europe. Looking at the rosters above, do you think Canada has a chance for its third straight gold medal? Do you even care? What say you, Nation?