I remember seeing hockey analysts sharing their projecting for the men’s Olympic team earlier this month and thinking “man, the Olympics are still so far away, why are we taking guesses now?”

And then I realized they’re only 6 months away.

I’ll admit I enjoy reading criticism that people post on social media when they disagree with Player A being on the roster or leaving Player B off. But at the same time, there are some pretty, uh, interesting takes out there.

If NHLers do go to #Beijing2022, @mike_p_johnson and @CraigJButton project 🇨🇦 Canada's 2022 men’s Olympic roster: https://t.co/LXr3igHaDo#TSNHockey pic.twitter.com/8a5gxLyoH5

— TSN Hockey (@TSNHockey) July 28, 2021

Now it’s my turn to hop on the bandwagon and create my own lineup for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

I’m sure you know by now that the NHL is sending their players to Beijing next February, unlike the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang in which Canada basically iced a Spengler Cup roster and walked away with a bronze medal after suffering defeat to an even German squad. But this year will be a best-on-best tournament and that’s how the Olympics should be, in my opinion. In the last two years the NHL has participated, Canada took home the gold medal and I could definitely see them going for the trifecta.

Without further ado, here’s who I think should be on Canada’s Olympic Team.

Goalies:

Carey Price

Marc-Andre Fleury

Darcy Kuemper

No surprises here. Kuemper is a better goalie than you think, but I’d expect to see the games split by the top 2 goalies.

Defenceman

Shea Theodore                        Cale Makar

Jakob Chychrun                      Alex Pietrangelo

Thomas Chabot                       Dougie Hamilton

Adam Pelech                           Kris Letang

Adam Pelech might be an outlier on this list, but he’s one of the league’s best shutdown defencemen. I considered Morgan Rielly, Aaron Ekblad, and Ekblad’s teammate Mackenzie Weegar, who showed he’s capable of being a top defenceman when Ekblad suffered his horrific injury last season.

Forwards

Nathan MacKinnon                 Connor McDavid         Mitch Marner

Jonathan Huberdeau              Sidney Crosby             Brayden Point

Brad Marchand                       Patrice Bergeron         Mark Stone

John Tavares                           Mat Barzal                   Steven Stamkos

Ryan O’Reilly                           Mark Scheifele

I’m drooling at the thought of Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon on a line together. They played together at the World Cup of Hockey but that was before Mack had his breakout season and McDavid was only a sophomore in the NHL.  That third line would make an elite shutdown trio. I want to put Sean Couturier on this roster, but I couldn’t decide who to omit. I don’t think it will end well for Canadian GM Doug Armstrong if his own NHL player Ryan O’Reilly doesn’t make that team, even if that involves cutting an elite two-way forward like Couturier.