Without NHL players, Olympic men's tournament gives a glimpse of the future

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - The Olympic men's hockey tournament, with NHL players consigned to their teams in North America for the first time since 1994, is a competition perfect for nobody. Enthusiasts may leap at the chance to see some of the sport's rising stars on a grand stage, but they are also most likely be most turned off by the slipshod nature of the games and unpolished nuances. Casual fans may forgive the sloppy finer points, but there are no superstars to draw them in.

The hockey tournament in Pyeongchang became a point of curiosity from the moment it was conceived. With the International Olympic Committee unable to convince NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to halt the league for two weeks, the teams would be comprised of college kids, minor leaguers, semi-retirees and a few veteran stars from Russia's Kontinental Hockey League. What would that look like?

The group round of play has provided an answer. The atmosphere is charged, the games are competitive and the players give maximum, admirable effort. But the quality of play makes it clear that Alex Ovechkin, Auston Matthews, Zdeno Chara and all the rest are at home, that the best players in the world are not contending for a gold medal.

"It's been good hockey," said former NHL all-star Jeremy Roenick, now an NBC analyst. "I would not call it great hockey, for sure. If you're a hockey enthusiast and you know the game extremely well, you see a significant amount of awful hockey, puck decisions, play making, decision-making by a lot of these teams."

For others, the low-wattage names distract from an opposing viewpoint: The tournament displays the depth of talent spread around the globe.

"If you had NHL guys here playing against these same teams, I think there'd still be good competition," said Team Korea forward Mike Testwuide, who grew up in America and spent time with minor league NHL affiliates. "It just shows how strong the world is at hockey. You see the Russian team, the Finns, the Swedes - their second-tier players are NHL-caliber. Maybe they just missed an opportunity, certain things didn't work out."

Switzerland Coach Patrick Fischer said the new crop of players has brought a different intensity. The Swiss lost, 5-1, to Canada, and Fischer believed he had never seen a harder-working Canadian team. To him, the players seemed intent on proving they didn't need NHL players to win a gold medal for Canada.

"We don't have the best players here, which is sad," Fischer said. "I think the best players should be here. But that's the way it is. It's still a high, high quality tournament."

"I think it's excellent hockey," said South Korean Coach Jim Paek, who grew up in Canada and won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the early '90s. "It's very competitive. I mean, Canada has, what, over 600,000 registered hockey players? There's bound to be a few good players in there, and they're all over the world."

Still, it's evident the very best players are home. Saturday night, Russia's 4-0 trouncing of the United States encapsulated both the treats and the drawbacks of Olympic hockey without NHLers. The crowd was electric, a quilt of flag-waving, sweater-wearing, nation-chanting maniacs. U.S. Coach Tony Donato said it was played with the pace and intensity of a Stanley Cup playoff game. Without question, it was a powerful viewing experience.

But the United States, for all its vigor, provided constant reminders that the NHLers aren't here. The Americans could skate with the Russians, but they had trouble maintaining possession and turning chances into real threats. For most teams, games reveal why players here are not in the NHL. The skilled players are too slow to keep up, and the fast players have trouble stickhandling and controlling the game.

"Here's a perfect example: The South Korean team have a bunch of guys that can fly," Roenick said. "You put a puck near them, and the puck explodes into 15,000 pieces."

The Russians, many of who play together in the Kontinental Hockey League and have NHL-caliber skill, stand out in their capacity to execute an offensive plan. They maintain the shape of their attack, and their passes zip from tape to tape. For other teams, offense largely consists of panicked whacks at the puck, perhaps in the general direction of a teammate - "a lot of hope-fors," Roenick said.

Fischer pointed out that the lack of high-end talent has especially harmed the potency of power plays. That makes teams more inclined to take penalties, which further mucks up games.

For connoisseurs, the tournament serves as a unique glimpse at some of the sport's brightest prospects, who typically don't play on national television, or with Olympic-level stakes. Finland's Eeli Tolvanen, a Nashville Predators prospect, stands among the tournament's leading goal scorers. Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin is the heavy favorite to be picked first in the next NHL draft. Team USA's Jordan Greenway is a scout's dream, a blend of massive size, soft hands and fearlessness.

"It's a lot of young players who are eventually going to be big stars in the National Hockey League," said former NHL star Alexei Yashin, a two-time Olympic medalist from Russia. "So they can shine here first. It's like Peter Forsberg in '94."

For hockey fans who want to see the best in the world, they can still turn to the Olympics. The attention placed on the new kind of men's tournament has distracted from the high level of the women's tournament. While the rest of the field has improved, Canada and the United States have taken the sport to new heights while creating a tenacious rivalry.

"Men's hockey? I've watched zero," Washington Capitals Coach Barry Trotz said. "The women's hockey was fantastic. . . . The women go at it hard. I could tell you this about the women's game: It looks totally different now than it did eight years ago."

For the past five Games, Olympic hockey provided a stage for the best the sport can offer. Nearly every game featured, at worst, a handful of the best players in the world. Marquee clashes felt more like all-star games, except with raised stakes and breathless nations. If Canada wins gold this year, the country will rejoice. But the overtime goal Sidney Crosby scored to beat the United States for gold in Vancouver eight years ago was a grandkids-bouncing-on-knees memory. These Olympics have no chance to create that kind of moment.

Still, if the U.S. can coalesce and make a run or Canada plays for a medal, viewers will be rapt. The low-stakes group stage failed to capture much imagination. At some point, the spirit of the event can overtake the diminished quality of hockey.

"To me personally, the Olympic Games have always been a huge moment in anybody's career," Yashin said. "I know a lot of NHL players who are disappointed they didn't come. I'm sure a lot of fans are disappointed they couldn't see the best players. Still, it's a very competitive tournament. To me, any international competition is great. It doesn't matter the level of play."

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The Washington Post's Isabelle Khudhursyan contributed to this report.