Myers close to being Olympian

r By James Gordon – Ottawa Citizen

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r Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff believes if the brain trust that built the Canadian Olympic hockey team had a little more time, it just might have selected two 20-year-old defencemen instead of one.
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r Ruff is understandably biased toward Tyler Myers — a six-foot-eight, 222-pounder who has climbed to the top of the team’s depth chart and was named the NHL rookie of the month for January.
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r There’s no arguing with Myers’ production this season.
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r He had seven goals and 24 assists in 54 games heading into Wednesday’s contest against the Ottawa Senators, placing him fourth in rookie scoring. No first-year player averages more ice time (23:29 per game) than him.
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r “Darn close, darn close,” Ruff said when asked if Myers was good enough to be an Olympian.
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r Myers has shown much of the same poise this season that earned 20-year-old Los Angeles Kings defenceman Drew Doughty a spot on the Canadian squad.
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r “He has that personality that not a lot bothers him,” said Ruff, who admitted he was surprised at Myers’ quick development. “Even after making mistakes, he’s been able to come out and show a real good composure.”
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r Myers would probably be headed to the Vancouver Games had he not pledged allegiance to the country he says developed him into a pro hockey player. One of the stars of Canada’s gold medal-winning 2008-2009 world junior squad, he’s a Houston native who moved to Calgary at the age of 10.
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r “I’ve looked at it like, if I hadn’t made that move to Canada from Texas, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Myers, who has dual citizenship. “I’d probably be playing basketball — I truly do believe that.”
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r The defenceman said when he played in Houston, there were just two hockey teams in a city that had a population of three million.
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r “I started when I was six or seven there, and the hockey wasn’t anywhere near where it was in Calgary,” said Myers, who caught the hockey bug when his dad took him to a Houston Aeros minor league game. “We’d make a lot of four-hour drives to Dallas to play, and even then it wasn’t that big in Dallas.”
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r Because it’s so rare for young defencemen to break into the NHL and become impact players right away, Myers gets asked a lot what his secret is. Even he doesn’t seem to know.
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r “The only thing I can come up with is I think guys are coming up more prepared through junior and wherever they played before this jump,” he said.
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r “They’re coming up more prepared mentally, but also physically . . . they know they have to really push it in the weight room in the off-season,” Myers added. “Obviously these (NHL players) are a lot stronger to play against at this level.”
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r He credits the coaching staff of the Western Hockey League’s Kelowna Rockets for helping him develop quickly.
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