New York Islanders star John Tavares scored twice to lead Canada to a 5-2 victory over the United States on Saturday night in a World Cup of Hockey exhibition game.
Advertisement
Team Canada will have Sunday off, practice in Ottawa Monday and then head to Pittsburgh to face Russian Federation on Wednesday at the Consol Energy Center.
“There’s no excuse, both teams had to be ready for it and had the same situation in front of them, but they played better than us (Saturday)”.
With still more penalties being called, Canada went ahead 2-0 on a four-on-three play when an intended pass by Tavares clipped off US defenceman Ryan McDonagh and went in behind Schneider.
“We’re focused on how we want to play, but there are always in-game adjustments”, said Crosby. “An unbelievable atmosphere. I’m glad we got to do it in Columbus, and show not only USA Hockey about Columbus but show the fans a good show”. Perry did a pretty good job of making sure he mixed it up and started a scrum to end the second period that was typical of the way the night went between these two rivals.
Line change: Tyler Seguin began the game as Crosby’s replacement on Canada’s line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, momentarily giving Boston Bruins fans nausea seeing the forward reunited with his former teammates. “We’ve just to get a bit more out of him”. Players are still trying to get back into the routine and physical conditioning of playing consistently.
Logan Couture and Jay Bouwmeester also had goals for Canada.
“It’s really important (for confidence)”, added Babcock. “I’ve never been on a team with so much skill and so much grit at the same time”. When you don’t score, you press. You get a glut of talented players, with many of them having championship experience on their extensive resumes. “It’s plenty of time because I’ve certainly been involved in teams that have had as few as three days to prepare, like an Olympics”. If the USA makes a mistake in its own end, Canada will make it count.
Sure, the result will be meaningless when Canada and the Americans face off on September 20th in Toronto but messages have been sent both ways now.
“The hardest part for me in those first two games (against the U.S.) was controlling the puck at that high of a level and that speed”, he said. With names like Crosby, Price, Tavares and Weber highlighting the Canadian roster, a loss would be not only a travesty but also just plain unlikely.
There is rust coming out of the summer, were hitting goalposts, missing open nets and everything was there (Friday) but the finishing.
The effort is only going to have to improve because before the Canadians know it this tournament will be under way and you can be guaranteed even if the exhibition games are intense theyll get even more hard.
The third edition of the World Cup of Hockey begins next Saturday in Toronto, an eight-team worldwide tournament that includes two teams of players from multiple countries and is taking place right before the start of a new NHL season. Niskanen said he spent more time scrimmaging to get game-like repetitions in preparation for playing on Team USA. The strategy seemed to work as Canada dictated the terms of play with 43 to 25 shots.
“Through the picking of the team, right on through up until today, that has been the whole mantra”, Tortorella said.
Tortorella acknowledged the US isn’t the most skilled team in the tournament, and it did fine physically going up against Canada in bump-and-grind, testy situations. If they take anything less than first place, it’ll be a national upset – as is usually the case with Canada and hockey.
“When I played for Germany in the ’80s, there were only eight and when they expanded to 16 teams in 1999 in Switzerland, it allowed teams to have a platform”, said Krueger.
“Yeah, I’m anxious to see how crisp it is”, Niskanen said. We’ll see where it goes.
Advertisement
“Quite honestly I felt we played better minutes (Saturday) than we did (Friday)”.
