McLellan wouldn’t confirm a report after Tuesday’s 20-minute team skate that Ekblad has a concussion, saying only that he is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury, but the 20-year-old blue liner didn’t skate with the team.
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With players slumping at their lockers after allowing Russian Federation to score four goals in under seven minutes, McLellan told them they were better than they thought they were at that moment.
By virtue of a tiebreaker in their head-to-head game against Team Russia (during which North America fell 4-3), the 23 and under roster will fail to see the semifinals if Russia manages to pull off a win over Team Finland tomorrow.
McLellan pulled Matt Murray in favour of John Gibson with 4:17 remaining in the period after the four-goal Russian Federation sure.
“We can’t take anyone lightly”, Tavares said.
“Honestly when I scored I thought we were in, maybe we shouldn’t have (celebrated) so hard”, said MacKinnon.
At one point, there was a North American power play and the puck was being moved around between Jack Eichel, McDavid, Matthews, Shayne Gostisbehere and Mark Scheifele – each an emerging star in their own right. “Slow reading, slow reacting and slow to the scoreboard”.
“He’s a huge piece of our team”, said Team North America captain Connor McDavid.
North America’s Johnny Gaudreau scores past Sweden’s goalie Henrik Lundqvist during the first period of a World Cup of Hockey game in Toronto, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016.
Murray was on the wrong end of a young team’s young mistakes. “They’re a team that likes to turn the puck over and get going the other way. We didn’t get that quick enough in all positions: goaltending, defense and forwards”.
Coming into the tournament the hockey world was undecided on whether or not it was a good idea to have the under-24 North American group as part of an global competition. It was an overtime with breakaways and great saves, culminating with a win by the speedy youngsters who have captured the hearts of fans in Toronto.
“Obviously we knew we can’t lose the game”, captain Alex Ovechkin said. “I think if you surveyed 99 out of 100 fans, they’d probably say put them in again, so those are all real positive things”.
“We lost our way a little bit in the second period”.
The North Americans were sailing nicely along, but in a flash it was a tie game. “But moving forward we have to worry about what the Swedes have to offer and just get ready for that”. They took away much of North America’s vaunted speed, not in terms of their foot speed, but in their ability to make decisions. Shayne Gostisbehere hit the post behind Bobrovsky with 14 seconds left, and Russian Federation held on. While players like Tomas Tatar, and Frans Nielsen will see plenty of time battling in the trenches with the best in the tournament, Dylan Larkin will see plenty of time battling to even get on the ice due to Team North America’s questionable coaching. “I think that’s a good sign, but in a short tournament like this, we needed the points”.
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If you watched the 3-on-3 overtime period of the Team North America vs. Team Sweden game on Wednesday afternoon, you got s sneak preview of the future of the that featured a hell bent pace, frenetic action, odd man rushes and scoring chances galore.
