Much like Team Europe, a collection of players from eight European countries, North America made a great first impression after plenty of criticism about being a gimmick.
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Quarterback Darian Durant scored on a six-yard touchdown run on his team’s first overtime possession to earn the Saskatchewan Roughriders a 26-23 Canadian Football League victory over the Edmonton Eskimos on Sunday in Regina. But the team that should have been insulted was Russian Federation.
“We knew they had lots of speed, especially up front”, Bobrovsky said. But unless they can figure out a way to beat Sweden on Thursday in their final game of group play there may not be many more opportunities to see them in action.
Connor McDavid #97 of Team North America celebrates a goal. It took a late goal by Doug Wilson to set up overtime, where Paul Coffey’s lunging breakup of a Soviet 2-on-1 set the stage of Mike Bossy’s sudden death victor.
In other words, Rielly was not accepting compliments as easily as he should have. North America didn’t stop buzzing, though.
Team North America and Russian Federation are tied at 1-1 with Sweden leading the group at 1-0 and Finland 0-1.
“I think we definitely have turned some heads”, McDavid said”.
At the heart of the game was skill.
Both teams came out of the gate ready to play, and traded rushes in the early moments of the game.
Russian Federation tried their damnedest to just keep it to 5 on 5 and tried to score in whatever fashion they could.
Toronto Maple Leafs 2016 No. 1 pick Auston Matthews scored on a 2-on-1 rush off a pass from Edmonton Oilers 2015 No. 1 pick Connor McDavid, and Morgan Rielly and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had goals for North America (1-1), which outshot Russian Federation 45-23. They went on to smother their rivals in an impressive 6-3 win, finishing the round robin with a flawless record and dropping Canada down to fourth place.
Defenceman Aaron Ekblad, who led all Team North America skaters with 23:53 ice time Sunday, sat out Monday’s game with an upper body injury.
“The ability to roll four lines out, of a very skilled and [high] pace level – it doesn’t fall off, so our opposition doesn’t necessarily get a breather”, McLellan said when asked why his team has been successful already in the tournament. “If we’re going to play with the puck, these guys start to do something wrong for sure”. “It was really important for us to have puck control”. McLellan said it was a maintenance day and expects him to play against Sweden, but if he cant then North America would have to dress 13 forwards and five defensemen. We want to swing the bat and put the ball in play. More importantly, he added, they know it.
When the game actually began, Kuznetsov failed to take his own advice.
MacKinnon tried two dekes.
At first, it seemed like a foolish strategy.
I dunno, what do you think?
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It was that willingness to take on a beating that set up a great pass from MacKinnon to Nugent-Hopkins for the third-period goal that pulled North America within 4-3. He doesn’t simply want to show off his skill and speed. And for a while, it looked like were going to once again teach their elders a lesson. “We’re going to be a little bit of a different team than what we’ve seen the past couple of years”. Gibson made an angled save on a Forsberg shot, but the puck came out the other side where Niklas Backstrom knifed it into the empty side of the goal. He kicked the puck right back out to the slot, and Namestnikov knocked the puck off the post and off the skate of the sprawling netminder to tie the game.
