The pipeline of young talent for next time around?
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“We’ve shown it in moments, where we hem teams in their zone (and) they can’t get out”, Toews said of the Canadians’ best game.
“I thought Canada did an fantastic job of getting in the lanes and taking away any opportunities we had, ” Europe coach Ralph Krueger said. “It’s not a player’s job to speculate who should or shouldn’t be on the team before or after the tournament”.
“Just sitting around the house tonight (with) my dog”, Kessel tweeted. “Felt like I should be doing something important, but couldn’t put my finger on it”, Kessel tweed from his [at sign] PKessel81 account.
USA management went with a sandpaper style of play that nearly resulted in a silver medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics but hasnt worked since.
“It’s disappointing”, United States of America forward David Backes said.
“To come here and flop like we did is extremely disappointing”, defenseman Ryan Suter said. “We have some work to get respect back and that stuff doesn’t help”. Canada’s talent just overwhelmed the Europeans though as it did the Czechs and Americans in two previous games which weren’t all that close. But Sweden got the point it needed to move to the semifinals, while North America needs Finland to beat Russian Federation today. Just the speed and excitement they are generating throughout this tournament.
In the meantime, Finland forward Leo Komarov, who will report to the Maple Leafs training camp now that his nation is done at the World Cup, was sharply criticized by Sweden for two hits – one that put Aaron Ekblad out of the tournament, and another that rocked Victor Hedman.
Toews: “Our defensive play is improving”.
Kessel, who was a part of the silver-medal effort for the U.S.at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and was on the USA team that finished without a medal in the 2014 Games, was left off the roster for the World Cup of Hockey after a strong season with the Stanley Cup champion Penguins. But when they’ve been playing in the program, for the whole USA Hockey, it just does not look good. Tortorella, as old-school a coach as there is left, wanted to play his brand of hockey and stood by his roster construction and style.
The Canadians have been playing so well in this tournament, it really seems like it’s up to the opposition – it was determined later in the day it would be Russia- to figure out a way to beat them rather than the opposite. “Those guys have big time heart and when I talk about caring, they’d be the nucleus of the caring and they compete and they can play for me any day”. They’re even deeper on defense despite the absence of Duncan Keith.
Tortorella was not made available to reporters on Wednesday. “But there’s a lot of growth in this game for us”.
“To me, it’s a little self-serving, and quite honestly, it doesn’t make USA Hockey look any better either”, Tortorella said of the criticism.
“I don’t think too many guys are thinking about it”, Saad said. Hes just a great coach. “Watching as a kid, watching Olympics, watching world juniors”.
On Team North America alone there are Matthews, Gaudreau, forwards Jack Eichel and Brandon Saad and defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and Seth Jones who should be wearing red, white and blue if National Hockey League players participate in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
“We had 20 scoring chances, they had nine”, Tortorella said. “I think we have enough skill, but in the four days we played, we didn’t generate enough offence”.
For now, there is the final game against the Czechs.
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Although the USA dominated the medal count at the Rio Olympics – winning golds in everything from basketball to boxing to BMX – it still can’t compete with Canada when it comes to hockey. Thats what our players came for; they came to win..
