“There’s perhaps a gut check for everybody that’s on this team to know or to evaluate really what they were able to give or what they gave for the red white and the blue”, Backes said.
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A 4-1 success against Team Europe ensured Canada completed the group stage with a flawless record.
The Russians were in control of their own destiny entering play against Finland on Thursday afternoon.
Kane and the US played a meaningless game against the Czech Republic on Thursday night and the Americans’ woes continued with a 4-3 loss that added to the pain of having already failed to advance to the semifinals.
Toews typically lines up as Canada’s top checking centre, matched up against the opposition’s top line.
The Russians, meanwhile, have a solid netminder in Sergei Bobrovsky and are anchored up front by forwards Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. “We had some breakaways, had some chances, didn’t score, and that game got away from us [and] fell apart”, captain Joe Pavelski said. Being one of the few skill players on Team USA, Kane has been the defensive focus of opponents and hasn’t had the time and space to flash his offensive skills.
“We just have to play our style of game and try to beat them”. Still discombobulated from losing 1-0 to Canada in the 2014 Olympic semifinals, Team USA phoned in a 5-0 gimme to Finland and flew home medal-free.
“They’re incredible”, Team Canada forward Brad Marchand said.
Every one of those guys – plus defensemen Derian Hatcher, Kevin Hatcher, Mathieu Schneider, Gary Suter and Phil Housley (a healthy scratch for all but one game in the tournament) – is in the USA Hockey Hall of Fame. “I think we know at this point that whoever we play, we’d better be ready to move our feet”. The hit (on Ekblad) was a clean hit, on Hedman, it was bad, but you keep hitting and sometimes bad things happen.
Head coach Mike Babcock said his lineup will be announced after practice Friday. Kessel coming off of a Stanley Cup winning team and among the highest scoring players for the playoffs clearly upset sent out this tweet above which obviously went viral. He said players were in tears following the loss to Canada.
Although they dominated their group, Canada’s captain Sidney Crosby is anticipating a hard game on Saturday. “I think that our game allows emotion, competitiveness, caring about each other (to) close that gap more than any other sport”. Ovechkin and company are going to have their hands full as they look to end Russia’s lengthy title drought in best-on-best tournaments.
The Canadian roster is so deep, Marchand said he caught himself in the early going just looking at the guys in the locker-room. Left off the team along with scoring forwards Kyle Okposo and Tyler Johnson and defensemen Justin Faulk, Kevin Shattenkirk and Cam Fowler, the Stanley Cup-winning Pittsburgh Penguins winger tweeted after the US loss: “Just sitting around the house tonight (with) my dog”. “Being in this city and taking everything in and being around the fans and all the Canadian jerseys all the time, everything about (this) has been incredible”.
“There was a lot to play for in that game”. They also defended their teammates against criticism, even while conceding the results weren’t good enough. It’s do or die now.
“To me, it’s a little self-serving, and quite honestly, it doesn’t make USA Hockey look any better”, Tortorella told ESPN.
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Russian Federation finished round-robin play with a 2-1 record, scoring eight goals while giving up five against.
