A veteran group of skaters and a star in Kopitar along with Slovak and New York Islanders goaltender Jaroslav Halak give them a shot on any sheet of ice. Bobrovsky! He faced two runs in 2 against 1 on, and each time resisted. He scored just after the minute mark to put Canada back into the lead.
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Overhardt says that Winnipeg’s depth on the blue line, specifically the right side with Dustin Byfuglien and Tyler Myers, limits his client’s role in Winnipeg and that a new situation would be best for everyone involved. “I’m still trying to take it all in”. Crosby was at the center of that goal, as the Russians simply couldn’t get him off the puck.
Ryan O’Reilly might have some insight into why Jonathan Toews has lost a mere two games with Team Canada over the past decade. The streak includes his Golden Goal finish to that tournament, the 2014 Sochi Olympics as well as World Championship play and this tournament. If the National Hockey League decides it wants to do some sort of a qualifying tournament (similar to what is done with the World Junior Championships) we could sea a pair of teams fight to get into the tournament while teams like Russian Federation and Canada get automatic bids.
But, as so often has been the case, when things looked questionable for Team Canada, the Crosby Show took over.
And it was No. 87 who set the tone early by scoring to give Canada a 1-0 lead at 7:40 of the first, sweeping in alone after a forecheck poke off Dmitri Kulikov’s stick and then restored order by setting up Brad Marchand off another forecheck sweep off Andrei Markov’s stick to tie the game 2-2 with 2:24 left in the second and only 1:12 after Evgeny Kuznetsov had given Russian Federation a shocking lead. First there was the ridiculous shot by Kucherov, and then some big traffic allowed for the second.
At the start of the second, it was more of the same.
Evgeni Malkin won a face-off in the Russia end of the ice, and when Canada defenseman Jay Bouwmeester unwisely pinched deeper into the zone, Russian defenseman Nikita Zaitsev sprung Nikita Kucherov on a two-on-one rush. That is what makes this Canadian team so special – there is great chemistry amongst the players, but on top of that, this chemistry is nearly effortless.
Artemi Planarian finished the scoring, knocking a puck in from the crease with 8.2 seconds left.
Right now, Russian Federation really needs to hope to develop some more top end defensemen.
Marchand brought Canada even at 2-2 at 17:36 of the second period, just 72 seconds after Evgeny Kuznetsov of the Washington Capitals and Russian Federation had put his homeland ahead, 2-1. “I tried my best”, he said. “He made a lot of really big saves and really kept them in it, especially in the second [period]”.
“You see plays like that, that is where the leadership comes in”. The trio accounted for three of the goals Canada scored, with Crosby scoring the first of the night and Bergeron getting the next two for Canada.
Canada was also aided by tremendous coverage of Alex Ovechkin, whom the team held to a single shot on goal.
At the start of the third Bobrovsky stretched like an acrobat to take a goal away from Marchand, and then Marchand beat Bobrovsky clean on a flawless wrist shot from the top of the circle.
Trailing only once previously, and for all of 89 seconds, Canada scratched back to even just over a minute later on the first of two goals from Brad Marchand. It’s going to be hard because we play here in Canada. “So they’ve been able to skate on the puck and work together properly, and it’s been nice to watch”. In the 3 though after a closely contested game goals were scored by Brad Marchand, Corey Perry and John Tavares. Once the final showdown is set, Canada will square off against its final World Cup counterpart in a best-of-three series to determine which team owns global superiority.
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“Toews does a lot of stuff so (Crosby) can do what he does”, Babcock said after Canada’s win over Russian Federation, which was highlighted by Crosby’s three-point performance. “We now have an opportunity to have success, but we’re going to be measured on what happens next”.
