For the Canadians, the loss is hard, but perhaps – as the tournament continued – not all that surprising. What if the Canadians could have capitalized on opportunities and knocked off the Swiss in regulation? Among that group of underage performers, six are among the top seven in scoring at the tournament.
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The impact that several 2016 NHL Draft-eligible prospects have had for their respective countries at the IIHF World Junior Championship in Finland this year has been remarkable. Mikko Rantanen agreed. “This was the best game of our tournament, allowing just one goal against Sweden”, Finland’s captain said.
I was disappointed over the Team Canada situation at the World Junior Hockey Championships for a couple of reasons.
High flying Finns: After scoring eight goals in five games on the way to a disappointing seventh-place finish at the 2015 WJC in Montreal and Toronto, Finland is thriving this year on the strength of the most productive offensive line of the tournament.
One of the returns to Winnipeg Tuesday, two arrive Wednesday and the fourth is coming home on Sunday.
Team Canada U21 defeated the Finns 10-9 in overtime to claim the gold medal.
DeBrincat, once a relative unknown whose stellar past season and a half in Erie (93 goals and 176 points in 118 regular-season and playoff games) placed him on USA Hockey’s radar, had an inauspicious debut, as he was ejected for spearing in the first period of the opener against Canada.
“They don’t get to play with that team often in the year”.
Jake Virtanen Virtanen being the only player loaned to the Canadian team from a professional squad, it was evident he would be a top player and leader for the Canadians.
Saarela’s power-play shot from outside went in on Blackwood’s shortside with less than five minutes in the second to tie it 3-3.
Pavel Kraskovski also scored for Russian Federation and Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves for the win. While killing that penalty defenceman Joe Hicketts took a delay of game penalty when trying to clear the puck. Canada took nine penalties in the quarter-final, including four in the third period. The junior hockey system in this country has come under major scrutiny recently for the fact that lots of people make a lot of money on the backs of teens who receive small stipends and the promise of a scholarship with many strings attached, but blowing it up might also be the best way for Canada to ensure its elite talent is properly developed. “We had a pretty tough tournament so we just talked to each other and said that we had to get going and play to our strengths”. Obviously a very weak line which did not help a struggling Marner, as the only points he scored in the rest of the tournament with this line were all on the powerplay. The 8,200-seat Ice Hall was dominated by Canadian fans during the round robin, while the crowd of over 13,000 at Hartwall was split about 50-50 with competing “Suomi!” and “Let’s Go Canada!” chants throughout the game.
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A late game march to the penalty box hurt the Canadians in this one. We showed our character all game long, we never gave up. Again, the discipline being the main in the game. Many goals were not his fault, such as way too many powerplay’s, odd man rushes, turnovers but at the end of the day Blackwood was not enough. They had great tournaments, both of them.
