You ever see the famous shootout scene outside the bank in Heat? The North Americans recorded eight shots in the first 4:30 and generated five – five! – breakaways in the first period, including another one for Gaudreau that he converted at 13:57 for a 3-1 lead. “Which, you know, has been their strength, and that’s the way they have to play to win games”. The most exciting show on ice has two victories and a one-goal loss but needs Finland to beat Russian Federation on Thursday to advance. Auston Matthews and Vincent Trocheck also found the back of the net in the game. Sep.
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But Team North America restored their two-goal lead five minutes later when Gaudreau, who took off all alone from the USA blueline, used a nifty deke to beat a sprawled Lundqvist. And it’s an absolute shame if it is.
“I think we definitely have turned some heads”, McDavid said”. Canada is so deep in talent that they could field two teams and have them both be highly competitive, but the US does not have that same luxury, thus taking that top end talent from Team USA severely impacted their roster.
“There is definitely a fantastic future coming here, not only for the United States of America, I think for Canada, also”, Tortorella said. “It’ll be fun to see what happens if they come together”.
The Team North American players are the only ones doing what they do – and that’s unlikely to change.
We had seen 56 seconds of hockey. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to play quite the same way, but that would sure be nice”.
“You can probably chalk that one up as we weren’t ready to play”, said the reigning Hart Trophy and Art Ross victor who has been held off the board thus far.
“I thought that we could be unsafe”. Gaudreau would make up for his earlier miss, freezing Lundqvist with a lovely forehand-backhand move.
“He had a lot of time”. “I made the first move and I lost”.
No connection offered more intrigue than Matthews and McDavid, future cornerstones of their respective teams in Toronto and Edmonton.
There might be another World Cup.
It’s the opposite for North America, which went from euphoria to uncertainty.
“If I get a vote I’d like to do it again”, McLellan said.
He loved the style of play. Against what may be the world’s greatest defensive corps, North America made the game look like an amusement park. He has them playing enough defense and, with assistant coach Dave Tippett’s assistance, developed a shut-down penalty kill. It’s a thrill. The only two great games in this tournament have involved the kids. This team, gimmick or not, is the best of hockey. When you have a guy like Johnny Gaudreau, you let him make his plays and his passes. By the end of the second period, they’d exchanged 64 shots. “They were counting on their speed and their defense was holding up”.
And here is the replay of MacKinnon’s goal where he deftly deked and pulled the puck back as Lundqvist poked at the puck too soon. Even if Eichel, Gaudreau, Saad and Jones were the only likely candidates, they would have helped.
It was like that all game. Matthews, a native of Scottsdale, Ariz., snatched the rebound and then shielded the puck from defenceman Victor Hedman while on his knees. McDavid was flying at mach speed through the neutral zone.
And there was still another McDavid breakaway after that, another Gaudreau breakaway (successful), and ANOTHER McDavid breakaway. We haven’t played the way I think we can but there’s one more game for us to do that and show the world that we can play.
Ten years from now, 20 years from now, hockey fans will remember those moments.
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But you know what would be even better?
