Thanks to the NHL success of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, and Vladimir Tarasenko, Russia has quickly become one of hockey’s greatest breeding grounds. “He’ll be with his peers, so it’ll be even more fun to watch”.
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Something caught my attention for fantasy purposes (and hey AATJ has a fantasy league you can still join here!) when I was reading ESPN.com’s oral history of the 1996 United States World Cup of Hockey team: Mathieu Schneider, ’96 US defenseman, said that when he got back to training camp after the USA won, he “was three steps ahead of everyone else”.
Team Russia will be led by their dynamic forwards that have the ability to score at will. Regulation wins are favorable because they will factor into the tiebreaking process used to determine which teams advance to the elimination round in the event teams are tied in points after the three preliminary games.
Washington Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov (77 points in 82 games) is a unsafe offensive weapon who is a wizard when he has the puck.
Wayne Gretzky is where you start and end with players and scoring, so he’s a good first test case. And there are the three Stanley Cups he has hoisted as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks.
The eight teams will be split into two four-team groups.
KHL stars Ivan Telegin, Vadim Shipachyov, and former Florida Panthers forward Evgeny Dadonov round up an impressive forward group.
“You look at 1960, 1980 and 1996, that’s three times good things have happened for us before”, Kane said, referring to the two Olympic gold medals won by the USA, and the World Cup title in 1996.
Russian Federation struggles to produce defensemen. While it may lack the significance of the Olympics, the World Cup is another chance at worldwide glory on home turf for Canada.
Babcock was satisfied with Price’s second start, against Russian Federation. Montreal Canadiens defensemen Alexei Emelin (12 points in 72 games) and Andrei Markov (44 points in 82 games) are arguably the two most experienced defensemen on the team. Perhaps most telling is hearing from the players of Team Europe and the pride they feel representing more than just a country.
Russian Federation should have strong goaltending, which could overcome their defensive deficiencies. They may have just had bad puck luck. Bobrovsky is a Vezina Torphy victor (2012-13). For example look at the Colorado Avalanche.
Negotiations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the National Hockey League and Pyeongchang 2018 are ongoing but little progress has been made. Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy should serve as a quality third-string goaltender.
The Canadians will get their pursuit of a successful World Cup of Hockey title defence – they won the event when it was last staged in 2004 – up and running with a clash against the Czech Republic tomorrow. “Still, they’ve got some special players and they can certainly knock someone off here”. However, their defense has been a mess, to say the least.
“It’s just about getting minutes played and getting a few shots and getting the tempo of the game going”, said Price, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2015.
Bobrovsky will need to be at his best in order for Russian Federation to have a chance of winning the tournament.
But ESPN does deserve some slack when it comes to their lack of coverage, the worldwide leader hasn’t displayed the sport because before they didn’t have broadcasting rights.
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And for some teams, it’ll be over awfully quick. Finland 3 – that’s my surprise pick.
