The same for Andong Song in 2015, who is the first hockey player born in China to be draft into the NHL.
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Finding that emotional balance will be key for Team USA.
When Sidney Crosby first stepped on the global stage, Team Canada fell flat.
The blue line may be the weak link for the team with only four of the seven defenceman – Michal Kempny, Zbynek Michalek, Polak and Andrej Sustr – playing for National Hockey League teams. Are the players going to have the regular season intensity?
Obviously a team doesn’t want to find itself in a situation where it completely abandons all defensive responsibility, or gets caught making an extra pass that is unnecessary and results in a turnover. His leadership, and experience will be heavily relied on 5on5, on the power play, and on the penalty kill.
The eight teams will be split into two four-team groups. So a lot of younger guys start playing hockey and it’s getting more and more popular, so it’s good.
“We’re more confident than we were at the beginning when everybody was saying that we’re underdogs”, Polak said. Most will be in season form by the time the medal games are played. Anze Kopitar is on this team, for instance.
Wednesday: North America vs. Sweden, 3 p.m., ESPN; Europe vs. “He’s the best in the world at it and it’s going to be fun to watch”.
Tomas Plekanec led the way for the Czechs with three goals over three pre-tournament games.
How do you win this thing anyway?
“We’ve talked about it with our team. We’ll see how the tournament develops and progresses, and we’ll see how interesting it looks, so there could be some live opportunities as well”. Team Europe has players whose countries aren’t individually represented.
While the only Lightning player in the opening match of the tournament was Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop, the next encounter of the tournament will be a bit more strenuous for Bolts fans.
“They’re the team that on paper is the measuring stick for everyone”.
Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom (70 points in 75 games) has emerged as one of the NHL’s elite centers. They will miss Jaromir Jagr who chose not to play. This team is going to heavily rely on offence, and although anyone on this team can put the puck in the back of net, not everyone on this team can keep it out of theirs. “He’s reliable at both ends of the ice, he’s got really good hockey sense. We want to make sure it’s our time to get it done”.
There are four Predators players in the tournament. Thirteen of the team’s 23 players won a gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Sweden’s blue line is outright scary.
Team’s roster includes player from Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Austria, Norway, Switzerland and Slovakia.
Each team plays three times between today and Thursday.
“We tried so many times, but they’re just too good”, Nielsen said. He is used to playing lots of minutes for the Panthers and should have no problems being relied on in his own zone as well as on offence as well. I think the sky’s the limit as far as what he can do.
Teams who underestimate the Czechs do so at their peril. I feel like this tournament sets up perfectly for him. Yes, I did say Canada was the favorites because of the home-ice advantage, but something tells me that this Swede team plays spoiler. “Connor’s a special player, so to be able to play with him and Scheifele out there, I think we can definitely do some damage”. They’re going to be in the lineup.
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In the old days we had the Summit Series in 1972 and five Canada Cups between Bobby Orr’s masterful swan song masterpiece in 1976 and Steve Larmer’s tournament-clinching short-handed breakaway goal in 1991, with Mario Lemieux’s famous 1987 tournament clincher against the Soviet Union in between. “If they can tighten up, they’ve definitely got a shot in this tournament”.
