As the sole player in Austrias hockey history to reach star or semi-star status in the NHL, Thomas Vanek has learned to temper expectations on the worldwide circuit.
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Artemi Panarin made it 5-3 with nine seconds left in the game, but that was it for Russian Federation at the competition.
Krueger, a 57-year-old sporting renaissance man who took leave of his job as chairman of English Premier League soccer club Southampton to coach here, said he knows at least one thing: The slapdash, thrown-together nature of his team can be spun as an advantage. Standing in the way of the Swedes on their quest for revenge? “He played unbelievable. When they score, it’s not his mistake”. “We have to play a ideal game, and we have to be lucky”. Mostly everything in between was pretty boring. That was when Backstrom deposited an Anton Stralman rebound past Halak and into the net. Henrik Lundqvist has a big test in front of him. While Team North America has been an absolute blast to watch, I can’t help but think I’d be annoyed as a Slovenian who wants to see Anze Kopitar play with his countrymen and not a hodge podge of others who live on the continent. That goal, though, stood, and touched off a scene with the European team holding each other and jumping up and down in the corner.
Karlsson’s shot late in the third deflected off a defender and past Halak to tie the game and send the affair to OT, where Tatar did exactly what he did on his first goal – chase the play down until the end. “I think it was 33-to-1 odds against us”.
They pick their spots to strike and showed even more offensive jump against Sweden than they had in previous games.
If there’s one aspect that’s struck Canadian head coach Mike Babcock and the team’s brass in studying the rise of Team Europe, it’s their tremendous growth after a messy start. They looked to be too slow and didn’t have the depth of skill to counter. “They built a team with a lot of stars over there and they got a lot of experience”.
There’s a chance those two all-star teams could go away for the next World Cup of Hockey. Tats shot the puck, scooped up the rebound that Lundqvist gave up and didn’t waste any time before burying the puck. It could happen but it is less likely than losing a single game. “You do not see much what he (can) do because he’s so professional”. Great awareness at center ice to drive into the zone and follow his shot the whole way through. “He was part of every coaching meeting, part of how we were going to beat the European teams”.
Captain Kopitar, 29, has skated a team-high 22:46 per game, lining up against the other teams go-to offensive threats almost every shift.
The Swedes had struggled to do anything on offense up to that point in the game, which is a testament to the stingy defense Europe played. The Europeans relish the challenge, believing in themselves when no one believed they would be close to the final when the tournament began. But Halak kept Europe’s dreams alive with some great goaltending.
“He just knows he’s going to have success over time”.
“I had a little bit more time than you typically get”, Crosby said. That kept Russian Federation close enough to not only tie the game at 1-1 on a goal from Nikita Kucherov, but take the lead 2-1 with Evgeny Kuznetsov beating Carey Price with less than four minutes to go in the middle frame. Tatar got the puck in deep, Kopitar threw it around the boards from the right to left side. He grabbed a loose a puck in the right faceoff circle and slung a pass through skates and sticks to Marchand cross-ice, his shot beating Bobrovsky.
The last team standing in the way of juggernaut Canada winning the World Cup of Hockey was a figment of the NHL’s imagination. “It’s going to be fun”.
Frans Nielsen had a quieter game than the previous ones in the tournament, but he was by no means a non-factor.
Through three games at the World Cup of Hockey, however, the Slovenian suiting up for Team Europe has yet to find the back of the net.
Tomas Tatar was a beast in this game.
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As for Backstrom, who leads all Swedish forwards with three points, competing in a World Cup final would surely be extra sweet. He was all over the place out there today and seemed risky all afternoon. He missed Russia’s round-robin finale Thursday against Finland and was scratched again from the lineup Saturday night against Canada.
