With two goals from Matt Duchene, and one each for Corey Perry and Patrice Bergeron, and 33 saves from Carey Price, Team Canada showed everyone why they’ve been the tournament favorite since the rosters were announced.
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What’s also awesome is that Team Europe, the oldest average team at the tournament, also cobbled together a roster that has them sporting a ideal 2-0-0 record thus far.
Canada finished pool play 3-0 and will face either Russian Federation or North America in a semifinal game Saturday at 7 p.m. Europe (2-1) will meet Sweden in the other semifinal Sunday at 1 p.m.
So, let’s all take a moment to mourn Team USA, who was officially eliminated last night by Team Canada with a 4-2 loss. “We’re the fourth line in the rotation”.
“I thought Canada did an fantastic job of getting in the lanes and taking away any opportunities we had”, Europe coach Ralph Krueger said. Obviously especially after the way it’s gone, it stung our group anyways and to have outside pokes and jab, it doesn’t help but again – I hope that it wasn’t out of disrespect, and that’s all we can really do at this point. “They had a lot of scoring chances in the first period, and a lot of speed, and we didn’t play that well in the first”.
Jaroslav Halak stopped 42 shots for Europe.
The Canada loss was just the coup de grâce; the 3-0 loss to Team Europe, a fine enough group of players who still hadn’t played together more than three times in their life, was the signifying failure. That game goes Sunday at the ACC. US goaltender Jonathan Quick was brilliant against Canada in Sochi, allowing one goal on a deflection by Jamie Benn, who’s injured and not playing in this tournament. They’ve got the puck almost all the time.
So Team Europe wasn’t the story yesterday or even at the top of the list of subtexts.
“It was very important that if they were going to get something, they had to earn it”, Tortorella said.
Crawford’s first start of the tournament was also his worldwide debut with the Canadian team.
Now, after churning out a workman-like 3-0 record in preliminary play, Toews has Canada well positioned in the semifinal no matter who they face in the semifinal on Saturday.
“Definitely that’s going to be a different animal”, Europe winger Marian Hossa said of facing Canada. But Soviet goaltender Vladimir Myshkin stood on his head, and had his team in position to win with a 2-1 lead late in regulation.
The Americans didn’t have many more answers at their respective podiums on this day after their premature ejection from World Cup championship contention than they did on the ice during their defeats to Team Europe and Team Canada.
I guess that’s good for the Minnesota Wild, as they’ll have five of six world cup players back after missing only a few days of training camp because Team Finland met with a similar fate to Team USA. “It’s such a short tournament, you don’t have many chances to make any mistakes or have any letdowns”.
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For anyone who thinks the best part of hockey involves tactical play and defensive efficiency, stuff that glues you to your seat, then the Canada-Europe confrontation probably looked like a masterpiece. The first period was all Canada. “But he has that ability and that knack to step up in big games, and he’s been able to do that for a long time”. It’s what happened in Vancouver and Sochi.
