World Cup: 2016 World Cup — Team North America (Part II)
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Jussi
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Huh? The 3 next generational talents of the NHL will easily lose?
Team with Auston McEichel is stacked with those guys alone.
Kudo Shinichi
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- Apr 20, 2012
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Huh? The 3 next generational talents of the NHL will easily lose?
Team with Auston McEichel is stacked with those guys alone.
Crosby + Tavares + Toews >>>> McDavid + Eichel + Matthews
Based on what? McDavid Eichel and Matthews are all 19. They are unproven but will be way better than those 3 when they peak. They are hungry future generational talents against vets who have already won everything.
Jussi
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Because they will face teams that actaully play for their own country, with team mates they've played before and coaches whose systems and tactics are familiar to them.
sorry but that has nothing to do with their actual chances of winning. This team is better than Finland and I believe they're gonna beat them. They are all born to play on small ice, it will be advantage they have against all european countries, because no matter if the whole swedish team is from the NHL, Canada and America play always the most NA game of all. They have everything they need to be successful - talent, skill, speed, some more experienced players, physical players, defensive players. Funny you mention tactics and games system, when USA and Canada both play pretty similar game, and many of them played together at various world events and are familiar to each other, never mind the quality coaching stuff with McLellan, Cooper, or Tippett.
JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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Jussi
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Matthews generational talent... Okay his projection is top 10-20 Centre in NHL and atm he is maybe average 2-3rd liner. I wouldnt trade him if only for this autumn's World Cup even for Jori Lehterä or Erik Haula.
Im with you! This tournament lost some credability with the gimmick teams. None the less it still intriguing with them, the u23 NA team in particular. How will they do? So hard to predict. Im going to wait until its 20/20 before I comment on those teams relative strenght, compared to for example Finland.
I meant that in the sense that some of them are fairly experienced for their age, it's not just a bunch of rookies who all have just one or two NHL seasons with no further experience at all.
Jussi
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Finnish players are way more familiar to each other, have played several tournaments together so chemistry is already there, coach Marjamäki knows many of the players as well, plus we're tactically way more advanced than an "all-star" team.
Finland is regularly playing with great team-work/tactics/or whatever we want to call that, and it's something that I admire and the hockey world should learn from. I know that on the ice anything can happen, as for Finland, as for Team North America. However, if we're going to compare the quality on paper, the quality of players that play head-to-head in the NHL, and we can actually form an opinion on who's the better player; that's where my confident statement that the NA team is better comes from.
One of the areas I believe the North American team is simply better, is defence.
In terms of experience:
- Finland's defensemen are pretty young in general and not that far from Team North America. Vatanen is 25. Jokipakka is 25. Lindell is 22. Pokka and Maatta are 22. Ristolainen is 21. That's six of the seven d-men on the Finnish roster, who are 25 or younger. Now let's see North America - Murray, Rielly, Trouba, Gostisbehere are 22 or 23. While Ekblad is just 20, he's already better than any finnish blue-liner.
- Average age of a finnish defenseman is 22.8 without 31 yo Lepisto, 24 with him. Average age of a NA defenseman is 21.9. Even if Finland has a SLIGHTLY older group of defensemen, they are less experienced with the NHL game. Pokka and Lindell have played 4 NHL games together so far, while Ristolainen Maatta Vatanen - the best three defenders that Finland has today - have 553 games together. Ekblad, Rielly, and Jones have 635.
- by the way, a team NA forward, Brandan Saad, has played as many playoff games in his career as the whole group of finnish defensemen together in their whole careers.
- Vatanen and Maatta played in Sochi, Lepisto has played 12 games at the last two, this is something that players like Rielly or Ekblad are yet to experience, but:
In terms of chemistry and them having some experience playing together:
Seth Jones and Ryan Murray play together as a pair in Columbus. That's already a huge asset in such a short tournament. They even played together at PPs and PKs this season. Rielly and Murray won the World Championships for Canada this year and they played on the same team also at 2011 U18 worlds.
Jones, Trouba, and Gostisbehere played in one team at the 2013 world juniors (Trouba and Gostisbehere together as a pair). Trouba and Jones played in one team together at 5 tournaments (U17, 2x U18s, U20, and World Championships), and they were even directly paired together at the 2011 U18s. And I'm not even going to mention the US National Team Development Program for U17 and U18 teams, where they played A LOT of games together (with some of the forwards included in this NA team).
In terms of quality of players:
- any defensemen from NA roster is better than Jokipakka, Lindell, or Pokka. Ekblad and Rielly are better than any defensemen that Finland has right now, and overall the group is definitely better. Ekblad+Rielly+Jones >> Ristolainen+Vatanen+Maatta; Trouba+Gostisbehere+Parayko+Murray >>> Lindell+Pokka+Jokipakka+Lepisto
Overall, when you look at their fair amount of experience, skill, and their overall game and what they do on a nightly basis, my opinion is that this U24 team is far better looking on the back-end. Again, that may change on the ice, as it is a team game, anything can happen, and Finland might look far better in their group-stage game.
Also, I don't like the label of an "allstar" team. I believe they will be playing with the same amount of motivation and enthusiasm as any other national team out there. Second, as I said before, this team has great coaching stuff and players that a successful team needs. They are not just talented and skilled. If they were to pick a true all-star squad, they wouldn't pick JT Miller and leave Max Domi or Jonathan Huberdeau. But a player like JT Miller is there to fill specific roles. Players like Couturier or Scheifele are gonna be warriors for this team. They've been very successful in the checking-line roles for Canada at 2015/16 golden teams. This team doesn't just have the talent, skill, but also toughness, physicality, and even leaders on and off the ice, such as McDavid, Saad, Monahan, Ekblad. It's gonna be pretty amazing to see not just all the talent, but all the great personalities, players who simply want to win and love to win. Just to have McDavid and Matthews on the same team is going to be so special. Not just from the hockey perspective. But from who they are as people, one of the future biggest leaders in the NHL.
Jussi
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jj cale
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Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but that is the same for a few teams.
We've all seen Finland be more then the sum of it's parts but we've also seen it be exactly the sum of it's parts or sometimes less.
In no way is Finland AlWAYS more then the sum of it's parts. That narrative that has taken hold around here is starting to be overblown.
If this young guns team comes together they certainly have the talent to beat Finland.
Circling that game on the calendar because Finnish fans seem to think they are gonna be an easy mark. We will see but I am sensing quite a bit of overconfidence, usually a bad thing.
Can't wait.
Don't worry, it won't be the kind of game that's gonna give anyone any reason to gloat. If some Finns have overconfidence, majority of us make it up with complete indifference.
We do care when Finland loses to another NT. But we couldn't care less whether Finland loses to a gimmick or not.
jj cale
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JackSlater
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- Apr 27, 2010
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And thus, to conclude that the Young Gunz have the exact same motivation as any actual national team, a person has to believe that representing a player's nation has literally no impact on their motivation. Interesting conclusion.
Yeah, that was exactly what I was saying. I wasn't trying to say at all that the players will play the WC games as any other top game, whether it is Stanley Cup playoffs, or the World Cup.
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