I would like this to be the last tournament for Pešan as a coach. Unfortunately, the Czech Hockey Association has made him a person who will raise Czech hockey. So far, I've cheered for him and trusted him. Now he is an incompetent coach for me, who will match Hadamczik and his nomination of Barinka et al. to the Olympics.
I sincerely scare me that this coach will lead us to the next Olympics.
I like Pesan but he really left me with my head shaking here. The Spacek benching didn't even to occur to me as an option.
He was going with a nice youth movement and then reverted back and panicked.
I'm also terrified to see who he picks.. I know some of the Czechs don't like to hear this from me and I"m sorry, but that team should be all NHL. Not ONE Extraliga guy should be allowed withing 1000kms of China. Something tells me our 1C will be Kovar (which will bump out a Zacha, Faksa etc). Something tells me we will be cutting NHL D for someone in Europe. Same with the goalies...
I'm expecting at least 5 non NHL guys on the roster and then really weird combos. Eg. Kubalik and Vrana was a silly combo that lost all 3 games we tried it.. weren't the first 2 losses enough to realize they are better apart?
There is this constant Czechs know better than the rest of the world decision making that keeps backfiring...
Sitting NHL goalies in favor of Euro ones has failed everytime (Salak, Kovar, Bartosak, Francous, Stepanek)
Putting 4th line grinders like Flek in Top 6 and NHL forwards like Chytil to 3rd line has never worked (remember we benched both Chytil and Vrana last tournament)
Basing our Top 6 around a Euro based C like Kovar or Cervus has not worked.
To me the Olympic team should be blatanly obvious and should leave behind 2 or 3 good players but I think we'll probably leave behind 10 good players and then say 2010 and 1998 worked without our stars. Honeslty, those 2 gold medals have been to our detriment as it really shaped this mentality. When, in reality, the big difference for those golds was 2 unbelievable goalie performances.
I honestly think he had 2 many options and got totally overwhelmed. I still am not sure what kind of team he was going for? Eg. the Finns are clearly here to trap and win. Canada is running one line and dumping it in deep and skating like hell. Germans essentially play like the Finns. Russians were there to score (their coaching decision to bring in ringers never works, they need to stop that.. they sat a goalie with a .930 save percentage).