Canada’s power play has struggled badly so far in the tournament and Sam Dickinson has not been on the ice for one second of PP time. Despite the fact that it’s Dickinson, not Oliver Bonk, who runs the point in London.
That’s a mistake by a coach not putting his players in a position to succeed.
D’Amato could run the PP for team Canada and normally beat Latvia.
Let’s be real. Any single one of the Team Canada’s D-Men can run a successful Powerplay against Latvia in 19 out of 20 games. Sometimes shit happens.
All this garbage about who they didn’t take and who the coach is etc is complete garbage. There was more than enough talent on that ice tonight to beat Latvia with their eyes closed. The team came out overconfident, allowed Latvia to settle into a defensive shut down mode and the Canadian Players did not execute well enough to penetrate it.
The passing was outrageously poor. Stupid individual efforts. Blasting pucks from the point directly into Latvians less than 5 feet from the shooter.
They took stupid lazy penalties because they weren’t moving their feet and made stupid decisions with and without the puck. If they had have executed a pass (like the one to Ritchie) with any sort of consistency, they’d have run away with that game.
This armchair quarterbacking is ridiculous. EXECUTE like they are capable and they win. Execute like they did tonight and you lose. This is the reason why teams like Peterborough beat top teams in the OHL. Those top teams don’t execute while the Petes work their asses off trying their best to hang in and they end up successful sometimes.
Somehow thinking Senneke and Hunter would have made a difference is ridiculous. If the players don’t execute, it doesn’t matter who they take and who is coaching. Using that as an excuse is like saying that although Team Canada with all their 1st and 2nd round NHL picks clearly wasn’t enough and maybe if they had taken different 1st and 2nd round picks, they would have won. Preposterous.
Sometimes it is good to get this type of wake-up call. Like I said previously, losing to Latvia is meaningless. Beat Germany and USA and they win the Pool. If they can learn from this and take the game more seriously the rest of the way, it will be a good lesson learned.