World Cup: Four Nations Tournament-Team Canada

[centipede2233]

You could nitpick one or two selections on this team and the early day the roster had to be named had some influence in that, but by and large if this team loses it won’t be because of the roster. The WJC on the other hand was insanity, leaving off probably 7/8 players in favour of guys who has no business being there

Politics played into picking binnington and hill over more deserved thompson. Valiquette went on record saying deboer and Cassidy had issues with thompson having both coached him in Vegas and made sure he was left off. If goaltending fails, goalie selection will be further scrutinized

 

[centipede2233]

View attachment 976089
Seeing Scott Salmond involved in any capacity (the guy sitting to McDavid’s left) immediately gives me apprehension; thank god they didn’t leave off Makar and MacKinnon with him involved

I’m so glad dubas is involved so he could sabotage another roster

 

[KillerMillerTime]

Canada could do better than Pietrangelo and Ekblad. I'd be jazzed as a USAH fan if they leave Devin Toews off the roster

US fan here and AP is a better D than Toews. Better skater, puckhandler, passer and shooter. Toews benefits far more from Maker than AP does from his partner.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Last night's victory is OK but not ideal. Canada likely finds themselves in second place after tonight and a reminder - only 2 teams move forward after just 3 games. Then if Sweden wins Saturday (likely) and the US beats Canada (very possible), that makes Monday a must-win for Canada and we'd have to pray for the US beating Sweden in a possibly meaningless game for the US. There's no room for error in this condensed format.

 

[The Panther]

The Canada-Sweden game was okay. First period was quite exciting, and was dominated by Canada.

For pretty much the whole 2nd and a fair chunk of the 3rd, Sweden was the better club, and the overall play was not tremendously exciting. Pretty tight checking.

My takes going forward would be:
-- Marner and McDavid should not be playing together. Put McDavid with Reinhart and Point.
-- Doughty should not be playing at all since he's (a) old and (b) coming off injury. But I guess we're stuck with him. Didn't look good on the Kempe goal and had a handful of weak moments.
-- Makar had some great moments... and a few bad ones. He's good enough to win games for them, potentially, but generally I think he needs to "meat & potatoes" his game a little more. He's always going for the perfect, tricky pass when sometimes the best thing to do is keep it simple. Rip it on net and get back.
-- I don't really get why they started Binnington, who didn't look great on either of the first two goals. (I think it's that 'Cup pedigree' kind of scent he has for coaches.) Will be interesting to see if he starts again.

We can hope for NHL's sake that this tournament is kind of a testing-ground for the 3-point win (regulation), 2-point win (overtime) system, which is vastly better than the NHL's idiotic point system.

 

[NordiquesForeva]

A few observations on last night's game, which was very entertaining and well-played (exceeding my expectations):

I'd be inclined to give Hill the start on Saturday night vs. the U.S. I thought Binnington looked a little shaky.

Cooper seemed to shorten the bench a bit in the 3rd, playing Point with Hagel and Cirelli. Didn't see much of Jarvis, Konecny or Marchand. With respect to the bottom-6, I thought Jarvis, Marchand and Hagel all had very strong games. Point as well. Konecny looked like he was trying too hard to impact the game. Cirelli looked overmatched. Bennett should draw-in for the U.S. game. I'd sit Cirelli, but it'll likely end up being Konecny. I personally think Konecny has more upside on this team if he can find his groove, but Cooper is likely to go with his TB player. Let's see how it goes.

McDavid needs some puck retrieval on that 1st line. Him and Marner don't seem to mesh. I'd move up Hagel and get Reinhart back on his right side at RW. Leave the 2nd and 3rd lines intact. Marner drops down to the 4th line, and drives offense on that line. Cooper will likely play his 4th line more so than Babcock did (probably for a variety of reasons), so Marner shouldn't receive significantly less ice time than he would playing with McDavid. I'd do this:

Hagel - McDavid - Reinhart
Crosby - MacKinnon - Stone
Marchand - Point - Jarvis
Konecny - Bennett - Marner

Really unfortunate about Theodore. I think that's a significant loss for Team Canada. Sanheim is a good d-man, but it'll be interesting to see how the forwards adapt to one less elite PMD on the back-end. Doughty is looking his age, unfortunately. And we need a little more on Makar, who seems deferential to the big starts up-front (that's my take anyway).

There are two big holes in this team, relative to prior best-on-best Canadian teams:

(1) Canada is relatively weak on faceoffs. The 3rd Swedish goal was a direct result of a faceoff loss by Cirelli (on his weak side) then a defensive breakdown. Yes, hard to avoid having that line (and centre) out there after an icing, but its a pervasive issue. Cirelli, our supposed shutdown centre, is right around 50% on the dot this year (and under 40% for his career), so he's not a guy we're going to want out there taking critical faceoffs in the d-zone while protecting a lead. Crosby is elite on the faceoff dot, but gone are the days when we had Toews and Bergeron, two players who hovered in the high-50%/60% range during their careers, in the faceoff dot. We should have taken Robert Thomas (RHS, 56% this year for exactly this reason.

(2) We lack size on D and at forward. Hagel, Konecny, Marchand, Jarvis, and Cirelli are excellent forecheckers, but they're certainly not big, nor intimidating physically. It seemed like other than the first half of the 1st period, Canada wasn't able to sustain pressure on the forecheck and cycle and any chances that were created were done so out of pure skill and talent. Too late to change that now obviously, but certainly a point for consideration for 2026.

 

[Zybalto]

Team Canada 5v5 forward advanced stat rankings from last night:

Icetime:
1. Marner
2. Reinhart
3. McDavid
4. MacKinnon
5. Stone
6. Crosby
7. Point
8. Hagel
9. Marchand
10. Jarvis
11. Cirelli
12. Konecny

CF%
1. Cirelli
2. Marner
3. McDavid
4. Reinhart
5. Marchand
5. Jarvis
7. Hagel
8. Crosby
9. Konecny
10. Point
11. Stone
12. MacKinnon

Shot differential:
1. Crosby
2. MacKinnon
3. Stone
4. Marner
4. McDavid
4. Reinhart
7. Point
8. Marchand
8. Jarvis
10. Cirelli
11. Hagel
12. Konecny

Scoring chance differential:
1. Marner
2. McDavid
2. Reinhart
4. Marchand
4. Jarvis
6. Cirelli
7. Point
8. Crosby
8. Stone
8. MacKinnon
11. Hagel
12. Konecny

High Danger chances differential:
1. Marner
1. McDavid
1. Reinhart
4. Marchand
4. Jarvis
4. Point
7. Crosby
7. Stone
7. MacKinnon
10. Cirelli
10. Hagel
10. Konecny

xGF%:
1. Marchand
1. Jarvis
3. Point
4. Marner
5. Crosby
6. McDavid
7. Reinhart
8. Stone
9. MacKinnon
10. Cirelli
11. Hagel
12. Konecny

 

[bobbythebrain]

Mackinnon is a major puck hog

 

[Tutu to]

Was at the game last night and here are some of my observations.



-McDavid was a 1 man line. Reinhardt and Marner were invisible most of the night.

- Crosby was very good all night. He might not have the dynamic speed Mackinnon or McDavid have but he’s extremely high IQ.

- I didn’t think Mackinnon had a great game tbh. Didn’t use his speed enough 5v5. This even goes more for Makar.

- The Jarvis-Point-Marchand line was the best line 5v5. Created a lot on the forecheck.

- Doughty wasn’t horrible but definitely at times struggled. A bit worried about him.

- I barely noticed Konecny but I thought Hagel and Cirelli did their jobs. Especially on the penalty kill.

 

[Tutu to]

Also something I noticed maybe more live was Sweden did a lot of picks/border line interferences throughout the match which made the forecheck difficult. Overall Sweden seemed like the better organized team. Especially when it came to breakouts.

 

[red devil]

 

[BagHead]

Mackinnon is a major puck hog

Yeah, taking the puck and then rushing it up the ice at lightning speed is kind of his whole thing. That said, it works very well.

 

[TheShape]

I'd go something like for lines 2/3:

Hagel McDavid Reinhart

Marchand Point Marner

I thought Cooper's line combos were a bit weird, but it's always going to look that way I guess with so much talent.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Yeah, taking the puck and then rushing it up the ice at lightning speed is kind of his whole thing. That said, it works very well.

That's fine but he's gotta switch it up a bit...Sweden knew exactly what he was gonna do by the 3rd time

 

[NyQuil]

The minutiae that our media come up with during Team Canada tournaments is hilariously voyeuristic.

What I really want to know is who brushes their teeth earliest in the morning.

When you have a national hockey media that is somewhat divided among 7 metropolitan areas, and then suddenly is unleashed en masse to follow one team, while the entire NHL is put on pause, this is what we end up with.

(not picking on Kenzie specifically, just how my feeds look right now)

 

[Hamilton Bulldogs]

Nice to get a win.

I have no faith in binnington. His rebound control was pretty poor, a lot of his big saves were due to him being out of position and most of his goals allowed are saved by any other goalie in the tournament. Would like to see Monty or Hill get a try for game 2. (even though they likely won't)

 

[BagHead]

That's fine but he's gotta switch it up a bit...Sweden knew exactly what he was gonna do by the 3rd time

I should have put an asterisk in my post, with the asterisk being "*against NHL teams". Against teams as deep as Sweden, it probably doesn't work quite as well. Anyway, I don't think MacKinnon really feels like he can rely on any other tricks. I've watched him for years, and he always does some version of the same thing. Sometimes there's a pass to a teammate, sometimes he dekes, sometimes he just rifles a shot. Always he carries the puck from one end to the other as fast as he can skate. NHL teams know he's going to do it, they just don't have the talent on their 2nd and 3rd pairings to stop it.

 

[NyQuil]

Nice to get a win.

I have no faith in binnington. His rebound control was pretty poor, a lot of his big saves were due to him being out of position and most of his goals allowed are saved by any other goalie in the tournament. Would like to see Monty or Hill get a try for game 2. (even though they likely won't)

What's weird is that he struggled at the World Championships and it was just last year.

He was 11th in save percentage (behind the Polish goalie in 10th) with an .885.
His save percentage last night was: you guessed it, .885.
His save percentage in the NHL is: .897. (NHL average is .902)

How long can he ride his Cup run from 2019? It's been almost 6 years.

Hearing the talking heads parrot the line about "He's been there, he knows how to rise to the occasion" omits all of the other more recent times where he hasn't and didn't.

I like Cam Ward, and he deserved his Cup, but that didn't give him an automatic pass to the top of Canada's list for the rest of his career.

Binnington made some good saves in OT, but like Anton Forsberg in Ottawa, all of the spectacular saves in the world doesn't excuse letting in an absolute stinker or two per game. Those just kill your team's momentum.

Canada needs better goaltending to win this thing.

 

[Spilot23]

Mackinnon is a major puck hog

Somehow as an Avs fan I wish he could be like that in Colorado. Dude always want to pass but last night he tried to do everything by himself in that OT.

 

[sportsvg]

Crosby - McDavid - Stone
Marchand - MacKinnon - Marner
Konecny - Point - Reinhart
Hagel - Cirrelli - Jarvis

Need someone who can figure out how to play with McDavid in a short tournament, if anybody can adapt its Crosby.

Marchand and Konecny could be switched depending on how it looks early, same with Reinhart and Marner.

 

[NyQuil]

Somehow as an Avs fan I wish he could be like that in Colorado. Dude always want to pass but last night he tried to do everything by himself in that OT.

He seemed so jacked out of his mind, like he was operating on pure adrenaline the entire game.

Crosby seems so chill by comparison (at least in his advanced years), it's kind of a funny contrast.

 

[Beau Knows]

Somehow as an Avs fan I wish he could be like that in Colorado. Dude always want to pass but last night he tried to do everything by himself in that OT.

He may have been a little too hyped up to finally put on the Canadian sweater

 

[Spilot23]

He seemed so jacked out of his mind, like he was operating on pure adrenaline the entire game.

Crosby seems so chill by comparison (at least in his advanced years), it's kind of a funny contrast.

Yeah dude was going full berserk mode the entire OT thinking he had to do it all when he had freaking McDavid and Makar with him

 

[NyQuil]

Yeah dude was going full berserk mode the entire OT thinking he had to do it all when he had freaking McDavid and Makar with him

It's ok, we'd already had our Oh Canada moment so early in the tournament on that PP goal.

Canadians after the MacKinnon-Crosby-McDavid goal:

Despite the lack of big game impact, it will be one of those goals people will remember, like Lemieux's "dummy" in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

 

[Sky04]

Mackinnon's only fault was the 3 on 1 in OT, I don't know why anyone is crying over the other ones, he generated those shots/chances himself as opposed to....doing nothing?