GDT: Group A - May 16 - Canada vs France

[Belizarius]

I think you understand full well those are such baby steps compared to flat out hockey revolutions that underwent in Hungary, Belarus or Kazakhstan. Sure it's better than nothing but.. The impact of those is going to be minor. For example, more league games will allow more stability and lower level depth but will do little to top end talent. Same with the new rules, top end players should and do move abroad anyway.

At junior level, however, since the split into 1A and 1B France has peaked at 13th place (tied for 6 points with 13-15 too) and bottomed at 20th once. It's hard to expect the team which is 13-20 at U20 level to stay at 8-14 at men's level. We can clearly see those numbers are very different and there is no sensible argument on how they wouldn't start getting closer.

The key is : how many players from BLR ou KAZ, or even NOR, are now reaching pro level or international play?
Not so many. A lot of BLR are becoming Russians to help reach the KHL.
Both countries are borderline WC for years. France as well, but fights back every year since 2008. We went from 1 NHLer (Huet) to 3 for 3 years now (Bellemare/Roussel + Auvitu and now Texier). More players in top Euro leagues. Better youngsters as well. Yes, depth is always a fight and the biggest problem now is the training of young defensemen. That's the major problem and why we are not very good U18-U20.
Our players peak way later than most countries, because training off-rink or play without the puck is not a trend in our country, and that's a problem. They're learning it when they go outside France to play.

 

[bobbythebrain]

How did Myers look?

 

[letsgocaps]

I think you understand full well those are such baby steps compared to flat out hockey revolutions that underwent in Hungary, Belarus or Kazakhstan. Sure it's better than nothing but.. The impact of those is going to be minor. For example, more league games will allow more stability and lower level depth but will do little to top end talent. Same with the new rules, top end players should and do move abroad anyway.

At junior level, however, since the split into 1A and 1B France has peaked at 13th place (tied for 6 points with 13-15 too) and bottomed at 20th once. It's hard to expect the team which is 13-20 at U20 level to stay at 8-14 at men's level. We can clearly see those numbers are very different and there is no sensible argument on how they wouldn't start getting closer.

The U18 promoted to elite just 2 years ago, now the same team was relegated in U20 to div 1b. You can't really draw conclusions from a few games. You have good and bad years, some players were missing (Texier, Guebey) for example etc.
Now I have no idea what happened in blr and hungary, and I certainly don't think we are catching the big teams anytime soon.
There are only like 20k people playing hockey in France(compared to >2million in football and 600k in handball), so it's a very minor sport and we still need to grow the sport in places outside of the traditional areas.

 

[ManwithNoIdentity]

Mantha on fire