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WC: Semifinal Pre-Game Talk

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JackSlater said:
Yes, obviously this is no dream team, and I agree about the agenda. You will still see Russians boasting about beating Canada's 2008 WC team and how is was "nearly" the Canadian Olympic team, despite that being far from the truth. If a team loses, well it's easily justified as a loss to Canada's "dream team". If they win, it's a noteworthy achievement as they beat Canada's "dream team". Just because it might be a dream team for some other country doesn't make it so for Canada.





Yeah Minnesota wouldn't release him. The 2013 team was the only Canadian team without a single player missing, outside of injuries.



Some years the quality of the roster is very similar, and it is never loaded with KHL or European based players.
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This Canadian team is the future of Canadian hockey... Seguin, Hall, MacKinnon, Duchene, Eberle, etc., ...but its definitely not a dream team. At the risk of saying something controversial, which I would never normally do, if you subtract one player from this team, Sidney Crosby, the character and quality of the team changes dramatically. These other guys wouldn't be nearly as successful on their own without him. Half of them are from the Edmonton Oilers, for God's sake. Aside from being the best player in the World, Crosby is by far the best leader in all of hockey, and everybody around him gets a huge dose of confidence knowing he's just down the bench. You play with impunity when you know that Crosby is on your side.
 
Not sure why people are making such a big deal out of the "dream team" statement here...it is a dream team for the WC Tournament because it's the best roster on paper Canada has had at the WC in a long time and has Crosby on it. Olympics are obviously a completely different beast all together.

Yeah the defense isn't great nor is the goaltending but we've got 6-7 forwards that would likely also be on the Olympic team.
 
Jablkon said:
This was exactly my feeling when I was reading comments about canadian B,C,D teams. If we win it, good for us, if not it was just our C team. And even in this case of "dream team" that "protection" is comming from your/canadian side which make you definetely look oversensitive to thoughts that somebody could say "my team (i.e. other than canadian) is the worlds best team". If you really suspect other fans being completely blind and ignorant to olympic competitions or to rosters, just keep continue... But when some people here can go that farther evaluating WJC as not best of best and spending time looking for juniors who can not participate, there is something to think about..... You can be definetely more generous in this topic IMO.
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I completely agree that a lot of the talk about A/B/C/D teams has the same agenda. If Canada loses, it was just a D team anyway. If Canada wins, hey look we won with only the D team. This is how fans think. Both sides are posturing.

Yakushev72 said:
This Canadian team is the future of Canadian hockey... Seguin, Hall, MacKinnon, Duchene, Eberle, etc., ...but its definitely not a dream team. At the risk of saying something controversial, which I would never normally do, if you subtract one player from this team, Sidney Crosby, the character and quality of the team changes dramatically. These other guys wouldn't be nearly as successful on their own without him. Half of them are from the Edmonton Oilers, for God's sake. Aside from being the best player in the World, Crosby is by far the best leader in all of hockey, and everybody around him gets a huge dose of confidence knowing he's just down the bench. You play with impunity when you know that Crosby is on your side.
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I agree that this team has a lot of potentially significant forwards for Canada, but is no dream team. I also agree that Crosby is a huge boon for this team - he takes the attention so that the others just have to go out and play. Remove Crosby and the captain is probably Spezza, which is a significant drop in terms of stature.
 
illpucks said:
What if McDavid loses tonight and plays on Sunday in the final?
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No way are they gonna bump an NHLer who gave up his time and body to get them this far for a prospect in my opinion. Ovie coming over is one thing. He's a legendary Russian player. I just can't see it happening, regardless of how good McDavid is.
 
Yakushev72 said:
This Canadian team is the future of Canadian hockey... Seguin, Hall, MacKinnon, Duchene, Eberle, etc., ...but its definitely not a dream team. At the risk of saying something controversial, which I would never normally do, if you subtract one player from this team, Sidney Crosby, the character and quality of the team changes dramatically. These other guys wouldn't be nearly as successful on their own without him. Half of them are from the Edmonton Oilers, for God's sake. Aside from being the best player in the World, Crosby is by far the best leader in all of hockey, and everybody around him gets a huge dose of confidence knowing he's just down the bench. You play with impunity when you know that Crosby is on your side.
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Yeah that totally explains the Pens for the last bunch of years... Crosby has once again not been close to the best player in the big red Canadian Maple Leaf in this tournament.

He is arguably the best player in the world (yes there are arguments that he is not at this point) but sorry he is not the best leader in hockey, not close in my opinion.

Great player, maybe a top 10 all-time player, not close to what people say about him a lot of the time... This would be another example of that. Canada is a juggernaut because of Crosby.... Interesting a lot of what I think about the Worlds this year has to do with the balancing of talent in terms of the NHL over the years. You look around and see who is still playing and say yes, this is finally going to benefit Canada, a lot more of their talent is available because a lot of talent from other countries is starting to make these NHL players available. Just my take, but in what previous generation would this amount of Canadian talent be available at this time of year? That has a lot to do with the growth of other nations, there is a lot more Canadian talent available these days in early April, that has a lot to do with the growth of other nations and their impact on the proceedings deep in the NHL playoffs.
 
Yakushev72 said:
Aside from being the best player in the World, Crosby is by far the best leader in all of hockey, and everybody around him gets a huge dose of confidence knowing he's just down the bench. You play with impunity when you know that Crosby is on your side.
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Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.

First, he is not the best player in this tournament. That's what a best player usually is.

Second, he is not even the best player on his own team in the tournament. That's what a best player has to be.

Thirdly, Toews is the best leader in the all of hockey and it is not even close.

The only thing that he adds besides a couple of points is the intimidation factor. If other teams buy into that, that's on them.
 
illpucks said:
Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.

First, he is not the best player in this tournament. That's what a best player usually is.

Second, he is not even the best player on his own team in the tournament. That's what a best player has to be.

Thirdly, Toews is the best leader in the all of hockey and it is not even close.

The only thing that he adds besides a couple of points is the intimidation factor. If other teams buy into that, that's on them.
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Oh please do explain how you measure that. Would love to know.
 
I'm kind of taking tomorrow's games for granted. I will be surprised if it is not a Canada vs Russia Gold medal final.
 
illpucks said:
Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.

First, he is not the best player in this tournament. That's what a best player usually is.

Second, he is not even the best player on his own team in the tournament. That's what a best player has to be.

Thirdly, Toews is the best leader in the all of hockey and it is not even close.

The only thing that he adds besides a couple of points is the intimidation factor. If other teams buy into that, that's on them.
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One thing he does provide is open ice, he draws defenders on the ice from his line mates, and he opens up space for other lines on his team as they get to draw weaker defenders when they go out. That, and hes a heck of a center for 200 feet regardless if he's scoring, he isn't a liability and he can win draws.

Best player on the team or not, he changes the dynamic of the team, he's won it all before.
 
Rob said:
This has probably been answered already but have Canada and the US ever played in a World Championship final??
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By my count they've met in the finals only 5 times, that's excluding the ice hockey tournaments held as part of the Winter and Summer Olympics... Though they haven't met in the finals once since 1950. Canada is 4-1 in those games.
 
Rob said:
This has probably been answered already but have Canada and the US ever played in a World Championship final??
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I'm pretty sure the U.S. has never been to the final in the modern format. I think 1950 was the last time they finished gold and silver together.
 
Jussi said:
Us? Now you're suddenly Russian again? Make up your mind already.
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us - hockey fans, who wants to see CAN-RUS final
here in Kazakhstan almost everyone roots for Russian team, and if you watched the match USA-RUS there were guys with Kazakh flag rooting for Russia
 
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Can someone PLEASE tell me if NBCSN will carry the USA vs. Russia game? It's not on their digital schedule so that's why I'm asking.
 
Should be a couple of dandy games...let's just hope grossly incompetent IIHF officiating doesn't rear its ugly head... just IIHF's normally incompetent officiating would suffice.
 
illpucks said:
What if McDavid loses tonight and plays on Sunday in the final?
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Given that he couldn't shake the one 21 year old on Oshawa when they didn't have last change to get him away from it...they best ease him into the jump :sarcasm:
 
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