Right now we don't know who really were the best 23 players for Canada or any of the Medal Round Teams. Always going to be at least 2 to 3 who were better but were cut in error.
WJC: What's right with USA?
- Thread starter razor ray
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Right now we don't know who really were the best 23 players for Canada or any of the Medal Round Teams. Always going to be at least 2 to 3 who were better but were cut in error.
I think when it comes to the most talented players, there are going to be a lot of year to year differences.
Beyond Hutson and Buium, I don't think the US defense was particularly strong. But they were generally playing to their strengths, not trying to do too much.
This was even more pronounced with the lines 2-4. There wasn't a ton of "wow" there, but there was a lot of disciplined, positional play with designated roles. Ziemer and Nelson played very mature 200' games while matched up against their opponents best forwards. I didn't see Connelly making bad turnovers - I did see him being a total puck hound.
If the US had advantages in skill, they often were smaller or weaker their opponents. But I felt that their rotations between forechecking & neutral zone play were usually better than their opponents. Whether it's the program or the coaching imo is what it is.
Do I think a team that didn't quite have that cohesiveness but had a supremely talented player could have beaten the US? For sure. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Beyond Hutson and Buium, I don't think the US defense was particularly strong. But they were generally playing to their strengths, not trying to do too much.
This was even more pronounced with the lines 2-4. There wasn't a ton of "wow" there, but there was a lot of disciplined, positional play with designated roles. Ziemer and Nelson played very mature 200' games while matched up against their opponents best forwards. I didn't see Connelly making bad turnovers - I did see him being a total puck hound.
If the US had advantages in skill, they often were smaller or weaker their opponents. But I felt that their rotations between forechecking & neutral zone play were usually better than their opponents. Whether it's the program or the coaching imo is what it is.
Do I think a team that didn't quite have that cohesiveness but had a supremely talented player could have beaten the US? For sure. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Czechboy
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Deep Blue Metallic
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Well, they have their Soviet style programme for their elite juniors - considering those recources and efforts they have actually been slightly underperforming at u20 level, but they used to pretty much own u18.
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If you ask the average fan of Team USA who they wanted to see on the team this year you'd get some form of "The highest picks who are available"
If you ask the average fan of Hockey Canada who they wanted to see on the team this year a huge number would say something resembling "Equal parts skill and grit"
If you ask the average fan of Hockey Canada who they wanted to see on the team this year a huge number would say something resembling "Equal parts skill and grit"
WarriorofTime
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Soviet style lol.
USA doesn’t necessarily need a USNTDP. The real reason it was created is because USA hockey for juniors was a mess before it existed and there was no good option for players to play domestically before going to college. Basically lead to a lost generation of players. The 1970 born “inspired by the miracle on ice” crop was pretty fortunate to turn out so well as almost all those guys were playing high school hockey before ncaa hockey (other than Modano who went way far from home to play in the WHL). The rest of the 1970s thereafter pretty much sucked. 1973-1983 born is practically a ghost town for notable American hockey players.
The USNTDP gave the top local players the ability to play domestically without having to go play in the CHL where they were living in a different country as a minor, and a direct pathway into ncaa hockey that wasn’t just playing prep hockey or in some rinky dink junior league.
They can get rid of it now but they would need something else like the European teams have with national teams that play together pretty regularly throughout the season. People call the USNTDP “Soviet style” but forget it’s not like these European teams are just meeting each other for the first time as they have age group teams assembled pretty early with regular breaks to play each other in various competition. Kind of the issue there is their countries are close enough together that it’s not the same as schlepping 16 and 17 year olds across the Atlantic multiple times a year.
And of course Canada has their big program of excellence thing along with the non iihf tournaments that they run to get their players acclimated. However they should re-consider some things there considering their underperformance at U20 relative to their draft picks in recent years.
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For sure each country has their up years, and their down years. The US team was the favorite going into the tournament, and they made good on that. They had the best forward in the upcoming draft, in addition to two other high-end players in Leonard, and Perrault. They had the best defenseman in the tournament in Buium. It's hard to be the actual best team year-in-year-out. Obviously CAN put together the team that they felt gave them the best chance to win, and they failed. I think they had a team that was good enough to win, but they obviously didn't, and they deserve criticism for that. I don't really think it's a codemnation on the quality of CAN hockey.
All that being said, I don't think anyone actually believes that USA would have been the favorites if both nations had all their NHL players. That certainly doesn't mean they would be guaranteed to win, but losing your three best players to the NHL is obviously going to harm your chances. If USA lost their two best forwards, I assume that fans would think that matters. It's not an excuse for the tournament, it happens to every nation that has players good enough to play in the NHL in their teen years.
USA hockey is in a great place. They produce elite NHL talent with extreme regularity, and have a team that goes toe-to-toe with CAN in best-on-best at all levels. They won't win gold every year, and neither will CAN. They have been arguably the best team at the WJC since 2010.
Top 3 teams by medal count since 2010:
USA: 6 Gold, 1 Silver, 4 Bronze, 11 medals, 16 appearances
CAN: 5 Gold, 4 Silver, 1 Bronze, 10 medals, 16 appearances
RUS: 1 Gold, 4 Silver, 4 Bronze, 9 medals, 12 appearances
I think it's hard to deny that USA has had more success at the WJC than CAN over the last 16 seasons, but I don't think that necessarily means that USA is producing more talent.
Next year is a big year for CAN, and they probably need to win the event to quiet any questions.
WarriorofTime
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Bit odd that Canada golds never correlate to USA silver. Canada wins gold a lot and the two play in the finals a a lot but the only time Canada beat USA in the finals was way back in 1997 back in what would have been a fluke good performance for USA. Since then USA beat Canada in final in 2004, 2010, 2017 and 2021. And a bunch of times Canada has beat someone else in the finals.
Basically the biggest market inefficiency in this thing is USA doesn’t have more silver medals as you’d expect for things in the “natural order” to produce many years of Canada Gold, USA Silver and either Russia or Sweden bronze.
USA already has almost as much registered Hockey players under 20 than Canada though. Canada is still leading, but USA is cathing them.
Football is also one of the fastest growing sports in US and has surpassed hockey. It also has most young fans in any major sport league. USA will 100% sure be one the top countries in there too at some point. When money is involved they are masters of milking it and football has lots of it.
Rob
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As a Canadian it pains me to say this but I fully expect the US to surpass Canada in Men's hockey in the next couple of decades. With the increasing popularity of the sport in the US and the quality of their development program I believe it is only a matter of time.
OilersFanatics505
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US brings players like Fortescue. Sure not many on these boards know him but if you actually keyed in on him. You’ll see he didn’t make mistakes all tournament long.
7 Games, 0 Points, +6, 4 PIMs.
He was a rock. And hardly anyone mentioned him because he’s invisible and not flashy. Invisible also means people weren’t calling him out for mistakes either.
7 Games, 0 Points, +6, 4 PIMs.
He was a rock. And hardly anyone mentioned him because he’s invisible and not flashy. Invisible also means people weren’t calling him out for mistakes either.
Kevin27NYI
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I also think dynamic dmen and great skating dmen help.
Watch Sweden and Finland play 3 on 3. D contributed nothing. Watch Hutson and Buium. Also, even on the 3 on 3 in the Gold medal game, the few times Finland crossed the blue they retreated and were no threat. Meanwhile Leonard is going 1 on 3 to the net. Not that Leonard is a dman to my overall point, but they go for it and take their chances.
Watch Sweden and Finland play 3 on 3. D contributed nothing. Watch Hutson and Buium. Also, even on the 3 on 3 in the Gold medal game, the few times Finland crossed the blue they retreated and were no threat. Meanwhile Leonard is going 1 on 3 to the net. Not that Leonard is a dman to my overall point, but they go for it and take their chances.
clevelandcane
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For fun. To see the other 98% of good players. For the competition. For the excitement. For great hockey. For the best hockey tournament on the planet. Geesh. Funny take.
wgknestrick
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Wyoming and Montana while beautiful states, their populations (1.6mil combined) are laughable and meaningless to improving US's hockey talent pool. IE equivalent of convincing just Philadelphia to like hockey.
Hockey will always need to be built through heavy population centers as those are the only areas capable of supporting expensive rinks and talented coaching.
WarriorofTime
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Affluent suburbs near NHL Markets is where you'll get the most bang for buck. Basically every suburb town of a certain town having their own ice rink. Most of major metro areas in the U.S. is suburban and not really urban core (other than something NYC), and these are the people that have money, which hockey requires a lot of.
Canada has 2,860 indoor rice rinks, USA despite being a more populated country has 2,100 indoor ice rinks, and 10X as many outdoor rinks (climate will of course play a role there).
NY, PA, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, New England, Colorado, Utah, Pacific Northwest, DMV, these are pretty easy places where you could get a lot of theoretical growth in hockey besides the more obvious but less culturally popular and geographically inclined south
What is this 3 on 3, some sort of hockey version of rugby7?? Sorry about snark but I so much dislike it, a travesty of the actual game.
Kevin27NYI
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mjhfb
Easier from up here
The amount of times some of those teams intentionally left the offensive zone and regrouped, even leaving their players deep and offsides, was amazing. Even saw them regroup all the way back behind their net which would drive previous generation coaches crazy - voluntarily putting the puck deep in their own zone in sudden death. Used to be keep it the heck out. Different era now.
Canada has 1\10 the population of the US and approx same # players so since its
your national sport your getting better athletes that play.
