Sacrilegious but I enjoyed watching the Slovaks game in this one more than the dangle fest Canada style. They were a hard, heavy and big team that kept grinding with a simple game. Happy Canada won and in dramatic fashion. But I was very impressed by today's opposition.
The US team collapsed when the Slovaks played them like that. Nonetheless, it will be a hard fought game in the semi-finals.
Its kind of funny because at beginning of tournament, Canada’s coach was like we have to use our size to grind down the opposition. Then he just resorted to playing Bedard and Stankoven pretty much.
I haven't seen a 'traditional' Team Canada game in this tournament. Full on skill which is great but need to play a heavy game to force mistakes. Canada's defense has only looked ok. Slovak looked like men with their size and aggressive game. Ice tilted by Canada's skill and the postman stopped several quality stops but Slovak took it to Canada in the third to have an OT chance to advance.
Yep, The two opponents that could even give Canada trouble gave them gobs of it. I find this Canadian team pretty unattractive in how they play. Lack of grit, solid Defending etc.
Was this really a rise in those opponents or the result of fancy dan clubs that refuse to play the way a Canadian Juniors club used to play. Canada lacked grit, organization, and defensive play in the two games that were difficult. Any of the comments being made in the thread now are after the fact of Canada having won the game, which they could have lost.
My comment about the rise in Czechia and Slovak hockey was meant to speak broadly about their rise in elite talent recently. The Slovak's didn't even have their best junior age player available 1st overall pick Slafkovsky. But specific to this tournament both teams schooled Team Canada and 'Merica in preliminary games. Like cleaned their clocks schooled. Big, hard teams both with a heavy, grind game.
I understand we're agreed on a lot of this. But my notion was the the Canadian and American teams are playing a pretty fromage game that is susceptible to being beat just by size and hard work. This Canadian team is butter soft. Its a bad tournament, jmo, when you wish your National side was playing more like Czechs and Slovaks and no diss meant to those sides. Just that this team Canada's fancy play is underwhelming. I just can't get behind it. Its as if nobdy around selection or running of this team has even given much of a thought to its player constituent ingredients and how said team would end up playing. These kinds of things used to be carefully thought about in selection. Now it just seems like they picked mostly fancy dans and called it a team. So that they play like a sloppy allstar team.
There's always controversy about Team Canada selections with so much quality talent available. A bit of a strange year with high skill NHL players returned to play in this tournament. On one hand it is great to see Canada have such elite, dominating skill but agree it seems lacking in the hard areas on-ice and work boots character that traditionally drive its identity and tournament success.
Agreed with pretty much everything in reply. Even before Canada started blowing out Germany with the 5minute PP and also Wolf being awful in the game Germany were trying to be physical with Canada and trying to lean on them and play Canadian hockey. I thought that was interesting. Even the major itself was due to how Germany were playing uber physical hockey. But the German team lacked the goaltending and structure it sometimes otherwise have.
Funny... They remind me a lot of the Oilers! All offense, cheating defense, and suspect goaltending.
Yeah, I had a similar retch reaction and bile false alarms coming up occasionally. This Team Canada gives me acid reflux at best. Worse I oddly have no connection to the team whereas we all have Oilers Blue in our blood. I turn off Team Canada because I just lack enough give a shit to be frustrated at how they play. Not the team I'd pick.
Is everything Bobby Nicks fault? The culture he created for hockey Canada still going strong. Relax boys you’re going to be rich and get everything you want in life if you follow me!
Agreed with most but I havnt seen anything really close to McDavids level of hand speed. His shot looks good against WJC competition and its similar to Matthews in style...but to match Matthews release/scoring in the NHL is a tall order.
I'm very curious to see how he looks against NHL players. His shot and offensive instincts are world class but he is undersized and average to above average speed. His high hockey IQ is what's going to make him a star. I would predict a better goal scorer then Mcdavid and Matthews but a lesser playmaker then Mcdavid. I could see him being a consistent 50-50 player, peaking at 60ish goals and 120ish points.
