WJC Group B: Dec 28 GDT - Canada vs. Switzerland (7-2)

[HfxMoose]

Solid game today. The boys capitalized on most of their chances really took the play to the Swiss. The top 2 lines continue to impress me with their size and strength and work down low in the corners. Great to see Crosby get his first and get the monkey off his back. He is starting to get use to the difference between this tournament and the Q in which there is a huge difference. I think he'll start scoring now on a regular basis. I'll say he'll pot 3 or 4 tomorrow against Ukraine

 

[Phil333]

Man a Canada Crosby jersey would be so sweet right about now :_)

 

[Crosbyfan]

Finland beat the Czechs so now Canada needs a win against Ukraine and a tie against the Czechs to get the bye.

How does tie break work if the Czechs beat Canada and a 3 way tie is set up with Finland, Czechs and Canada? Is it total goal differential? That could make each teams game against Ukraine very important; Best team at running up a score wins a bye. Not a very satisfying result or healthy goal to enter a game with...or does goal differential for the 3 games (Canada/Finland, Finland/Czechs, Canada/Czechs) count first?

 

[kruezer]

I may be horribly biased to Phaneuf, but other than the blown play on the one goal I didn't think he was all that bad, really he had a bad give away just like it last game but got bailed out, just this time his play helped along a goal. But other than that I really wasn't that disappointed with his play, I was more disappointed with Ramholt's play, I guess not hearing a d-man's name can be a good thing, but I really thought he'd do more, not too shabby though, my expectations may be too high.

BTW Emaneul Peter rocks

 

[Mizral]

Was the game on earlier today? It started here after the Thrashers/Sens game finished on TSN at around 1:45 PM PST. I checked my TV Times last night, and it didn't say it was on this morning.. am I wrong?

Anyways, watching the game now. Just finished the first, it's 3 - 1. The best Swiss player I think has been the goal scorer. Name escapes me, but he's made a few savvy offensive moves, and the shot was a nice one.

Coburn shocked the crap out of me with that shot. Richards prooved again why he is going to be much better than people think. Getzlaf's goal went off the goalies blocker, but that is a good coaching play. Right-shot, right side from the D going left side on the goalie (blocker side), you're pretty much guarenteed a rebound, and with Burns and Getzlaf (both huge guys) around there, there's no way they can stop that.

Excellent coaching by Marios DesRoches.

 

[frosty]

Was the game on earlier today? It started here after the Thrashers/Sens game finished on TSN at around 1:45 PM PST. I checked my TV Times last night, and it didn't say it was on this morning.. am I wrong?

Anyways, watching the game now. Just finished the first, it's 3 - 1. The best Swiss player I think has been the goal scorer. Name escapes me, but he's made a few savvy offensive moves, and the shot was a nice one.

Coburn shocked the crap out of me with that shot. Richards prooved again why he is going to be much better than people think. Getzlaf's goal went off the goalies blocker, but that is a good coaching play. Right-shot, right side from the D going left side on the goalie (blocker side), you're pretty much guarenteed a rebound, and with Burns and Getzlaf (both huge guys) around there, there's no way they can stop that.

Excellent coaching by Marios DesRoches.

Canada's big line was good in todays game, and they will have to continue to hit, and score and play rough to win some games. Fleury looked shaky out there.

 

[frosty]

Was the game on earlier today? It started here after the Thrashers/Sens game finished on TSN at around 1:45 PM PST. I checked my TV Times last night, and it didn't say it was on this morning.. am I wrong?

Anyways, watching the game now. Just finished the first, it's 3 - 1. The best Swiss player I think has been the goal scorer. Name escapes me, but he's made a few savvy offensive moves, and the shot was a nice one.

Coburn shocked the crap out of me with that shot. Richards prooved again why he is going to be much better than people think. Getzlaf's goal went off the goalies blocker, but that is a good coaching play. Right-shot, right side from the D going left side on the goalie (blocker side), you're pretty much guarenteed a rebound, and with Burns and Getzlaf (both huge guys) around there, there's no way they can stop that.

Excellent coaching by Marios DesRoches.

Canada's big line was good in todays game, and they will have to continue to hit, and score and play rough to win some games. Fleury looked shaky out there.

 

[IceMelter]

Yes Mizral it was on earlier today, I flicked er on early this morning and watched the first period, then the channel went black along with alot of others.. power must of been out somewhere..

So I just finished watching the rest of it.

 

[King of Stankonia]

Was the game on earlier today? It started here after the Thrashers/Sens game finished on TSN at around 1:45 PM PST. I checked my TV Times last night, and it didn't say it was on this morning.. am I wrong?

Anyways, watching the game now. Just finished the first, it's 3 - 1. The best Swiss player I think has been the goal scorer. Name escapes me, but he's made a few savvy offensive moves, and the shot was a nice one.

Coburn shocked the crap out of me with that shot. Richards prooved again why he is going to be much better than people think. Getzlaf's goal went off the goalies blocker, but that is a good coaching play. Right-shot, right side from the D going left side on the goalie (blocker side), you're pretty much guarenteed a rebound, and with Burns and Getzlaf (both huge guys) around there, there's no way they can stop that.

Excellent coaching by Marios DesRoches.

The game was actually played at 7:30 AM EST (I think that was 3:00 PM local time), but TSN shows encores repeatedly on slow days (it will be on again at 12:30 AM EST for those that didn't catch the whole thing).
A couple of my own notes while watching the game (with apologies if I'm repeating what others have said):

• As good as Phaneuf and Meech were as a pairing against Finland, they were equally as disappointing today. They weren't actually bad, but disappointing is the right word. On the first Swiss goal, Phaneuf looked very indecisive as to what he was going to do, so he ended up doing his best impression of a crucifix and did nothing but block Fleury's vision of the shooter. In a rush like that, I don't think it's a great idea for both D-men to be back-pedalling that close to the net. Phaneuf also made the common young physical defenceman blunder of taking himself out of position for the big hit. Not only did he not connect, but he ended up half way into the Canadian bench.
  
• Brent Burns is strong. Watching him skate around in the Swiss end with someone hanging off of him while still maintaning possession of the puck was impressive. He wasn't able to get a superb shot off, but it was still great to watch. The line of Burns-Carter-Getzlaf is going to cause trouble for every opponent.
  
• The most effective line today was the Bret-Paille-Talbot line that were extremely strong forechecking and caused a number of turnovers. Although they didn't get any points, the Swiss had all sorts of trouble sorting them out.
  
• Canada needs to start letting some shots get by or Fleury's going to look human. He looked positively bored and rusty when shots did get through. He's used to facing 30-35 shots a game minimum with the Pens.
  
• The Seabrook-Coburn pairing while defensively steady, appeared to be a little slow as to responsiveness and skating speed. Perhaps splitting them up for the Ukraine game wouldn't be such a bad idea. A Phaneuf-Seabrook and Belle-Coburn set-up would even out any kind of defensive liabilities and speed issues. It would also free up Belle to make some serious breaks instead of having him with Klein/Gorges.
  
• Someone needs to buy Pierre McGuire a thesaurus before he takes the colour out of colour commentary. I'm going to turn off the sound if I hear him use his buzz-phrases again ("Transition defence", "strong on the puck", "strong down low"). He must have used each of those at least 40 times on the night.
  
• Sidney Crosby is a treat to watch.
  
• Where was everyone? I've had better attended basketball games in front of my house . . .

 

[King of Stankonia]

That was the knock on Belle when he was drafted. Million dollar skills and a two cent brain. Very similar IMO to Tim Gleason.

I wouldn't call his brain a two-cent brain. I would call it an "offensive oriented" brain. If he was paired with someone like Brent Seabrook or Braydon Coburn, we'd see a lot more offensive production from Belle and a lot less blame placed on him for rushes going back the other way.
Defensively, Belle looked steady if not impressive. It's just that he's sometimes looking for offensive opportunities when they are not there. He'll always be that kind of player, but let him work with it and he could turn out to be a Bryan Berard with two good eyes; high risk-reward but certainly exciting.

 

[David]

[*] Someone needs to buy Pierre McGuire a thesaurus before he takes the colour out of colour commentary. I'm going to turn off the sound if I hear him use his buzz-phrases again ("Transition defence", "strong on the puck", "strong down low"). He must have used each of those at least 40 times on the night.
[/list]

I think that you'd better throw in a dictionary as well...it doesn't look like Pierre has any idea what the word 'duress' means...

 

[Le Golie]

I watched the replay this afternoon and Crosby was the best skater on the ice. I say that without exagerating at all. If his linemates were more capable of gaining position on defenders he would have had 4 assists today. He creates so much and is on the puck every second he's out there. His strength at 16 is amazing and his drive to the net has looked unstoppable, even against the Finns. There have been at least 6 times already where he's driven to the net and created a play (either a pass or a rebound) that would have been buried if his linemates fought for the inside position.

Sid could definitely be finishing better, but he's still so much fun to watch. It is truly a treat.

 

[Phil333]

And his finishing will come with time. He's only 16. He's got what, 3 more years at this tournament? By the time he's 19, he can be finishing all over the place. He also needs better linemates to help him finish. He's going to do well this tourney, next tourney and in the NHL.

 

[Lobstertainment]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO GO BOYS GO

 

[SpezNc2]

Try here....

I dunno if the video is good or not...

http://iquebec.ifrance.com/rns/image/Crosby.zip

 

[The Rage]

And his finishing will come with time. He's only 16. He's got what, 3 more years at this tournament?

He'll be drafted after next year, after which he'll probably not be released by his NHL team to play in this tourney. He'll have one more crack at it, that's it.

 

[SwisshockeyAcademy]

I may be horribly biased to Phaneuf, but other than the blown play on the one goal I didn't think he was all that bad, really he had a bad give away just like it last game but got bailed out, just this time his play helped along a goal. But other than that I really wasn't that disappointed with his play, I was more disappointed with Ramholt's play, I guess not hearing a d-man's name can be a good thing, but I really thought he'd do more, not too shabby though, my expectations may be too high.

BTW Emaneul Peter rocks

Ramholt was really really disappointing today. After seeing him play for Cape Breton i know what he can do but other than a couple of strong outlet passes he was an icing machine. Whether there was trouble or not he was going to shoot the puck down the ice and he had one shift where he was trying to ice it but it stayed in twice and canada got good chances. he was awful. Too bad Romy was unable to play as well . If Switzerland is to challenge the big boys the goaltending has to be exceptional. It was far from that in this game- poor rebound control and general hockey sense { lack of} hurt manzato today. he's a better goalie than he showed as well. I expected more from the Swiss but i guess Canada is quite good, size and strength to burn.

 

[Ville Isopaa]

It's always like this in many European cities. The host team and their main rivals always put up great attendance numbers but any games that are viewed as possible blowouts see poor showings.

There are very few countries in which a Canada/Swiss game will draw more than 25% capacity. I wouldn't expect the Fins to be very interested in this matchup but didn't think the attendance would look as poor as it did.

I was there... The Swiss played a good game, but their team was very uneven. Also Manzato looked horrible at times. With Stephan in goal, things could have gotten more intresting(4-2 or something in the lines of that)...

 

[Crosbyfan]

He'll be drafted after next year, after which he'll probably not be released by his NHL team to play in this tourney. He'll have one more crack at it, that's it.

I agree. You don't release a guy in the top 20 in scoring for some "international junior experience".