tbone909 Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I have said it over and over again. The World Junior Hockey Championships are way too hyped in Canada. These are players that were unknown to us a week ago and now suddenly there like cult heroes for us. It's too much pressure on them. They lack basic discipline and they don't know how to control their emotions. We are trying to replicate what happen with Toews and Eberle and Crosby. Those were a rare class of players and it's not going to happen every year. I don't know why fans can't just watch the games instead of having it become such a rabid following. And TSN needs to back off as well. The coverage and analysis is obsessive and unnecessary. Let the kids play. Could not agree more...TSN is the worst for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaimito Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 You make some good points but do not the European junior draft picks also play in the NHL? I agree the FInns were simply better today and maybe Canada had a bad day but just watching the one-on-one battles and the speed and accuracy of the puck movement by the Finns versus Canada points out to me the difference in styles and which is more effective. IN breaking up the ice, our skaters were too slow to beat the Finns in the neutral ice, and were unable to make any passes allowing them to gain the zone in a position to generate quality chances. The NA game on smaller ice is a lot about dump out/in and chase. ON the larger ice, giving up possession in that manner results in a quick transition with coordinated attack by skilled forwards racing back into your zone. Perhaps we do have as much talent individually but it does not appear our skill in team play can match up against the better European teams. Maybe in the past and maybe with a different mix of players but not this year or last. i think we can agree on that the other nations are playing better now, and the pool is more competitive than ever. the last time Finn beat Canda in jr was like what, >10 yrs ago? It's not simply they are more comfortable on big ice. hockey is still hockey even when the boards are a bit wider. it is just the recent crop of similar age players isnt as deep. I dont think there is fundamentally wrong with Canada hockey. the number of talented players may comes in cycles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaimito Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I have said it over and over again. The World Junior Hockey Championships are way too hyped in Canada. These are players that were unknown to us a week ago and now suddenly there like cult heroes for us. It's too much pressure on them. They lack basic discipline and they don't know how to control their emotions. We are trying to replicate what happen with Toews and Eberle and Crosby. Those were a rare class of players and it's not going to happen every year. I don't know why fans can't just watch the games instead of having it become such a rabid following. And TSN needs to back off as well. The coverage and analysis is obsessive and unnecessary. Let the kids play. hit the nail on the head. but Canada is the cash cow for the jr program world wide. Look at the game today again when you have time. The boards is full of Canadian advertisement. They hold the jr tourny in Canada almost every other yr, because it generates the most money (TV, gates, ads). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spliced Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 What an awful game by Canada. If this is their PP when they work on it how bad would it have been if they didn't lol. That had to be some of the worst passing I've seen from a Canadian WJ team in a while. How can you expect to do anything on the PP when you can't even complete passes to wide open players. So many of Canada's big players laid an egg today. Sam Reinhart was a total nothing. Petan, Ekblad, Pouliot were all bad. Even though I like Ekblad as a player I question using a 17 year old as your top shut down defenceman, I'd like to know if a 17 year old has ever played well as a teams top shut down guy. I remember Seth Jones was very shaky last year, he was beaten badly by Nichushkin I think it was. Drouin was solid but his penalties hurt, Mantha was ok and the criticism of him being lazy are kinda funny at this point since very few players out worked him all tournament. G Reinhart was the best defenceman today and should have played more. Goaltending finally didn't let the team down for a change which was nice. It wasn't amazing but it was ok which is an improvement over the last few years. Fins had a small goalie in net but Canada hardly tested him. The amount of good chances Canada got in tight was minuscule. When I saw how things were going I would have switched to a stacked PP unit and just played them for most or all the PP. Drouin, McDavid, Mantha, Reinhart and Lazar. I don't really get why Canada were so flat though. It's amazing how Canada can get on a roll and ring off 5 in a row then look so bad lately. The one thing I'll say that I've said before is Canada need to work on getting better on the big ice. They looked terrible in the last 2 tournaments on the big ice but in the other 3 they weren't that bad. In 2010 they lost in the gold medal game in OT, in 2011 they should have won, they were clearly the best team in the tourney but had a brain cramp at the end of the gold medal game and lost, then in 2012 they were pretty good again but goaltending was brutal when it counted and Gormley I think it was had probably the most unlucky game of his career and Canada still almost came back to tie Russia. At least next year is back on smaller ice again. The other silver lining is this is an Olympic year so the losses don't hurt as bad when I can just quickly switch focus to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raoul Duke Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Pathetic effort. When the hell was the last time you saw Team Canada go an entire tournamet playing that soft? Where was the hitting? Intensity!!??? Brutal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CANUCKS FTW! Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 They are going to have real hard time with Vesilevski tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Karlsson Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Why is Bigras on the team............................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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