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Coyotes and Leafs Falter : Can They Relegate Denmark and Latvia Already? |
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It was a hectic day in hockey featuring a few good grudge matches…and a few real stinkers.
The Leafs vs The Hurricanes
Amid swirling (and most likely fraudulent) rumours of Eric Staal being traded to his “hometown” team the Leafs, the two squared off. The Leafs dreadful penalty kill pretty much ended their hope of winning in OT as I heard a collective groan emanating from Leafs Nation when Tim Connolly was called for tripping.
Eric Staal : He put on a show from the second period on, after a very invisible 1st. He’s struggled this season mightily, but when he gets rolling he is a class-1 star forward. He had a slick breakaway goal after a disastrous pinch by Luke Schenn and a bullet on the OT winner.
Nazem Kadri : I know a lot of people take dumps on him for diverse of reasons, but ever since his call-up he has played like a top-6 forward. He has shown a lot of determination and the slick skill that until recently had not translated to the NHL. He had a great wrap-around goal and seems to have meshed with MacArthur and Connolly.
James Reimer : One minute you’re the Son of God, the next the goat that Satan slept with to give birth to the Anti-Christ. Reimer has not looked like a starting goalie since coming back from his injury. In fact he has looked very uncomfortable giving up huge rebounds and just not giving them the clutch goaltending the Leafs need if they hope to make the playoffs. Sadly he is the best option at the moment.
The Coyotes vs The Avalanche
I thought that this could have been a very winnable game for the team and with Adrian Aucoin making his return helping to stabilize the defense. Well it should have been winnable if more than 4 players came to show up. Unfortunately for the Yotes those 4 were the fourth line and LaBarbera. They got outplayed and outworked and in the end, that will lose you games. Matt Duchene left the game in the first with a knee injury, he seemed to twist his knee when trying to deliver a check. Hope he can get better soon.
Mikkel Boedker : I don’t know what he has to do to get ice-time, but you have to believe scoring twice on the fourth line and giving an all out effort will help? I would love to see him get some PP time in the near future…preferably before he tries to pull a Peter Mueller and Kyle Turris.
Jason LaBarbera : Had a mixed bag I felt during the game. The first and second goals were what I would consider “highly stoppable.” Yet Lab’s is known for some of those softies. That said he was challenging shooters for the most part and gave them a chance to win. He and Varlamov had strong games for their teams overall.
WJC
Russia vs Latvia
Last night pitted two great rivals against each other in a battle of attrition as old as time, from the Tsarist wars, the Bolshevik revolution, WW2 and the Communist block, Latvia and Russia have squared off in a duel of deadly hatred. Sadly last night is rather indicative of the whole history. Russia won 14-0 in a display that I can only call “traumatic” for the young Latvian goalie. Scary moment for Team Russia, Mikhail Grigorenko was injured in the first and crawled off the ice. They think it may be his knee. If this is serious it would end what has been a dominating performance for Russia.
Yevgeni Kuznetsov : Where for art thou Yevgeni? He has been highly criticized for his apparent lack of effort so far in the tournament and maybe facing low level talent was all he needed to explode. In a fit of rage I can only describe as “hate sex,” Kuznetsov scored 2 goals and added 6 assists for one of the most dominating performances I have ever seen in the WJC’s. He was insane using his speed to set up plays and fly past the slow Latvian defenders.
Andrei Vasilevski : Continued to show why he is arguably the best goalie in this year’s draft. The score may look like he was having a cup of tea and lounging, but he faced some serious shots and made two spectacular saves. He stopped all 30 shots.
Canada vs Denmark
Nothing says exciting like watching a linebacker tackle a 6 year old leukemia victim, and that is what it seemed like. The Canadians, like a lot of the elite teams in this tournament are just on another level and it seriously isn’t fair.
Brandon Gormley : Had a great two-way game and added 2 goals and an assist. He also registered 10 shots. He looks really poised so far in the tournament and has easily been one of Canada’s best defenders. He looked pretty good on the PP. He now has 5 points in 3 games good for most by any defenseman in the tournament.
Mark Visentin : The media has set him up to fail already so I hope they just run with Wedgewood. If Canada loses this year they have already decided it will be the goalies fault before even watching it. Only in Canada can you have a 1.50 GAA and .941 sv% and be considered playing like crap.
This leads me to my final point. When will the IIHF just get rid of two of the Division-1 call-up’s. I understand that they wish to show the talent and gain even more views, but these kids are getting murdered. I would be fine with two Division-1 teams like Switzerland and one of Denmark/Germany/Latvia/Norway but having 4 is too many. What it ends up doing is run up the score and demoralizing a young team. Imagine if you will being the goalie for Latvia knowing that you are facing Russia or Canada or Sweden? You’ll face at least 50 shots and your team will get skated around for 60 minutes. That must be the worst feeling in the world. Nobody wants to watch these poor kids get trampled by everybody but each other, losing by 10+ goals. It’s just not worth it to see the one or two top to mid-level prospects they carry.
What do you guys think? Should they remove two teams from the tournament?
Thanks for reading.
Follow me on Twitter @AdamFrenchReal
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