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Europe shows quality but can't take Game 1 vs. Canada |
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If fans were expecting a blow out or a dominant Canadian performance, Tuesday's Game 1 of the best-of-3 final series was a huge surprise.
Europe played extremely well, controlling portions of the game against the Canadians like few teams have in the tournament. However the dynamic duo from Boston of Bergeron and Marchand each notched a goal and an assist while Carey Price turned away 32 shots for a 3-1 Canada win. Steven Stamkos also added a marker, his first of the entire tournament.
Europe continued to get strong production from the Tatar-Kopitar combo, and Halak stopped 35 of 38 shots put on him.
Muneeb Alam posted the possession numbers on twitter, and it did show that for the most part Europe was hanging with the Canadians.
And from a line on line standpoint, it also showed that the Europeans put up some significant victories in certain match ups.
Grade A scoring chances were at a minimum however for Europe, and Carey Price stood tall when he was called upon. Like this breakaway attempt from Andrej Sekera
It was an altogether clean performance from the Europeans (Aside from the Zdeno Chara turnover on the second goal), while fans of Team Canada could probably say as a whole the roster did not put together its best effort. They still came away with the win. Europe faded into the third period with their possession, which may be a sign of mental fatigue for the giant killers.
Bottom line though, is that if Europe HAD capitalized on their early game possession this could have been a very different game. You will not get many opportunities to control play against this Canada team, and when you do you have to take advantage.
Europe will have to capitalize tomorrow night if they don't want to head out in two games. They face a tough task, but gave hope for stretches of Game 1 despite defeat.
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