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Day One Was Boring : The Revolving Door |
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The first day of the WJC’s went much as we all expected. While the media drummed it up as a glorious day of thrilling heart pounding hockey, I found myself yet again contemplating the necessity of having the revolving door of mediocrity that infuses the bottom-tier of the IIHF competitions. There is a very real tier system in this competition that is only exacerbated later on the World Championships or Olympics.
In the top bracket we have Canada, the USA, Russia and Sweden, every single year these teams can do damage. I think this one is very easily justifiable in wake of even just the past 5 years or so.
Next we have the middling tier who fluxuate on how strong and dangerous they can be, however they rarely will compete with the above powers just annoy them. Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic find themselves in that tier. Sure they can scare teams or even ruin their lives in an elimination match (looking at you Switzerland), but they are almost never a real threat for greater glory in the tournament.
The third tier is what I call the Slovakian tier, it contains Slovakia and Slovakia alone…why? Because quite frankly they have been dreadful at producing any real kind of talent outside of a few decent players and haven’t seen the glory days of the Hossa’s, Chara’s, Gaborik’s etc. in a long time. I love Tatar, I love Panik and I love Dano, but none are in that elite tier and none have really elevated Slovakia out of the dim ages.
The final tier is the shit tier, pardon my language/truth, this is the revolving door. We have the great nations of Germany, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Belarus, France and Kazakhstan…all glory to the great and wonderful Kazakhstan number one exporter of petroleum. Herein is my dislike, every year two squads are relegated to the second tier of IIHF competition which is a joke simply put. Every year we have to have these teams that through no fault of their own just aren’t good, they get decimated every year and tumble back down to that second tier to win it again and come back only to fall back again. I’m tired of 11-0 drumming’s, of 7-2 wins where there’s only one interesting guy on the other team. This bottom tier makes sense in many different sports, but hockey isn’t one of them, there may be parity in the NHL, but there sure as hell isn’t any near the bottom in International hockey. I know that they “need” it, to give it a semblance of flavour and to incentivize these lower end countries, but seriously we’re just seeing the same crap in a different pile, whether it is Germany, Norway or Denmark, they all lose 14-0 to the four powers anyways and pad their stats. It will never be removed, but quite frankly I’m bored with it and you should be too.
Alright, enough of that depressing garbage on to the depressingly boring games for everybody other than the goal light guys.
Canada 7 – Germany 2
Well that was fun. Sloppy game, sloppy seconds. The Canadians were a veritable mixed bag for large stretches of the period and the defense looked surprisingly bad against a team fielding such a paltry offense. Yet in the end they got it done and thank goodness the German’s took more than 20 shots so I don’t have to hear about a goalie controversy. After the first goal I could already feel it, “OMG WHY ISN’T FUCALE IN? OMG WHY DID WE EVEN PICK THIS GUY WHERE IS WHL GOALIE NUMBER 1? OHL BIAS, QMJHL HATE, EAST-WEST GARBAGE DEBATE!” Actually that happened on my twitter feed for about 4 minutes before they tied it up. I expect TSN.ca’s comment section will be worth the read after and during every game, they have the craziest buggers.
Anthony Mantha showed why he is the best goal scorer in the CHL. All the big man does is score. His line with Drouin at centre was dangerous all night, though personally I’m not sure if I like Drouin at centre, maybe I’m being picky.
I felt Horvat did a pretty good job insulating the explosive duo of McDavid and Reinhart, which was another dangerous line. He’s not exactly there to hold their hands and protect their posteriors, but he’s definitely the defensive conscious of that line.
Matt Dumba…oh Dumba. This was a really good idea of what you will get from Dumba. Sheer brilliance and sheer “huh?” moments. His work on the first Canadian goal was brilliant…a lot of the game he was sloppy and giving the puck away. They need him to be more brilliant than insane to win this tournament. In fact, the defense in general wasn’t extremely impressive. I felt they had some really strong stretches, but they certainly did not look like a group made up of nearly all top-20 picks.
On the German side Dominik Kahun was their best player in my opinion, hard to really pick on. Draisaitl was pretty “meh,” had trouble holding onto the puck and really generating any offense. Not the best showing for the guy many feel will be the highest German ever selected in the NHL draft other than Orest Romashyna who went 3rd overall in 1963 (who?).
Canada won, they had to and did. Not much else to say.
Russia 11 – Norway 0
Boring. Felt terrible for the Norwegian goalie, absolutely murdered by shots. Great game for padding stats and I shudder to think of the score the Canadians will put up on these guys. The Russian defense spent 90% of the game in the opponents zone and Nalimov spent most of the game contemplating the meaning of life until a Norwegian shot the puck from his own zone and it happened to roll down to him counting as a “SOG.”
My personal fav Slepyshev looked really good reacquainted with Grigorenko. Last year he was the defensive anchor for the Freakarenko-Kucherov show, this time around he’s being counted on for more offense as the captain of Russia.
The pairing of Nikita Zadorov and Nikita Tryamkin is possibly the scariest in the tourney. The pair are 6’5 226 and 6’4 221 of pure nasty and talent. Zadorov has been finding his offensive game in the OHL and potted two in the game. Tryamkin is a double undrafted late birthday defender playing in the middle of nowhere Russia (Yekaterinburg) on the top-pairing of his KHL squad with former NHLer Sami Lepisto. He’s a two-way physical defender who has been finding some offense recently. Though undrafted twice and largely unscouted, I feel he has to hear his name called this time around, even if he’s an afterthought. Overall I like the Russian defense, very solid group and very physical. They have nobody shorter than 6’1 and they have the oldest group in the tourney.
USA 5 – Czech Republic 1
I will let Julie handle the Americans, she loves them so much…being one herself naturally I suppose and following their junior system like a rabid dog following a kid with a steak in his pocket. She does excellent work and I suggest you read her articles on the WJC’s and USNTDP.
The short of it was Gillies was spectacular when he needed to be, the skilled American’s showed up and played and the defense held strong against the young 2014 duo of Vrana and Pastrnak. The Czech goalie Daniel Dolejs was in softy heaven, I expect they go in a different direction next game…even though most of their goalies are of the poor variety.
Sweden 5 – Switzerland 3
Finally a game with action, drama and bloody excitement. The Swiss are the peskiest country in hockey, I love them, and they never quit and are always better than the sums of their parts. I’ll let Robert Baratheon explain (Sorry, nerdisms).
Which is the bigger number? 5 or 1? One team united behind one team with one purpose…to play spoiler.
Well Sweden felt the heat that Canada and Russia have felt when playing the Swiss, they are brilliant on the counterattack and they make good goalies look bad. I know a lot of people scoffed when I suggested the Swedes have a bit of a weakness in net, but Dansk showed a lot of holes this game and did not look comfortable. If Switzerland had Benjamin Conz in net, they win this game, it was dead even outside of Nyffeler letting in anything from the point.
Best player on the ice was Filip Forsberg, obviously being a bubble NHLer and 19 he ought to be. I felt he had a solid game, provided a lot of scoring chances, maybe got lucky on his slap shot goal, but you need luck to be good.
Sebastian Collberg had his worst game in a Tre Kronor jersey. Never seen him so listless. Wasn’t engaged and it showed, they need him at the top of his game because the Swedes unrelenting 4 lines of scoring is what will lift them to Gold or sink them. Add Wallmark to the disappointing list.
Sorensen even though he couldn’t buy a goal was everywhere, had a solid game. Jacob de la Rose can be put in this category, was very physical out there and one of the better Swedes in his own end.
The Swedish defense was unimpressive as a whole. That was one of my worries going in, they have a lot of solid guys, but unless Hägg steps up they have no real difference makers.
For the Swiss, I liked the play of Phil Baltisberger and Mirco Müller on defense. Both had strong games. Baltisberger is 2014 eligible and is a strong defensive defender in the OHL this year.
That’s a rap. Can’t wait for the elimination rounds.
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