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Canada Old Yellers the Americans |
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Canada ended the United States World Cup of Hockey before it even got started. Needing a win to stay alive the United States put together another dud against the much better Canadian side.
The Americans got off to a dream start by scoring first but it wasn't long after that Canada put together a Matt Duchene and Corey Perry goal 14 seconds apart. Both goals were at the net front, an area in which Team USA geared their "grittiness" towards. At the end of the day Canada was no less "grittier" but way more skilled. The skilled part of course mattering more.
Not even score effects could save the Americans
The Americans geared their team exclusively with the purpose of beating Canada, but in their three games were never close to pushing the play or competing. Even in their victory Canada was in full control. They were always focused on the wrong things
It's almost as if those stats have no predictive value and as a result define misleading, but those are the things Team USA cared about.
Jonathan Quick didn't have his best night and anything short of his best wasn't going to be enough for the team that was trying to play for a 1-0 win. Matt Duchene can openered him on the third goal of the game
Ref cam has been great and John Tavares gave us an example on why that is. He made mince meat out of Matt Niskanen on this play
Canada is guaranteed to move on to the semi-finals and will more than likely give some players a chance to play that haven't gotten in yet like Claude Giroux and Corey Crawford.
The Americans will have to hang out for another day before they play their completely meaningless game against the Czech Republic. The people responsible for their roster construction should all be relieved of their duties if they ever want to take a serious run at Canada and that is a realistic goal for the program. Team USA has tremendous young talent and has started to develop high end talent in nontraditional markets (hello Auston Matthews). If they get their act together they could be on level playing field with Canada in the next 15-20 years and very competitive with them much sooner than that.
The biggest victory last night might not have been Canada's entry into the semi-final, but that their win might finally put the current USA Hockey regime out of their misery Old Yeller style so they can finally evolve into the modern hockey era.
Canada is back in action tonight against the other team advancing to the semi-finals in Team Europe. Game is at 8PM and can be found on Sportsnet and ESPN2
Thanks for reading!
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