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Europe's best not good enough to beat Canada

September 28, 2016, 10:56 AM ET [14 Comments]
Wilson: Team Canada
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As expected Canada took the first game of the World Cup of Hockey final against Team Europe. What wasn't expected is how Europe was able to hang with Canada. For two periods Europe traded blow for blow with Canada. They were certainly a worthy opponent. However, Canada's ability to roll four amazing lines can wear a team down and it did.




Europe definitely improved against Canada from their round robin performance. The issue is that even when they drive play for stretches of a time and expose Canada they still have to beat Carey Price. That has to be incredibly frustrating. Carey Price had a strong performance and the only goal allowed was off of a random deflection that went directly to Tomas Tatar's stick.

A lot of people considered this a "bad" game for Canada and that tells all about the high bar they have to clear because they were splitting shot attempts evenly through two periods before turning it on in the third period. Their "bad" game consisted of being out-attempted in one period 20-22 while holding the advantage the other two periods.

The best line in the tournament kept doing their thing. Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron are a force that can't be stopped. Bergeron and Marchand each went for a goal and an assist while Crosby had two assists. Crosby is producing offense at a rate that isn't too common for an international best-on-best tournament.




Crosby now has nine points to lead the tournament.

Steven Stamkos has had some bad puck luck so far in this tournament. He has certainly played well enough to have a goal, but it had eluded him until last night. He buried a beautiful feed from Ryan Getzlaf for his first of the tournament.




Pretty amazing forced turnover by Getzlaf on that.

The next game is on Thursday night and I believe that will be the last game of the World Cup of Hockey. If you have plans for Saturday night based on this tournament it would probably be wise to change them.

I thought Europe played well in Game 1 but I also think that is their ceiling and it wasn't enough to get it done. Too many things have to go right for a Europe victory.

The biggest question that remains is how much will Crosby win the tournament scoring title by.

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Brand new Hockey Hurts podcast talks about Brad Marchand extension, Jacob Trouba's trade request, and the World Cup of Hockey. You can find that here


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