Now that the first batch of pre-tournament games for the World Cup of Hockey are in the books, I'm realizing that my enthusiasm for the event is coming from three places:
1) The opportunity to watch the Vancouver Canucks' players in action, particularly the chance to get a preview of how the Sedins are operating with Loui Eriksson.
Considering all the flak that the Canucks took for signing Eriksson this summer, some folks seem to be starting to understand the logic behind the move.
Eriksson and the Sedins are going to be so much fun. #Canucks #SoUnderrated
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) September 8, 2016
2) When I was in Russia in May covering the IIHF World Championships, many of the big storylines we followed involved how the tournament would affect the World Cup—which players would pick up the final roster spots on their respective teams and how the tournament format would play out.
As a result of that, I can't say I was surprised to see Team North America blaze out of the gate yesterday with a 4-0 win against Team Europe. That young team has speed and skill to burn.
I also enjoyed watching the games from Helsinki and St. Petersburg yesterday. I feel like I have a much better understanding now of the European hockey vibe.
3) Hockey in September! I will never complain about hockey in September.
I still want to see NHL players in the next Olympics and every Olympics from now until the end of time. I think that experience carries a different weight and instills a different type of national pride. But considering we're only in the exhibition schedule, I thought yesterday's games were interesting and entertaining.
I'm also pleased to see that NHL.com is offering up the same high-level analysis that they provide for regular-season NHL games, so we can dig into the numbers a bit regarding the performances of the Canucks players.
As is befitting of a team captain, Daniel, Henrik and Loui Eriksson were part of the starting lineup for Team Sweden, along with Erik Karlsson, Mattias Ekholm and Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom played the first half of the game, stopping all 11 shots he faced. Jhonas Enroth took over for the second half of the game, making just 10 saves on 13 shots. He took the loss after giving up Olli Maatta's game-winner in 3-on-3 overtime.
Henrik finished the game with a plus-one in 19:13 of ice time, tops among the Swedish centres. He had no shots on goal—surprise, surprise—and went 9-for-20 in the faceoff circle. He had a particularly tough time against Finnish captain Mikko Koivu, where he was 2-for-8. Koivu and Aleksander Barkov both won 64 percent of their draws overall for the Finns.
Henrik was on the ice for Loui Eriksson's goal, but didn't factor into the scoring. Victor Hedman was the defenseman who got the puck toward the net, allowing Eriksson to shovel it past Pekka Rinne.
Daniel got the second assist on that goal and also finished plus-one, in 19:02 of ice time. He had one shot on goal.
Because he kills penalties as well as playing on the power play and at even strength, Loui Eriksson was the team's top forward in terms of ice time, at 20:57. He played 1:56 shorthanded, while Daniel and Henrik logged just a few seconds each. Eriksson recorded one goal on two shots, with two other shot attempts and two takeaways. His plus-minus was even because he was on the ice with Rikard Rakell and Anton Stralman when the Finns scored the game-winner in overtime.
Over on Team Europe, the scene was not as rosy for Jannik Hansen and Luca Sbisa, who endured that 4-0 loss to the young guns. Nathan MacKinnon opened the scoring for North America while Sbisa was sitting in the penalty box after having been sent off for tripping MacKinnon. That was the only penalty of the game for Europe, though the team was also burned by MacKinnon after he was awarded a penalty shot when Mark Streit tripped him on a breakaway opportunity in the third period.
Did you SEE that goal?
That patience. Nathan MacKinnon scores his second of the game on a penalty shot. #WCH2016 https://t.co/31sr8Bo6mg pic.twitter.com/oUYg0vs026
— Rogers NHL GCL (@RogersNHLGCL) September 9, 2016
Sbisa played primarily with our old pal Christian Ehrhoff—and the ice time was distributed pretty evenly among the three defensive pairs. Sbisa ended the night with an even plus-minus—the game's primary defensive victim appeared to be 39-year-old Zdeno Chara, who was having a tough time dealing with the speed of the youngsters and was hanging his partner, Roman Josi, out to dry.
On the other hand, Sbisa is known as a good skater. And on this play, he was a good thinker, too!
my brain had to take a second to process this Luca Sbisa spin move pic.twitter.com/Ye97s142XM
— Shane O'Donnell (@shane1342o) September 9, 2016
Team Europe's spotty lineup on defense could turn into a good opportunity for Sbisa to log some heavy minutes and gain some confidence before coming back to Vancouver. I'm hopeful!
His other stats on Thursday: one shot on goal, two hits, one giveaway and two blocked shots.
Jannik Hansen's night was pretty quiet. He has already had a busy couple of weeks, having just finished playing with Denmark in their unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the 2018 Olympics. Hansen played 13:23, essentially on Europe's fourth line, with Tobias Rieder, who's still a restricted free agent, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare of the Philadelphia Flyers. Hansen also did some penalty-killing—and was not on the ice when Nathan MacKinnon scored that power-play goal.
Hansen had three shot attempts—none on goal—and was a minus-one. He was on the ice for Johnny Gaudreau's goal.
Gaudreau goal pic.twitter.com/RSYdCmfcLw
— Stephanie (@myregularface) September 9, 2016
The action continues today with Team Canada vs. Team USA from Columbus at 4 p.m. Torts, naturally, has been in the headlines all week. He's trying to get his team fired up to play a physical game—as well as making sure that they all stand for the national anthem, of course.
Saturday, we're back to three games on the schedule. Russia and Czech Republic start us off at 7:30 a.m. PT, the Swedes and Finns are back at it at 9 a.m., then the Canada/U.S. rematch is on at 4 p.m.