GDT: Anaheim players at the World Cup

[vavera4ka]

It's not an excuse, I agree Canada is head and shoulders above everyone else. I was saying there are only two teams that are close to them in terms of depth and ability and one messed up their roster and the other didn't make the final. I didn't say they would have won.

And yes I would have loved it Slovakia was in the tournament and won. That would have been awesome.

correct me if I'm wrong, but you were diminishing the qualification of the tournament as "major" because there is basically very little competition for the champion because they are extremely strong, even though they were competing against what were deemed by people in charge of each team the best (healthy) players in the world (unlike spring world championship).
Should we dismiss Simone Biles or Kaitie Ledecky because there's nobody that can challenge them? You can argue that in gymnastics the rule of maximum 2 representatives from the team, no matter how many made the top 8, 10, 16 removed other American and Russian gymnasts who maybe possibly could have kinda be close to challenging Simone... Even though nobody can touch her.

 

[Sojourn]

I'm sorry, this excuse is BS. Just because team USA effed up with their roster doesn't diminish the fact that Canada is (and has been for a while) head and shoulders above everyone else.
Elite goalies have stinkers in Olympics as well as play offs, that's the nature of elimination games. Had there been team Slovakia (which team Europe essentially was) would you have had a problem with them winning? And highly doubt Sweden would have beaten Canada in best of 3.
I'll give you inability of USA to stack up their roster with under 23 talent but they were gazillion miles away from utilizing the pool they had to work with, do you really trust them putting together a truly best and most competitive team that would have challenged the juggernaut that Canada is?

If it were a single elimination tournament, like it should have been, any team could have beaten Canada. The way the Final was set up favored Canada heavily.

But yes, it was a joke that the US team got screwed because some of their best, most dynamic talent was younger. There isn't a single player from the NA team that would have been a lock to make Canada. Objectively, there was no disadvantage to them. The US might have made some poor roster decisions, but they also had other good choices taken completely off the table, and that was through no fault of their own.

I get that it's an NHL tournament, but it was pretty clear that Canada had an advantage in this tournament, the way it was set up. Was it insurmountable? Probably not. I don't think Sweden utilized their blue line effectively, for example. The US team was just poorly run, top to bottom. I think we'll look back 5 years from now, or beyond, and recognize it for the gimmick it was.