Rancourt Fist Pump
Goulet-lite
- Jul 30, 2010
- 1,995
- 0
Where is all of this crap coming from? Just because people on TV say it, doesn't make it so. We scored more than anybody in the tournament, and by a long shot. There's more than one way to score goals in a team game, and Canada got it done in that regard. Was this the most talented team we could have iced? No. Did it hinder them in scoring? Absolutely not.
Canada played a style of hockey conducive to generating scoring chances through sustained offensive pressure by good old fashioned hard work and physicality. In the end it was our undoing, as the team was unable to sustain it's own pace over the course of 7 games. You could probably make the argument that the coaching staff chose to employ this strategy to disguise our teams real weakness...
Maybe we should take a look at our horrible team defense. Sweden and Russia exposed our defense for what it was in the round robin, and Russia really took advantage of it in the 3rd period last night by employing their own style of sustained pressure when Canada was running on fumes. Where we were contesting and harassing them at every corner in the 1st (and most of the 2nd), we were a step behind them in the 3rd when it really matters, and when you're chasing around a team that fast and skilled in crunch time, we seen what happens 1st hand. Couple that with our clear failure to maintain our own rigorous offensive attack, and we're starting to develop a lot more accurate picture of just exactly how we got beat last night. It really was the perfect s*@t storm and when things started to go sideways on us, the wheels truly fell off. We seemed to have trouble just putting together a string of good shifts, nevermind reversing the momentum of the Russians.
Perhaps instead of focusing on running up the score earlier in the tournament, the coaches and team should have been focused on executing an effective defensive system in order to supplement an efficient level of play later in the tournament, i.e: endurance. Crash and bang exacts a toll on all parties involved, and that's exactly why you can't employ it virtually exclusively over a prolonged stretch like Cameron chose to do. He's fortunate to have gotten as much out of his players as he did. In that regard, I'm proud of our kids.
As far as the goaltending went; what can you say, they were not good enough. If that's the best Canada has to offer then there's something wrong, but to point the finger at one position and lay blame for what happened last night on goaltending is just flat out ignoring the big picture.
Canada played a style of hockey conducive to generating scoring chances through sustained offensive pressure by good old fashioned hard work and physicality. In the end it was our undoing, as the team was unable to sustain it's own pace over the course of 7 games. You could probably make the argument that the coaching staff chose to employ this strategy to disguise our teams real weakness...
Maybe we should take a look at our horrible team defense. Sweden and Russia exposed our defense for what it was in the round robin, and Russia really took advantage of it in the 3rd period last night by employing their own style of sustained pressure when Canada was running on fumes. Where we were contesting and harassing them at every corner in the 1st (and most of the 2nd), we were a step behind them in the 3rd when it really matters, and when you're chasing around a team that fast and skilled in crunch time, we seen what happens 1st hand. Couple that with our clear failure to maintain our own rigorous offensive attack, and we're starting to develop a lot more accurate picture of just exactly how we got beat last night. It really was the perfect s*@t storm and when things started to go sideways on us, the wheels truly fell off. We seemed to have trouble just putting together a string of good shifts, nevermind reversing the momentum of the Russians.
Perhaps instead of focusing on running up the score earlier in the tournament, the coaches and team should have been focused on executing an effective defensive system in order to supplement an efficient level of play later in the tournament, i.e: endurance. Crash and bang exacts a toll on all parties involved, and that's exactly why you can't employ it virtually exclusively over a prolonged stretch like Cameron chose to do. He's fortunate to have gotten as much out of his players as he did. In that regard, I'm proud of our kids.
As far as the goaltending went; what can you say, they were not good enough. If that's the best Canada has to offer then there's something wrong, but to point the finger at one position and lay blame for what happened last night on goaltending is just flat out ignoring the big picture.