You guys won so much and will win so much in the future. Of this, I am sure. The future is bright for Canada.
This year, I don't know what went wrong for you guys. On paper, you should have had this. But this type of tournament, with direct elimination at this stage, is pretty brutal. One off game and it's all she wrote.
I think that what McDavid said is a good synopsis: they came out flat and maybe underestimated Switzerland. As the game went on, they discovered that maybe wasn't going to be a walk in the park and just couldn't turn it around.
The two biggest momentum changer were the two PP goals: the first came right after Canada had tied it and killed any momentum generated by the Horvat goal... the 3-1 at 15 minutes from the end was the torpedo that sunk the ship. Switzerland though almost sabotaged themselves by getting more defensive, thinking that a two goals lead was enough and that almost sunk OUR ship.
I don't know what went wrong either but i don't think it was a case of underestimating Switzerland because how they played today was basically how they played against most teams this tournament and certainly how they played against all the big teams, they didn't move their feet and compete with any urgency until they were down in games. The offense itself never got going beyond mcdavid and I am not sure we will ever have an answer for that..................the lines didn't mesh and they cycled like it was the first time they were doing it in their life, it was baffling.
The defense? again, no real compete level for the puck and along the board in one on one battles until they were in dire straights on the scoreboard.
This had to be the most frustrating Team Canada I can ever recall relative to the talent level on this team. was it the coaching? was it just a bad set of games for a bunch of guys all at the same time? i dunno, but they just could not seem to get their head into any meaningful game until they were behind and in real trouble.................and with how good the swiss played today it finally sunk them.
Full credit to you guys........................you came to play for 60 full minutes, our guys didn't, and never did all tournament.
Why I will never know, the talent was there to win gold, they just would not or could not bring it, like I said, I'm baffled by this teams performance this year.
But regardless of what went wrong with our team and how we played it takes nothing away from what the swiss accomplished today, they deserved to win by their play itself, and they did. They are more then worthy of moving on.