It's very late, but I wanted to share some brief thoughts on Team Canada's 2-1 win over Team USA at the Bell Centre last night:
Team USA came out of the gate as flat as an old can of Coke, and didn't recover until sometime early in the second period. And even then, they never really established any offensive rhythm for the balance of the game.
At times, you had to wonder whether or not Team USA had ever practiced together before, or if the Canadian forecheck was simply that superior. It was probably a little bit of both.
If you're Team USA head coach Ron Wilson, you have to seriously consider if it might be time to make Brett Hull a healthy scratch. His style of play tonight could be charitably described as disinterested. He was slow, so slow in fact, that I think it might be right to speculate that Hull has simply made his peace with the fact that he, and every other NHL player, will be sitting things out for some time to come.
Media reports to the contrary, Mario Lemieux didn't seem to have much zip either. On Team Canada, I liked the energy I saw out of Martin St. Louis, and especially Scott Niedermayer. When it comes to Team Canada as a whole, their backchecking and forechecking were simply ferocious -- and unlike Team USA, they looked like they were taking things seriously from the opening faceoff. The first period was an object lesson in how to completely control the run of play, and impose your will upon an opponent.
Team Canada was the favorite going in, and last night they played like it.
It wasn't all bad news for Team USA. Despite Canada's complete dominance of the first period, American goalie Robert Esche kept his team in the game with a number of heart-stopping saves that drew raves from the home crowd. Plenty of folks questioned whether or not Team USA has enough in net to hang in this tournament (including me). It's clear we forgot about just how good Esche was in the playoffs this past Spring, and how he helped the Flyers extend the eventual Stanley Cup Champions to seven games before losing the Eastern Conference Final.
Both of Team Canada's goals were scored on the power play -- the second of which was awarded on what appeared from the stands to be a questionable call. Then again, if you can't manage to attack effectively at even strength, you can't expect to win the hockey game.
As for Esche's counterpart, Martin Brodeur, he was great when he had to be, with Team Canada limiting the number of serious American scoring chances.
One player whose playoff performance I hadn't forgotten was Team USA center Craig Conroy -- the pride of Potsdam, New York as two natives of Upstate New York helpfully reminded me. Unfortunately, last night, Conroy was simply invisible -- this after being a forechecking terror in this past playoff.
Other notes: it looks like the Czech Republic simply doesn't have their heart in the tournament after getting flattened 4-0 by Finland. And while Sweden took their opening game easily, 5-2 past the overmatched Germans (37 saves for Olie Kolzig), the play of goalie Tommie Salo could have harly inspired any confidence. If I were coaching Sweden, I think it might be time to give Mikael Tellquist a shot in net.
After seeing Tellqvist play in limited action this year in Toronto, I would say the Swedes have a goalie problem that will limit them to 2nd or 3rd place this year. When your fighting with Trevor Kidd to be back up and you can’t decisively win that battle , that says a lot.
I don’t think the Swedes can win it with either of those guys in net.
The Czechs looked like they coasted through the game with Finns. No heart.
Teams that want to be there that may not have the talent of some of the other teams (Finns, Slovenians, perhaps) may find themselves playing for medal positions while others loaded with talent and no heart make early exits (the Czechs, perhaps the Russians).
But did anyone expect to see Mario mixing it up with Kono?
Wow, I didn’t know Slovenia was in the World Cup…