Off Wing Opinion

Canada got some good news on the eve of the World Cup Final with Finland, as starting goalie Martin Brodeur announced that his wrist was feeling better, and that he'd probably be fit to play against Finland in tonight's final, thought Damien Cox of the Toronto Star has his doubts:

As Mario Lemieux spoke, Martin Brodeur fiddled with the cap to a bottle of water in his left hand, finally fumbling it entirely.

As the small piece of white plastic bounced off the dais and to the concrete floor, Brodeur turned red and grinned mischievously, knowing what those in the audience who witnessed the moment must have been thinking.

Geez, this guy can't hold a bottle cap in his sore hand and we're supposed to believe he's healthy enough to stop a high, hard one from Teemu Selanne?

By dint of a coin toss, Canada was designated the home team (like it matters anyway with the final being played in Toronto), and will have the final line change.

Back in Finland, talk of the tournament is dominating the papers, as the country gears up for the biggest hockey moment in its history -- with much of the focus on goalie Miikka Kiprusoff. Unfortunately, the Finns didn't get much sleep Sunday night, as somebody pulled the fire alarm in their Toronto hotel not once, but twice between 3:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning.

Heck, it getting pelted with bags of urine in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, Kara Yorio of the Sporting News continues to do solid work at the tournament, this time bemoaning the rise of the trap on hockey's greatest stage -- and blames Team USA's response to losing to Russia in the round robin portion of the tourney:

So, to the credit of the American coaches and players, the game plan for the teams' rematch in the quarterfinals became a familiar one to NHL fans everywhere. The Americans trapped. They trapped the way people imagine when they hear the word. And they didn't stop there. They grabbed on and held tight to the Russians and their sticks. They took away the beauty, grace and speed. And they won. They moved into the semifinals -- a step closer to a title they desperately wanted to defend.

Still, the World Cup and the Americans taught us the situation is worse than we thought. Now, in this time of change for hockey, it's time to really make a change. When the NHL returns, it should initiate an illegal defense rule. Call the hooking and holding and hugging and tackling. Call it; don't just call for a crackdown.

Expect more of the same tonight, as Finland employs just the same sort of defense-first philosophy that's been so successful for them all tournament long.

Want a prediction? Canada, 3-1. Once the game is over, I need to start thinking about what I'm going to do with Off Wing until the lockout ends.

UPDATE: PJ and Jes have previews of their own. Tom Benjamin, back with a clean new look, says the torch has been passed in Canadian hockey.

And here's a pertinent thought from the Rodent, as we hockey bloggers consider the inevitable:

Even the concessionaires have been featured in articles discussing the hockey equivalent of nuclear winter. Heck, Larry Brooks has sympathized twice in recent weeks about the many NHL HQ grunts and team front office folks who have been furloughed in advance of the CBA's expiry.

But who is looking out for the team bloggers and small-fry web site pundits? It is we who have already been forced to hustle contacts and bleed sources dry for leads and stories... anything to place in print during a sleepy summer where UFA signings have been few and very, very far between.

Indeed, who is looking out for us? Here at Off Wing, we've always made sure to supplement our hockey diet with plenty of other sports, so I don't anticipate we'll be hurting much -- at least not until after the Super Bowl. That's when things are sure to get dicey.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2004 at 7:25 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I wish I could have written a detailed and extensive review of Canada's 5-0 demolition of Slovakia last night, a game that saw Jarome Iginla get his first two goals of the tournament.

Unfortunately, the game was an absolute snoozer -- and in a literal sense too, as I fell asleep sometime in the second period with Canada holding a 2-0 lead. By the time I woke up, it was 4-0, and starting Slovakian goalie Jan Lasak was headed for the bench. One more short nap later, and I found myself watching Peter Gammons on ESPN's Baseball Tonight.

Farewell to the overmatched Slovaks, who were outscored 18-4 in their four-game stay in North America. Then again, how can you blame them, getting blown out far from home, and being forced to play three games before hostile crowds against Canada (twice!) and the U.S.

Waiting for Canada in Saturday's semifinal game in Toronto will be the Czech Republic, surging after their 6-1 wipeout of the perennially underachieving Swedes. In the other semifinal, Finland, the winner of the European pool, will face Team USA in St. Paul on Friday.

And what a way to reward the Finns: win the Euro pool, hop an international flight across the Atlantic, and get to play a rejuvenated Team USA right smack in the middle of the "State of Hockey". Luckily for the Finns, Minnesota is home to one of the largest concentrations of Finnish immigrants to the U.S. Granted, it's been better than a century since they first arrived, buit I'm guessing we'll see more than a few flags on Friday night at the Xcel Energy Center.

But it isn't as if the Americans aren't vulnerable, as the Rodent points out in an excellent analysis of Tuesday night's action:

While a very encouraging victory this was, it stands to reason that any opponent reviewing the tapes of Tuesday's game will realize that a trap will be effective against the Americans if coupled with a bit of forechecking so as to force mistakes and prevent Team USA from organizing a break-out unmolested.

The Rodent also noted:

Whereas the Russian defense had little difficulty moving the pellet out of danger against USA's other lines, the trio of Modano, Guerin and KT worked the forecheck to perfection, particularly with the lax officiating permitting Guerin and Tkachuk their usual liberties with opposition defenders.

This is especially important. If the Americans manage to defeat the Finns (not a given) and face the Canadians in the final at Air Canada Center, the officiating is not likely to be terribly lax. Recall that in their opening game with Team USA, the Canadians scored twice on the power play for their only goals of the game.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2004 at 7:11 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

A few days ago, I wrote that Team USA was playing a lot like it did in the Nagano Olympics. But after last night's 5-3 win over Russia in St. Paul, I think it's time to update that to Salt Lake City.

In other words, good enough to beat the Russians, but probably not good enough to beat Canada. Whether or not it's good enough to beat Finland is an entirely open question.

It's safe to say we probably saw Team USA at their best last night -- using a disciplined backcheck and a physical forecheck to disrupt Russia's offensive rhythm, and create offensive chances off of turnovers. It's just the sort of hockey I got used to watching here in Washington when Team USA coach Ron Wilson was running the Capitals -- albeit without the tremendous offensive talent, or the sparkling playmaking demonstrated when Mike Modano, Bill Guerin and Keith Tkachuk hooked up for Tkachuk's third goal.

But despite the win, it was hardly overwhelming (for more detail, check out Rocha's report card here). The Russians were in this game until the final moments, and showed plenty of determination and energy, even as the American forecheck acted like sand in the gears of the Russian offense. In particular, Team USA showed itself once again to be vulnerable to Russia's speed and quick strike playmaking ability -- qualities in plentiful supply in Finland, the team the Americans will face on Friday night in St. Paul.

And in the net that night won't be the young and inexperienced Ilya Bryzgalov. Instead, the Americans will be facing the recently spectacular Miikka Kiprusoff. The good news is that the Americans are playing just the sort of game that they need to in order to beat the Finns -- patient and disciplined hockey designed to create offensive chances off your opponent's offensive mistakes.

In a lot of ways Team USA reminds me of the Boston Celtics of the 1980s -- disciplined defense combined with offensive brilliance in the half court.

And when they faced their ultimate nemesis, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Celtics were eventually overcome when L.A. combined their "Showtime" offensive flair with the best elements of Boston's game. And if Team USA faces Team Canada in the final, that's exactly the sort of match Ron Wilson will have to gameplan against.

Want to play run and gun? Team Canada can do that. Want to dump and chase? Canada can do that too. Want to meld the two styles into a deadly combination? Well, that's simply the business Team Canada is expert in.

Steve Ovadia thinks it might be time to break up the Guerin-Modano-Tkachuk line, and get some of the other lines moving offensively.

When it comes to the Russians, the fans of hockey in the new sick man of Europe have a lot to be proud of. In six periods of play against the Americans on enemy ice, they essentially tied Team USA 6-6. Alex Kovalev continued demonstrating the superior brand of play he displayed in the playoffs with Montreal. Youngsters Pavel Datsyuk, Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk all showed they belonged with the elite of international hockey.

If Russia ever gets its act together organizationally, they'd be a perennial terror in the international game again.

Back in Stockholm, the hometown fans got a rude surprise, as the Czechs took an early lead and never looked back, thrashing the Swedes 6-1.

I guess it would be easy to pin the blame on Swedish goalie Mikael Tellqvist, but a 6-1 drubbing just tells me the Swedes probably left everything they had on the ice in Helsinki on Saturday, when they battled Finland to a 4-4 tie, and lost the chance to win the top seed in the European pool.

As for the Czechs, they picked up where they left off in the third period of their round robin game against the Swedes, where they scored three straight third period goals (more brilliant detail from the Rodent). In the last four periods, the Czechs outscored the Swedes 9-1, the sort of dominance you'd expect a hockey power like the Czechs to demonstrate over a minor country like Belarus or Norway.

Now the Czechs await the winner of the last quarterfinal between Canada and the Slovaks. I'd like to tell you there's a chance for some sort of "Belarus" moment tonight, but there simply isn't. While I'm sure the gallant Slovaks will play better tonight (hopefully with Jan Lasak in net instead of Rastislav Stana, who played so poorly against Canada in Montreal last week), they simply don't match up well with the Canadians. And as Jes Golbez has pointed out, the Slovak coaching staff has the team playing with a defense first philosophy, something that definitely works against their strengths in speed and creative playmaking.

WORLD CUP ERATTA: A couple of weeks back, I made the mistake of saying the teams in the European pool were playing on the international ice sheet. WRONG! All of the European rinks were reconfigured to NHL size, with the exception of Hartwall in Finland which is just a couple of feet wider than regulation. Thanks to Richard Naso for pointing out the error.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2004 at 6:04 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It looks like I won't have time to do a detailed recap of the U.S.-Slovakia and Czech Republic-Germany matches from yesterday, so I'll just leave you with some brief impressions.

In the case of Team USA, they won because they simplified their gameplan in such a way that took advantage of Slovakia's glaring weakness on the blue line. Instead of no-look and drop passes, the Americans simply did their best to break out of their own zone, and then play dump and chase. And because the Slovakian defensemen, with the exception of Zdeno Chara, the Americans were able to take advantage on their forecheck.

In turn, Slovakia's goaltnder Jan Lasak was brilliant last night, keeping his country close until well into the third period. I'm thinking he's earned the starting nod for Slovakia for the remainder of the tournament.

As for the Germans and the Czechs, it was simply another case of a lackluster team with superior talent waking up in time to take advantage of an inferior, but hard working opponent.

One last thought: I can't help but notice how much tighter the refs are calling these games, especially in terms of policing goaltender interference. I wonder if this might be a preview of what the NHL (or whatever might arise in its place) might look like post-lockout. The refs haven't been chary about calling penalties in today's Finland-Sweden game (where I've already missed a goal while typing this post), and the result has been a freewheeling hockey game with lots of entertaining play.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 4th, 2004 at 2:14 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Come on, Team USA fans everywhere, sing it with me!

It's beginning to look a lot like Nagano . . .

I don't invoke the name of America's most significant recent ice hockey disaster lightly, but I couldn't help it from coming to mind as I watched last night's game from a stool in Ziggy's Pub* here on Crescent Street. I'm sure you might remember too, seeing the U.S. thrashed by Sweden, steamrolled by Canada (though they managed to beat Belarus as I recall), and then put to bed in the Olympic medal round by the gritty Czech Republic.

All in all, an embarassing little episode that head coach Ron Wilson and the Americans would rather see drain down the memory hole.

But after another uninspired performance, this time against the Russians in St. Paul, it ought to be clear that the strategy of stacking this team with experienced hands was a real mistake.

Here's how Tom Powers of the Knight-Ridder chain saw the game:

Just ask the members of Team USA. They weren't all that worked up about representing their country Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center. They came out flat and uninspired. They initiated no contact and lost 95 percent of the one-on-one battles to the Russians.

I saw more physical contact during the artistic gymnastics competition in Athens.

"Somehow, for some reason, we were emotionally flat," coach Ron Wilson said of his team's 3-1 loss. "We're just kind of caught in a little bit of a rut. We've got to have somebody come in and bring a spark to our lineup."

The most prestigious hockey tournament in the world, and our guys are looking for a spark.

A spark? I wish that's all they actually needed. In fact, I doubt that a full-blown nuclear chain reaction would provide the energy this team needs to compete at the level they need to keep pace in this tournament, never mind winning it.

Once again, Team USA was thoroughly outplayed in the opening period, with goaltender Robert Esche the only thing standing in the path of a massive blowout, as the Americans were outshot 16-4 in the scoreless first period.

But the real killer was the goal of the tournament, scored in the third period by Alex Kovalev that gave the Russians a lead they would never surrender. Every once in a while, Kovalev, who has been alternately frustrating and brilliant during his NHL career, will pull off a play like he did last night, and show just how good he can be.

If only it were more often. Every time I see him play I feel a little cheated. Perhaps that's why he can't find anyone to give him a contract.

It's desperation time for Team USA, as Wilson announced after the game that Brian Rolston, Craig Conroy and Brett Hull would all be healthy scratches for tonight's game against Slovakia. As I noted after Tuesday's game with Canada, Hull simply looks overmatched so far, while Conroy has been absolutely invisible.

And how would you like to be a fan of the Wild, Kings or Coyotes right now? Each of those clubs spent some serious cash signing these players as free agents. And here they are, in arguably the biggest tournament in a long time, and they're all falling considerably short of expectations.

Even better, say you're Wayne Gretzky, who convinced your buddy Brett to play a little more in Phoenix? As Executive Director of Team Canada, I'm sure you're happy with his lackluster play. But as the part owner of the Coyotes, you have to wonder exactly what you spent your money on.

Next up for Team USA: Slovakia, rested and ready after their tournament opening loss to Canada. If Team USA loses, they'll likely be forced to play Canada again in the opening game in the single elimination portion of the tournament on enemy ice in Toronto. With a win, and some help, they'll probably face the Russians again in St. Paul.

Over in Cologne, an overmatched German squad fell to Finland 3-0, as Miikka Kiprusoff notched his second shutout of the tournament. The Finnish win sets up a showdown with their greatest rival, Sweden, on Saturday night in Helsinki.
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*Bravo to Ziggy's, the only place I'd ever want to watch hockey in Montreal outside of the Bell Centre.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2004 at 2:06 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Although I mentioned Team Slovakia as a possible sleeper team in this tournament a few days ago, their play in a 5-1 Team Canada blowout was hardly anything to write home about.

Not that there weren't some bright spots for the Slovaks. Unlike the Americans the night before, the Slovakians looked as if they actually came prepared to play. The first period was old fashioned fire wagon hockey, with the teams trading scoring chances and skating the entire length of the ice on each shift. The Slovakian breakout was smart, quick and efficient, but things seemed to break down once they penetrated the Canadian blue line.

As the game wore on, the Canadian defense seemed to coil around the Slovakians like an Anaconda. On more than a few occasions in the third period, Team Canada was able to stack four skaters at the Slovakian blue line and keep their opponents bottled up quite efficiently.

While the Slovakian breakout was something to watch, it didn't immediately create many scoring chances. Unfortunately for Slovakia, it's clear that Team Canada can go full bore no matter what style of game you want to play, as the young legs on the Canadian squad seemed to welcome the more wide-open style of play.

(If I had to pick an MVP for Team Canada so far, it would have to be Martin St. Louis, but Joe Thornton would be a very close second. Yes, he got a goal last night, but he has been making plays all over the ice, looking like the complete player that injury prevented him from being in last Spring's Stanley Cup Playoffs. In the two games in Montreal, he's been an absolute monster.)

And unlike the Slovakians, Canada took advantage of an overmatched defense to create multiple scoring chances that Slovak goalie, Washington Capitals backup Rastislav Stana, simply couldn't handle, as Canada scored twice in the first five minutes of the game and cruised from there. Something tells me we'll see Jan Lasak back in net for Friday's game against Team USA in St. Paul.

Some other thoughts: home ice is an incredible advantage in this tournament, no more important than for Team Canada. Last night, Slovakia was nominally the home team, but you couldn't tell for obvious reasons. But there were a number of incidents perpetrated by the folks at the Bell Centre that didn't escape my notice.

Foremost among them, the practice of counting down the last ten seconds of the visiting team's power play on the scoreboard and the arena PA system. When Canada was the designated home team on Tuesday night, Team USA's power plays were counted down in that fashion.

But when it was Slovakia that was the home team last night, it was still their power plays that were counted down on the score board. And everything else the arena managers did was calculated to amp up an already partisan crowd.

Can I blame them? Absolutely not. But when the tournament organizers are going to go through the fiction that Team Canada can play a road game in Montreal, at least stick to the particulars to give the "home" team some sort of advantage. Team Slovakia was treated with such disdain, that even the pre-game player introductions were unforgivably rushed.

Would it have made a difference? No, not at all. But it was a set of classless moves that Hockey Canada ought to be embarrassed about.

Since I've gotten to Montreal, I've been greeted with nothing but smiles and good-natured banter. I brought an American flag to Tuesday night's game in Montreal, and I wasn't harassed. In fact, I made a number of friends, in particular a set of paramedics from Nova Scotia that I shared a big laugh with when Jeff Halpern and Scott Niedermayer squared off during Monday's game.

The bottom line: the Canadian people have been greats hosts. It's too bad whoever was responsible for operating the scoreboard in an international tournament like this one couldn't have followed their example.

Another thing I couldn't help but notice: unlike Tuesday's match between Canada and the U.S., the teams in last night's game lined up on opposite blue lines after the final horn to await the announcement of each team's star of the game, and then shake hands. I'm guessing the bad blood between Team Canada and Team USA wasn't helped along by the brawls during Monday night's game . . . During each pre-game skate, Team Canada was the last to leave the ice. And the last skater to leave the ice during each game was Phoenix's Shane Doan, who made a point of shooting on the visiting team's goal before heading to the locker room. He's missed each time.

I might have some notes on Germany-Czech Republic later, but I'm afraid the Montreal nightlife beckons.

CORRECTION: Excuse me, that's Germany-Finland, where the hometown teams trails the Finns, 1-0 at the start of the second period.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2004 at 1:01 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I'll be headed over to the Bell Centre for Canada-Slovakia in a little bit, but I had a couple of links I thought I should pass along.

Like me, Steve Ovadia thinks Team USA has found a number one goalie in Robert Esche. Surprisingly, on TSN, both Pierre McGuire and Glenn Healy chose to focus on what they saw as Esche's weakness (his propensity to yield rebounds), rather than his stellar play. When they went to show exactly why on video, they showed how Esche yielding just one rebound led to a questionable holding call on Jeff Halpern.

Memo to TSN: the best way to hold down the number of rebounds is to limit the number of shots your goalie has to face. In Esche's case, that was 19 in the first period alone -- most of which were quality scoring chances (Canada possessing a terrifying counterattack). Even worse, Team USA's blueliners simply seemed unable to clear any of those rebounds for one reason or another.

Bottom line: Esche kept Team USA in the game, and deserved some praise, not some highly manufactured analysis.

Rocha at Hockeybird thinks a number of observers are being too tough on Team USA, but I'm afraid I can't agree. The talent gap between Canada and the U.S. was on full display last night, and unless they come out against Canada with energy and passion if they meet again in the tournament, Team USA may very well get blown off the ice.

Be sure to check out his report card -- it looks like he might be grading on a curve. I'm wondering if watching the game on television rather than watching it live might yield a wildly different impression.

If you're interested in Xs and Os, be sure to stop by The Rodent's place for a Sweden's 4-3 win over the Czechs, but I was too busy enjoying the great weather here in Montreal, so lets just leave it at this: any team that relies on Jaromir Jagr to be the centerpiece of their team is making a huge mistake. Trust me, in Washington, we learned it the hard way up close.

The NHL is making their press notes from the tournament available online in PDF format. Click here for today's PDF, here for yesterday's, and here for Sunday's.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2004 at 5:05 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.