Off Wing Opinion

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 the shortest offseason in the North American sports calendar, the puck will finally drop this afternoon on the second edition of the World Cup of Hockey. Instead of piling through all of the previews, just read this piece by ESPN.com's Scott Burnside, and you'll be ready to go.

As you might guess, Canada is the prohibitive favorite (with revenge on the U.S. from 1996 on their minds), with the U.S. (with revenge on Canada for Salt Lake City on their minds) and Sweden (with a monkey called Belarus still on their backs) not terribly far behind. Truth be told, just about every team in the eight-strong field, with the exception of Germany, has a realistic shot of making it to the one-game final in Toronto on September 14th.

The festivites open in just about an hour, as the Czech Republic, still hurting over the death of head coach Ivan Hlinka, takes on Finland in Helsinki (1:00 p.m. U.S. EDT). Finland's top line from the Nagano Olympics, Saku Koivu centering Jere Lehtinen and Teemu Selanne, will be reunited for today's game, which, like all the other games in European pool play, will be played using NHL rules on an international ice sheet.

In news sure to send our buddy Jes Golbez into apoplexy, Slovakia's Peter Bondra broke his wrist in the second period of an exhibition against the Canada on Saturday, and will be lost for the tournament. In happier news, the Slovakians have looked strong in net, with Rastislav Stana stopping 29 of 31 shots in Saturday's 2-2 tie with Canada, and the heretofore unknown Jan Lasak stopping 35 shots in a 0-0 tie with the Russians on Sunday.

In fact, if you're looking for a sleeper team in the tournament, it would have to be Slovakia, which is packing some serious firepower even in the absence of Bondra. It makes one wonder just what sort of damage they could really do had they been placed in the European (where they would play on international ice sheets), rather than the North American pool.

With a format like this one, predicting the two teams who will make the final can be tough. Suffice to say, I'm sticking to my statement that seven of the eight squads actually have a realistic shot of getting to the finals, with Canada and Sweden my two favorites to win it all. The U.S. has an honest shot, but only if Robert Esche (who has performed the best out of Team USA's three goalies), takes his game to a level he hasn't attained previously.

As I've said before, I'll be in Montreal this week for Tuesday's USA-Canada game, as well as Wednesday's Canada-Slovakia match. I'll try to blog about the games from the road, but something tells me I'll be hitting the town pretty hard with one of my readers. On Saturday, I'll be off to Olympic Stadium for the Expos-Braves game with Off Wing reader Jay Sokoloff. Again, if you're going to be in Montreal this week, drop me a line, as I'll be looking for the best sports bar in town to watch the rest of the Cup.

UPDATE: Ohhh, I really like this line:

One key difference from the NHL is the depth available to Team USA coach Ron Wilson. His fourth line -- Steve Konowalchuk, Jeff Halpern and Blake figure to fill that role -- would be a solid No. 2 unit on most NHL teams.

With a dozen or so quality forwards at his disposal, Wilson shouldn't be tempted to drain the energy reserves of his key veterans by using them too much, although a series of injuries on defense could increase the workloads for veterans such as Chelios and Brian Leetch.

Solid No. 2 unit indeed (imagine what it would look like with Conroy at center instead of Halpern). Two seasons ago, Halpern and Konowalchuk formed two-thirds of a line with Ulf Dhalen that regularly shut down the league's best units when the duo played together here in Washington (something Wilson undoubtedly recalls from his time here behind the bench).

With his immense wing span, Dhalen simply played keep away with the puck, but I still like Blake's speed and scoring punch on the opposite wing. Here's hoping he plays a little more disciplined, as his tendency to play firewagon hockey has sometimes left him out of position, and his teammates in trouble.

Primary assist to Steve Ovadia.

Jordon Cooper isn't liking the whole World Cup thing. The Bird, on the other hand, is getting his jingo on. Jeff and Alanah are back too.