IIHF World ChampionshipDiscuss International Tournaments like the WJC, Olympics, and World Cup, as they take place, or discuss past tournaments. performances.
I predict that Subban will never get a steady job in NHL. Few games, maybe... career 2nd, not likely... starting job, never.
Disagree,
There was a lot I liked about Subban despite some questionable goals. His movement was pretty good, with some refinement he looks like he will be a solid number one in the NHL. Maybe not a star, but a solid number one.
I don't care if people think he's a bad coach, but I there actually would be arguements against. Before the last two round-robin games, it was "Subban shouldn't have started he sucked in the camp" and "He cut Corrado". After those games, those claims were muffled and as soon as Canada plays that horrible semi-final game (Which they wouldn't be the first team with a bye to play like that) it was "He didn't prepare the team well enough!" and the Murphy hate came back agian.
Let me ask the people who said this, were you guys in the lockeroom before, during and after that game? How would anyone know how well he prepared the team. You can't assume just because Canada came out flat that means they weren't prepared. Maybe they just came out flat, maybe two days off hurt them (It hurts many a team).
And Murphy, he was the red headed step child the entire tournement, with the lynch mob coming out everytime he made a mistake. Who would have made it over him? Not Corrado, because Wotherspoon took Corrado's spot. He also certainly didn't make it because it was his coach, I don't see any reason why a different coach wouldn't have picked him either. He had an extremely strong summer tournement, and despite not putting up great point totals (But with a point percetentage similar to his other years) he was still strong in the OHL this year. He's also tenfold more talented then the other potential candidates and he dominated on international ice two years ago at the U18 tournement. So beyond the irrational hate, why would another coach cut him and only Spott would keep him?
Spott has his problems, he's only been a head coach for 5 years, he's stil relatively inexperienced and any Rangers fan can tell you he's made mistakes, but peope laying what seems like the entire blame on him? A coach is bad to me if he gets outcoached and makes decisions that can be proven to hurt this team. Well he didn't get outcoached, his team got outplayed but there's not much any coach can do about that, and his decisions weren't that bad, he made some bold moves to play Drouin over MacKinnon, start Subban despite poor recent performance and give Murphy top six ice time (Which didn't cost Canada any game, not even the last one, because Murphy was not even close to 100% at fault for that, at most he's 50% to blame with Rielly). He didn't hit a homerun with all his decisions, but you cannot pinpoint any of his moves, and save with a shadow of a doubt, he cost the team.
There is no chance Kitchener fires him. They might bring in someone to help instead of him handling GM and coach but Kitchener's board of governors will never fire Spott.
They wouldn't have even been in overtime if not for Murphy. That final play was as much a fault of Rielly's (He started it and failed to cover his defensive partner). Also, I don't see why people blame the defender on plays like this, how about praising the scorer? If all scoring players came off mistakes where the defenders were 100% at fault skill wouldn't matter.
Spott said he didn't speak to the Team in a post game interview after the USA game and in hindsight it might have been a mistake. So he admitted his poor coaching strategy in front of the world
In a short tournament like this, its the ending that will be remembered, not the journey. With a star studded line up Spott couldn't coach the team to the gold medal. Some of the onus goes to the players, but after this tournament, most of them will still end up being great players with the talent capable of dominating this tournament. It was the fact that Spott couldn't use each of the players as effectively and to showcase that very same talent.
And finally, would you put Murphy and Rielly on the same pairing. I mean honestly, would you put both your pure offensive defencemen on the same line against the russians. It was a mistake, that costed him in overtime.
I get that you want to take away as much blame for Murphy as possible, and in this time you actually have a case, in which most of the blame falls on Spott. The d pairings in general were overall not that great, and it really showed. But on the final OT goal, Rielly 19% blame, Murphy 19% blame, Subban 8% blame, Spott 54% blame IMO.
just throwing Binnington out there to start after not seeing any game action in a while was such a bad move especially against a talented offensive team like Russia...
Doesn't matter at this point, it was a meaningless game. The mistake was done at the start of the tournament, making Subban the starter for the whole tournament when he did nothing to earn a single start.
One thing you can say for Canada. They expect to win the damn tournament pretty much every year. I really respect that, but it's also nice to see them brought down to earth a bit. This year is especially bad considering they did not even medal and lost to the U.S. in the same tournament. Brutal.
Wow. I had no clue there were so many experienced and knowledgeable coaches here on HF. Spott should definitely watch his back with so many talented up and comers right here in this very thread.
He blew by Murphy like he was standing still. He didn't even get a stick on him. Pathetic display of defense from a guy who was sub par all tournament long. There isn't a coach aside from Rex Ryan-- err Spott that would have taken him based on how he's played.
You're praising his play from 2 years and clearly a Kitchener fan. That's fine, but I think it was more than fitting that it was Murphy who got burned at the end there considering his coach was force feeding him so many undeserved minutes.
Spott lost the tournament for this team. Murphy cost them the game.
This exactly!
What Hockey Canada needs to do is quit with the revolving door coaching staff each year and hire a permanent dedicated staff that has no allegiances to the CHL. That way, we dont see a repeat of this year's preferential treatment, and players are picked based solely on talent and need.
Personally, i would like to see Pat Quinn in the position.
Canada will still be the favorites at next year's WJC. The fact that they didn't win this year means nothing in terms of how Canada is developing hockey players.
Canada was outplayed this year, it had nothing to do with their talent pool. Canada could probably ice 3 or 4 competitive World junior teams..perhaps more...i'm not trying to sound arrogant, it's just the truth. Why people think that a round robin elimination tournament determines the best hockey nation is absurd to me in the first place.
I think all countries stand a fair debate if we talk about top end talent. But if we're talking about depth the amount of talent Canada brings to hockey is unparalleled. Some may say this is also arrogant but I just say it is once again the truth. That isn't to say, however, that other countries aren't catching up. Just take a look at the draft..littered with Canadians.
Go ahead and look at the draft. Wilson, Jankowski and Guance were the only Canadian forwards taken in the first round last year. There will be Nugent-Hopkins next year. We are in trouble for the next couple years for sure.
Go ahead and look at the draft. Wilson, Jankowski and Guance were the only Canadian forwards taken in the first round last year. There will be Nugent-Hopkins next year. We are in trouble for the next couple years for sure.
I dunno about that. I'd say Connor Mcdavid and Sam Reinhart among others could make things interesting in the future.
Go ahead and look at the draft. Wilson, Jankowski and Guance were the only Canadian forwards taken in the first round last year. There will be Nugent-Hopkins next year. We are in trouble for the next couple years for sure.
You might be right, but maybe not. Next year, guys like MacKinnon, Drouin, and probably McDavid will be leading the way and will be a step up from what we had this year, with the exception of RNH.
And if they want to have a selection process, they need to stick to merit, not reputations. Spott showed his glaring inability to be impartial by not even making any of the returness earn their spots and sticking with 3 OHL goalies. If it was on merit, our top 2 goalies would've been Brossoit and Patterson instead of Subban and Binnington, Corrado instead of Murphy, etc, imho.
Go ahead and look at the draft. Wilson, Jankowski and Guance were the only Canadian forwards taken in the first round last year. There will be Nugent-Hopkins next year. We are in trouble for the next couple years for sure.
14 of 30 players selected in the first round were Canadian. not a mathematician but that's just about half....yeah...so much trouble
Why don't you compare instead of nit-pick?
1st Round
1 Swedish
1 Russian forward
3 American forwards
5 Canadian forwards (not sure what you were looking at when you saw 3)
Looking even deeper...after 3 rounds, exactly half the players selected were Canadian.
I guess the question is do you really think Canada is spiraling down in hockey talent? Or do you think you might be over-reacting from a non-medal in the WJC?
14 of 30 players selected in the first round were Canadian. not a mathematician but that's just about half....yeah...so much trouble
Why don't you compare instead of nit-pick?
1st Round
1 Swedish
1 Russian forward
3 American forwards
5 Canadian forwards (not sure what you were looking at when you saw 3)
Looking even deeper...after 3 rounds, exactly half the players selected were Canadian.
I guess the question is do you really think Canada is spiraling down in hockey talent? Or do you think you might be over-reacting from a non-medal in the WJC?
14 of 30 players selected in the first round were Canadian. not a mathematician but that's just about half....yeah...so much trouble
Why don't you compare instead of nit-pick?
1st Round
1 Swedish
1 Russian forward
3 American forwards
5 Canadian forwards (not sure what you were looking at when you saw 3)
Looking even deeper...after 3 rounds, exactly half the players selected were Canadian.
I guess the question is do you really think Canada is spiraling down in hockey talent? Or do you think you might be over-reacting from a non-medal in the WJC?
Pearson is too old to play though so 4 forwards in year that was heavy for dmen in the first round.
I let it be known what my exact feelings were and I said specifically that Canada won't win.
And as for the cultural comment, Americans DO NOT treat their athletes who play MANLY games like FOOTBALL the same way as Canadians treat their hockey players. This is a unique maternal cultural symbol that is unique to Canada.
This has Cassie Campbell-Pascall written all over it.
One thing that is for sure is that we have some of the weakest goaltending in the world.
Seriously, where would Canada rank in goaltending right now? 5th?
While Russia isn't that much better at the NHL level they at least have better prospects.
I agree somewhat...goaltending has not been our strong point in recent years but honestly...how can you excuse this teams defense? Or resolve once they feel down 2-0 to the USA?
Given that the team came out flat the last two games the coach needs to be held accountable for that. It's his job to ensure his team is ready to play...they were not.
The turnovers in the defensive zone, the failure to pick of the pinching D man (US game)...illustrated to me this teams inability to be mentally strong in it's own zone. They really missed Ryan Murray.
This shouldn't surprise us either, we saw symptoms of this in the Germany/Slovakia games...If it wasn't for Subban we would have really noticed it in the 2-1 win over the USA during the round robin.
This team was mentally fragile when they were not dictating the game...Nor did they have anyone on the back end who could calm things down once they started running around.
I let it be known what my exact feelings were and I said specifically that Canada won't win.
And as for the cultural comment, Americans DO NOT treat their athletes who play MANLY games like FOOTBALL the same way as Canadians treat their hockey players. This is a unique maternal cultural symbol that is unique to Canada.
This has Cassie Campbell-Pascall written all over it.
Have you seen John Gaudreau? He doesn't look a day over 12.
And as to Steve Spott and the rest of Team Canada, they didn't deserve to come home with a medal after that loss to the Americans, we haven't finished without a medal for 15 years, and the one year we don't get a medal is a lockout year? embarrassing. Just shows you that Team Canada didn't bring the right group of guys, a lot of contreversial cuts we're made and it has come back to bite Steve Spott in the rear. Ryan Murphy got undressed for the game winning goal, and it's not like it was the first time that happened in this tournament, he was so sloppy in his own end the entire tournament, and his hype of the "offensive dynamo" was a joke, he had one goal all tournament and finished with 3 or 4 points which isn't good enough if your main weapon is your shot and offensive skill.
Just an embarrassing finish, HC needs to step it up for Malmo next year.
Have you seen John Gaudreau? He doesn't look a day over 12.
And as to Steve Spott and the rest of Team Canada, they didn't deserve to come home with a medal after that loss to the Americans, we haven't finished without a medal for 15 years, and the one year we don't get a medal is a lockout year? embarrassing. Just shows you that Team Canada didn't bring the right group of guys, a lot of contreversial cuts we're made and it has come back to bite Steve Spott in the rear. Ryan Murphy got undressed for the game winning goal, and it's not like it was the first time that happened in this tournament, he was so sloppy in his own end the entire tournament, and his hype of the "offensive dynamo" was a joke, he had one goal all tournament and finished with 3 or 4 points which isn't good enough if your main weapon is your shot and offensive skill.
Just an embarrassing finish, HC needs to step it up for Malmo next year.
Well I won't discount the need to have skilled hockey players on the team...despite them being fairies...like Nuge and Strome and Rattie...but you absolutely must have men on the team and not just ON the team...but LEADING IT!
And I think you are hinting at agreeing with me here in that Canada needed a "grittier" group of men shall we say?
One thing that is for sure is that we have some of the weakest goaltending in the world.
Seriously, where would Canada rank in goaltending right now? 5th?
While Russia isn't that much better at the NHL level they at least have better prospects.
Goaltending, defense and depth forwards let them down when it counted this tourney. If you take out the elimination game against the US, the top-six forwards were the only ones doing their jobs.
I let it be known what my exact feelings were and I said specifically that Canada won't win.
And as for the cultural comment, Americans DO NOT treat their athletes who play MANLY games like FOOTBALL the same way as Canadians treat their hockey players. This is a unique maternal cultural symbol that is unique to Canada.
This has Cassie Campbell-Pascall written all over it.
In terms of team toughness I think we see eye to eye...but as someone very familiar with the US college system I can tell you they are well looked after. This isn't a social/cultural issue, it is a player selection/coaching issue.
