CANADA’S JUNIORS GO FOR GOLD
Swedes beat U.S. to set up showdown
It sort of figures that the player who is Canada’s leading goalscorer at the world junior hockey championship happens to be a fourth-round prospect who was passed over in his first year of eligibility for the NHL draft.
Like most of this year’s team, Drake Batherson wasn’t a household name before this tournament started. But with a cotournament-leading seven goals in six games — including a hat trick in Thursday’s 7-2 semifinal win against the Czech Republic — that’s about to change.
You could say that about anyone on the roster.
A no-name bunch that lacks a star player or even a top-three pick, this might be the most nondescript team we’ve seen in recent memory. Despite all that, this dominant group of teens is heading to the championship final for a second straight year, where Canada will play Sweden for gold.
If you are Sweden, which defeated the U.S. 4-2 in the other semifinal, good luck trying to game plan for this one.
Whether it’s Batherson or Jordan Kyrou (nine points) or defenceman Cale Makar (three goals and eight points), the Canadians have been getting it done by committee. Every line is dangerous. Every player, including Maxime Comtois (three goals), is capable of scoring.
Against the Czech Republic on Thursday, they received goals from five different players. It was the fourth time they have scored six or more goals.
After six games, they lead the tournament with 36 goals. That’s one more goal than they scored in last year’s tournament.
If there is a concern, it is that aside from an overtime shootout loss to the U.S. in a game that was played outdoors in a blizzard, Canada has yet to be truly tested. That’s both a product of their play, as well as their competition.
While Sweden has gone undefeated in the tournament, having scored 27 goals in six games, the team did so while playing against such powerhouses as Russia and the United States. Canada’s path to the final has been far easier, having won its last three games by a combined score of 23-4
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, where Canada is healthy and hitting on all cylinders.
Batherson, who has six goals in the last three games, has been the team’s hottest forward since the medal round. The Ottawa Senators prospect, who plays for Cape Breton in the Quebec league, scored twice in an 8-2 quarter-final win against Switzerland — not including the goal that Kyrou scored while borrowing Batherson’s stick.
On Thursday, he was even better. Batherson’s first two goals were scored in identical fashion with the six-foot-two winger redirecting point shots from Makar on the power play. His third goal, which caused the Canadian fans in the half-full arena to toss their hats onto the ice, was far prettier as Batherson drove to the net and lifted a shot into the top portion of the net.
Though the final score indicated a blowout, Canada did receive a brief scare when Filip Zadina gave the Czech Republic a 1-0 lead at 5:55 in the first period.
Taking a pass in the offensive zone, the projected top-three pick — who scored both Czech goals — fooled defenceman Kale Clague with a deke and then ripped a wrist shot past a surprised-looking Carter Hart for his sixth marker. It wasn’t just Canada’s goalie who seemed stunned on the goal.
Canada, which had never trailed in the previous five games of the tournament, found itself in unfamiliar territory. And if not for a gorgeous save off the butt end of Hart’s stick while the Czechs were on a power play, the Canadians might have had to dig themselves out of a larger hole.
Instead, it was the Czech Republic that started burying itself with needless penalties.
Canada nearly capitalized on all of them. Sam Steel tied the game on the power play when he blasted a one-timer from Clague at 15:05 in the first period. About three minutes later, Batherson made it 2-1 on another power play goal.
That was all it took. In the second period, Canada’s attack was too much to handle as Batherson scored twice and Comtois and Kyrou made it 6-1. Boris Katchouk scored Canada’s only goal in the third.
“In every game, if we could control everything like we talked about, you would be taking the lead ... and scoring the first goal,” said head coach Dominique Ducharme. “But we know it’s going to be a long game, 60 minutes and we have a plan and we know how to play it and we’ll stick with that and we’re confident with that.
“It’s more about where the score is at the end than in the first.”
On Friday, it’s all about ending the tournament with gold.
In every game, if we could control everything like we talked about, you would be taking the lead ... and scoring the first goal.