SOILED SEMIFINAL
U.S. robbed of win as Canada heads to final: Jones
Logic and common sense lost a big one Friday night at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup at Rogers Place.
Justice was not served. And the first edition of the event in Edmonton was soiled and spoiled.
With the clock having run out, Dylan Cozens scored what appeared to be the game-equalizing goal to send the semifinal against the United States to overtime.
TSN video proved beyond doubt that the puck hadn’t entered the net when time ran out.
Team USA should be playing Sweden in Saturday night’s gold-medal game. It would be Sweden, a nation that hasn’t won this thing since 2007, versus the Americans, who last won it in 2003.
The reason the Americans weren’t rewarded with their rightful victory?
There was no video review for tournament games in Red Deer. Therefore video review couldn’t be used to settle a game in Edmonton.
Josh Williams scored the eventual winner in 4-on-4 overtime and Canada goes on to play the Swedes for gold.
Going into the Hlinka Gretzky Cup debut in Edmonton, Canada had won gold 21 times out of 27 tournaments, including nine of the last 10. Sweden hasn’t won the Hlinka since 2007.
You could have made the case that it would probably help the tournament for Team Canada to lose a few.
Whatever, if you wanted a sensational showcase for draft-year talent and great games, you got it.
Those were two great games Friday.
But despite supposedly having a dominant team for the first edition of the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, Canada’s best in this beston-best tournament for one of the rare times in the history of the U-18 tournament was bested.
Despite coming back from 1-0, 2-1 and 3-1 deficits, the Canadians lost 5-4 on logic and common sense.
One can only remind folks what this tournament is supposedly all about.
It is, before it is anything else, a place for a player to position himself for the end-of-the-season NHL Entry Draft.
Fortunately, these kids tend to forget that, even if there’s seldom a lot of debate about which team is going to win the thing as a rule.
If you saw the emotions registered on the faces of both Russian and Swedish players in the afternoon when Sweden scored in the final minute before 1,539 to win 2-1 and advance to Saturday’s gold-medal game, there was no lack of agony of defeat or thrill of victory.
It’s not a bad thing for the focus to go on the teams instead of the players as individuals. That was going to be the focus of this column today with a standard Canadian win.
How is that part of the tournament proceeding ?
Several years ago, with an eye to turning the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup into a TSN property and expanding the expertise of Craig Button, network vice-president and executive producer of live events Paul Graham started sending him to Europe for the tournament every year.
When your correspondent had the opportunity to ask him if he thought the 285 scouts here had already identified half the probable first-round picks for the NHL Entry Draft in June, Button quickly produced a list:
Bowen Byram, Canada.
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Kaedan Korczak, Canada.
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Matthew Robertson, Canada.
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Dylan Cozens, Canada.
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Ryan Suzuki, Canada.
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Williams, Canada.
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Peyton Krebs, Canada.
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Kirby Dach, Canada.
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Samuel Poulin, Canada.
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Michael Vukojevic, Canada.
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Philip Broberg, Sweden.
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Tobias Bjornfot, Sweden.
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Victor Soderstrom, Sweden.
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Elmer Soderblom, Sweden.
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Albin Grewe, Sweden.
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Arthur Kaliyev, U.S.
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Robert Mastrosimone, U.S.
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Ilya Mironov, Russia.
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Vasili Podkolzin, Russia.
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And that doesn’t include the list of 16-year-olds also playing in this event. Button quickly projected a list of 2020 first-round probable picks.
Alexis Lafreniere, Canada.
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Justin Barron, Canada.
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Dylan Holloway, Canada.
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Braden Schneider, Canada.
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Alexander Holtz, Sweden.
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Lucas Raymond, Sweden.
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Daniil Gushchin, Russia.
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As you watch the now spoiled and soiled gold-medal game Saturday at Rogers Centre or on TSN, keep that in mind.