Canadians see slow start at junior camp
But it’s only August, and there’s no need to sweat 0-3 mark, coach says
Throughout the week, Team Canada players have emphasized the need to play “the right way” as they prepare for the 2017 world junior hockey championship.
Several hockey people on hand in Plymouth, Mich., to watch Canada founder during the fourcountry tournament that is part of USA Hockey’s national junior devaluation camp left wondering whether Canada’s version of the right way might, in fact, be the wrong way.
Fresh off a sixth-place finish at the 2016 world juniors, Canada went winless and was outscored 12-3, losing 5-1 on Saturday to the United States, after setbacks against Sweden (5-1) and Finland (2-1 in overtime).
Every other country went 2-1, but Canadian coach Dominique Ducharme seemed puzzled that there was so much concern.
He insisted he wasn’t worried at all.
“In August?” Ducharme said. “Not really. We’re building, putting in the combinations for Christmas.”
Regardless of whether it’s 31 C in the shade or 31 below, when Canada continually finishes on the wrong end of final scores at the rink, the country panics.
“We’re frustrated,” Canadian forward Mitch Marner said. “We don’t like this. We don’t like losing games.”
And this one is especially disconcerting. It is, after all, supposed to be our game, on the North American-sized ice surface, and yet there was Canada being schooled by two European nations.
A Hockey Canada veteran, a former Olympian who was among the scores of NHL people here to scout the event, suggested the Canadians were the victims of over-coaching, that their natural talents were being squeezed out of their game by the obsessive need to play within the system.
An NHL GM went as far as to suggest that the European teams are better coached in the ways of the game than Canada is, and certainly the Swedes and Finns played with much more flow and skill than was exhibited by Canada.
The Canadians looked rigid, like they were thinking too much instead of reacting to situations. They always appeared to be a step slower than their opponents.
Ducharme is convinced it’s just a matter of process, and Canada will be fine when the real games arrive starting in December.
“We’re talking about playing the right way,” Ducharme said. “We believe when we come together in December, it’s going to be something important, playing the right way.
“They understand what we are assigning them to do. It’s not just about Xs and Os. For sure, we talk about our structure and how we want them to play technically in our system.”
An NHL scout suggested that, beyond Marner and Tyson Jost, there might not be another Canadian who thinks the game well, simply because in today’s robotic style of hockey, where blocked shots are a treasured statistic, thinking isn’t in vogue.
Makes you wonder what would happen to a young Wayne Gretzky if he showed up on an NHL doorstep today, instead of at the start of the freewheeling 1980s.
The Canadians sought to downplay the distress level.
“We’re concentrating on ourselves, and we’re evaluating at the same time,” Ducharme said.
“We have a long way to December,” Marner added.