A BUMP ON THE ROAD TO GOLD
Canada adapts after injury to captain
Canada's head coach Andre Tourigny anticipated his team needing to overcome adversity at the most unique world junior championship ever, and considers the loss of his captain another bump on the road to gold.
Centre Kirby Dach was ruled out of the tournament after sustaining a wrist injury in Canada's lone exhibition game Wednesday against Russia. Canada opens the world juniors today at 2 p.m. (TSN) against the German team, which had its own share of issues leading up to the tournament at Rogers Place.
Dach, 19, on loan from the Chicago Blackhawks for the tournament, returned to his NHL team for further evaluation. He isn't expected to be healthy in time for the start of the NHL season on Jan. 13.
“First of all, there isn't much you can say to him,” Tourigny said. “If there is, I don't know what it is. It's extremely disappointing, for him, and for everybody. We don't wish that to happen to anybody. Kirby was really tuned in from the beginning, was a good leader and set a good example. I feel for him, we wish him the best, we like him a lot.
“But for us since June, we've talked to our players about adversity, and that adversity will happen, and we need to be ready for that adversity. Every world juniors, every country goes through adversity. If you expect to go to the world juniors and you don't have adversity, you're in the wrong tournament, that's not happening.”
Canada has already gone through its share heading into this year's tournament, which is being played without fans in the rink. The team gathered in Red Deer for an extended training camp as junior leagues across the country had either been unable to start up or were shut down due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just a few days into the camp, the entire team had to go into a two-week quarantine when two players tested positive for the virus. After arriving in Edmonton, they had to undergo another mandated quarantine process and then, along with the rest of the tournament field, lost an exhibition game when eight German players and two members of the Swedish staff tested positive.
The positive tests forced organizers to quickly reschedule the exhibition round, leaving Canada with one game against Russia, the game in which Dach was injured on an innocent-looking collision with Russian forward Ilya Safonov.
“Tampa Bay just won the Stanley Cup without their captain. It happens on every team, and if you want to win, you have to go through adversity and overcome it,” Tourigny said. “If you look at the world juniors last year, we had suspensions, we had injury, we had sickness, we had controversy in the games, whatever
... But that's the world juniors and that's what makes the world juniors so special.
“It's really heartbreaking what happened to Kirby, but we were prepared since Day 1 to go through adversity. We expect adversity and we know we are going to have to go through adversity. We hope nothing bad will happen to anybody, but at the same time, we know things can happen and it's how we react to that adversity and I'm confident in our players going on without him.”
Dach's injury forced Tourigny to shuffle his lineup against Germany, which just broke quarantine Thursday and hadn't been on the ice since arriving in Edmonton. Germany lost to Finland 5-3 in its opener Friday before taking on Canada today.
“The world juniors aside, it's kind of been a long time without hockey,” said Canadian defenceman Bowen Byram. “He (Dach) did play in the Edmonton bubble in the (NHL) playoffs, but to have an injury like that and miss the next weeks, months or whatever it might be, is tough for a player. We all feel really bad for him.
“When it comes to our team, he's an unbelievable player. Having a full year of NHL experience under his belt was huge for him and huge for us. I think everyone can agree he was the best player on the ice against the Russians before his injury, so it's definitely tough, but there is nothing you can do about it now. He's our captain, will still be our captain, and we just have to regroup. We have a lot of depth up front, we just have to do our best to replace him and I'm confident we can do the job well.”
Canada is in a group with Germany, Slovakia, Finland and Switzerland. They face Slovakia on Sunday, Switzerland on Tuesday and Finland on New Year's Eve.
“It's brutal, we all feel so bad for him. He was so excited to come back here and play in this tournament,” said Canadian forward Dylan Cozens. “He didn't get to last year, he was so excited to be here and lead our team, and was a real good guy to have around. It's a huge hit ... but we have lots of guys who will be able to step up and help out.”
Considering everything they had been through, just icing a team for its opening game at the World Junior Championship was a victory for Germany.
With a third of the team still in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, Germany faced Finland with three lines and five defencemen, but still put up a good fight in a 5-3 loss at Rogers Place on Friday.
“First of all, I have to say I'm very proud of the effort from our team,” said German head coach Tobias Abstreiter. “They really showed great character and unbelievable composure. I would say it was a little bit tough in the beginning, you saw a little bit of what is natural, a little bit of rust in their bodies.
“But they came on really well in the game and in the second period we had a lot of good chances, and maybe after our second goal, the fourth goal from the Finns came a little bit too early. But I think at the end we really believed we could win, and we tried everything at the end. It was a great effort from our team.”
Germany was missing nine players from its roster and they still won't be available when they face Canada on Saturday at Rogers Place. The Germans had eight players test positive for the virus in the initial round of testing once entering the Edmonton bubble, which forced the entire team to extend its initial mandatory quarantine period until Thursday, one day before the start of the tournament.
Of the eight players who tested positive, three will be released from quarantine on Sunday.
The other five must quarantine until Tuesday, when Germany would have already played three of its four group games. A ninth German player went on to test positive in another round of tests and he will be in quarantine until Jan. 4, essentially rendering him unavailable for the tournament.
Germany will have to do it all over again Saturday against Canada.
“We know that Team Canada will be flying in their first game and they're going to come out hard,” Abstreiter said. “It's important for us now to recover and make (Saturday) a step in the right direction. It's important that we defensively improve our game, and offensively, when we have chances be more effective.”