WORLD CLASS
Canada needs a shootout to defeat unheralded Swiss at championship.
HELSINKI• Moments after erasing a two-goal deficit and defeating Switzerland in a 3- 2 overtime shootout win against Switzerland, Dylan Strome was asked why Canada had looked so flat in a game that everyone assumed should have been over before it began.
If he wanted to, Strome could have made any number of excuses. He could have said Canada ran into a hot goalie, that the players could not find their legs or that the ice was slush.
Instead, he spoke the truth: Canada may no longer be the powerhouse many people in this country want to believe it is.
“You see in the Olympics now, every team is so close and you see in the world juniors five teams in the past five years ( have won),” said Strome. “It’s no slouch of a tournament. There’s no weak teams …. The Swiss team is a good team. There’s no slouch here. There’s no slouch in our division.”
What Strome said was hardly surprising to anyone who has been watching Canada’s games at the world junior championship this year. This is not the same collection of all-stars that steamrollered its way to a gold medal last year in Montreal and Toronto, having never lost a game or even trailed by a goal.
Nothing has come easy to this year’s team.
The Canadians lost 4-2 to the United States and went down 1- 0 to Denmark on Tuesday before rattling off six straight goals for a 6-1 win. On Tuesday, they received a challenge from an unlikely source.
In 20 past meetings, Switzerland had not even picked up a point against Canada. And yet, the Swiss matched the Canadians hit for hit, shot for shot and for stretches outskated them.
“( They) dictated the pace early,” said Canadian head coach Dave Lowry. “They put us on our heels. They scored that first goal. We got away from how we wanted to play.”
“They gave it to us the first 20 minutes,” said forward Mitch Marner. “I just don’t think we came ready. That’s a big part of this tournament, coming in ready and respecting your opponents. I think we have to do that better.”
Switzerland took a 1- 0 lead when Damien Riat’s shot was redirected past Canadian goalie Mackenzie Blackwood at 2:12 in the first period. About 13 minutes later, the score was 2- 0 after another shot took a pinball bounce off a body and went in.
A bad- angle goal f rom Strome in the dying seconds of the period gave the Canadians life. And in the second period, the team was able to tie the game on a one-timer from Joe Hicketts, setting up an eventual overtime shootout with Brayden Point and Matt Barzal both scoring.
“We had to put our work boots and hard hat back on,” said Hicketts. “When you fall in a 2-0 hole it’s something you never want to do. The charac- ter in that room shone through there and we were able to come out of that deficit. It was a tightchecking game and we can establish that and that type of game, I think it’s a positive going forward.”
This is no longer a tournament of four strong nations and a group of punching bags for everyone to beat up. The Czech Republic forced a shootout with Russia to open the tournament and Denmark beat Switzerland 2-1 on Sunday for the country’s first-ever regulation win at the tournament.
“This is why this tournament is exciting,” said Swiss coach John Fust. “We’ve got nothing to lose. We’re going in the aggressor, and we’re going to be hunting.”
Canada is still one of the favourites. But getting a medal — never mind winning gold — is going to be challenging. Maybe that is why these early scares were being treated as a blessing following Tuesday’s nail-biter.
If anything, it hammers home the point that Canada cannot just skate their way to another 6-1 win. That begins when the team plays undefeated Sweden on New Year’s Eve, which should be Canada’s toughest test so far.
“It’s a learning curve for sure,” said Marner. “Now we know we have to respect everyone in this tournament. Everyone has world- class talent. Next game we have to know that and make sure we come ready to play.”
“We talked about learning. Every day, you have to get better,” said Lowry. “This was a tough game. This challenged a lot of things about our team. At the end of the day, we were resilient. We found a way to win.”
Maybe facing this level of adversity now will serve as yet another wake- up call and make the Canadians battletested for the medal round. Or maybe, it is a sign that this tournament is not going to get any easier.
Either way, Canada has its hands full.