LURE OF A LATVIAN LETDOWN?
Juniors taking orthodox approach
Apologies and all due respect to Dylan Strome, Canada’s captain at the 2017 world junior hockey championship, but we have to call him on this one.
With the Canadians taking a day off from the ice on Wednesday after a couple of convincing wins to start the tournament, Strome and head coach Dominique Ducharme met with reporters and attempted to put Canada’s strength in perspective.
“Anyone can beat any team on any given day,” Strome said a few times. “A goaltender can stand on his head or (other) things can happen.
“You have to be ready to play every game. We’re gaining momentum for sure — Dom talked about that. We want to gain momentum here and bring it into Montreal (for the medal round next week).”
Theoretically, we suppose a team could beat another club when few expect it. Denmark did it to Finland on Tuesday, but this is just a bit different. It’s an ironclad, take-it-to-the-bank guarantee that Canada will beat Latvia — and we would imagine fairly easily — on Thursday night in Toronto.
Latvia has little history in the world juniors, winning five of the 26 games it has played in the event.
One of Latvia’s losses was against Canada in 2009 in Saskatoon, the lone meeting between the teams at the under-20 level. The Canadians got a goal in the opening minute from Gabriel Bourque and managed to squeeze out a 16-0 victory. Only twice in the world junior has Canada scored more goals in one game. We don’t know that Canada will score more than a couple of touchdowns on Thursday, but we suppose it’s possible. Latvia has 13 skaters who play in North America, but that’s not going to make much of a difference. When Russia crushed Latvia 9-1 on Tuesday, it did so without breaking much of a sweat.
Ducharme wouldn’t reveal whether it will be Carter Hart or Connor Ingram in the Canada net, but the hand-wringing that has been happening because Ingram saw just six shots against Slovakia, and therefore allegedly could not be properly evaluated, should stop.
Hart and Ingram were doing just fine with their junior teams in the Western Hockey League before the tournament and seeing little Latvian rubber won’t suddenly turn them into bad netminders when Canada has an actual challenge — perhaps on Saturday against the United States.
Those watching from afar who have not really paid much attention to the tournament might think Canada is at risk of giving a half-effort against the Latvians. But we don’t get the sense that this group knows anything but a relentless mentality on every shift, no matter the opponent.
Ducharme mentioned that nothing in hockey is perfect and he’s right, so where could Canada stand to make some improvements from the first two games? Strome has an idea. Sort of. “Going to the net hard and getting shots,” Strome said before quickly running out of examples. “I am sure Dom will talk about it and we will adjust some things. Definitely more positives than negatives to take out of (the win against Slovakia).”
Strome knows the experience already is much different than last winter in Helsinki, when Canada lost its opener and won once in regulation in the preliminary round.
“It’s nice to be where we’re at and it’s a lot more comforting than last year,” Strome said. “It feels like this year we are kind of exceeding expectations. We’re playing to our strengths.”
And if they continue to do that, Latvia won’t stand much of a chance, no matter how diplomatic Strome was attempting to be in sizing up the at-times unpredictable nature of the tournament.