Junior squad gave Canada a golden win for the ages
Team wouldn’t be denied despite plenty of adversity
On the day of the gold medal game, Joe Veleno went to the Canadian team breakfast and scanned the room.
“Everyone was there,” the Detroit Red Wings first rounder said, “so that was a good sign.”
That’s the way it went nearly every morning for the improbable world junior hockey champions — from the disastrous 6-0 preliminary round loss to Russia right up until Akil Thomas’ unforgettable hustle-and-deke winner in the rematch Sunday in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
There was always a landmine ready to blow up everything.
And that is what made what they accomplished so special.
They went as the youngest roster Hockey Canada had ever sent to the tournament and proved themselves the most resilient group the country ever produced.
How many teenage hockey teams on the international stage win with a first line that was continuously dismantled?
Captain Barrett Hayton, Alexis Lafreniere and Nolan Foote played one full game together — the 6-4 Boxing Day victory over the United States.
After that, Lafreniere got hurt and missed two games. Foote was ejected on his first shift in the quarter-final against Slovakia.
Hayton missed most of the third period of the semifinal with a shoulder issue. When he pieced himself back together for the final, he wasn’t in any shape to take faceoffs — so Dylan Cozens was plugged into his centre spot.
Veleno was suspended for a barely-there head butt and defenceman Bowen Byram, the fourth overall pick by the Colorado Avalanche in the last NHL draft, couldn’t play against Finland because of a flu that rolled through the Canadian camp. So 17-year-old Jamie Drysdale stepped in to eat important minutes — and he scored against Finland.
When Lafreniere was hurt, almost everyone thought he was done for the tournament.
He came back and was named tournament MVP. How many times will we ever see a player so talented, he can basically play in four of seven games and do enough to still be considered the best of the best?
Not very often.
Everybody wondered if Hayton could handle the mental stress and backlash of forgetting to take his helmet off for the Russian national anthem. There were voices in Canada that wanted the captain’s “C” ripped off his jersey.
The Arizona Coyotes forward admitted after his official apology that he is, by nature, a self-critic and beat himself up a bit emotionally over it.
Did he lose a step and look uncertain on the ice? No, he went full throttle, led the team in goals and points and scored the tying goal on a power play in the third period of the final.
When that puck went in, you just had to look at the two benches to know what was going to happen next.
The Russians went into the final thinking they were going to catch a break with a lessthan-his-best Hayton, if he even played at all. Instead he torched them at the most critical time.
Suddenly, the Russians had to respond.
Instead, Thomas’ winning goal nicely illustrated the evolution of the two teams. As he was breaking for the loose puck, the Niagara Ice Dogs centre tried to guess what Russian goaltender Amir Miftakhov would do.
“I thought he was going to come out and play it,” he said. “In a tight game, goalies are probably reluctant to come out.”
So he went after it and got there first. There was no hesitation.
And that’s the defining character of this team.
The Hunters — coach Dale and GM Mark — deserve a lot of credit for keeping the big prize in focus amid all the irritations. Every time someone needed to move up a line, switch a position or change their role, they did what they were asked.
They were the 18th Canadian team to win a gold medal. Few had to earn it the way they did. rpyette@postmedia.com Twitter.com/RyanatLFPress