Sidney Crosby of Canada clashes with Norway at the Bolshoy Ice Dome Thursday.
Bruce Arthur reports that team Canada is still figuring things out after their first contest.
SOCHI, Russia
This may seem like the obvious thing to say, but this isn’t 2010. It was never going to be 2010. Canada may win gold again, or they may fail to win gold, and however it turns out, it’s not going to ride on how they did against Norway.
That being said, Canada has now completed between 14 per cent and 17 per cent of its Olympic schedule, and it’s all we have to work with. It’s all they have to work with, too. Don’t worry that Canada beat Norway 8-0 to start the Olympic tournament in Vancouver, and 3-1 in Sochi on Thursday. Worry about how they actually played, and how quickly they’re going to get better.
“It’s time to get playing so we can figure out what we have, and that’s what we did here today, so we can make improvement tomorrow, just ’cause now we suddenly have video on our own guys, we can talk about our team,” said Canada head coach Mike Babcock. “Once you trust each other and you trust your structure then your skill level comes out, because you’re in the right spots and playing fast.
“I thought we did a lot of good things tonight, don’t get me wrong, but we can be way better. We understand that, and we’re confident that we’re gonna be.”
In the small picture, Canada got better, which is good, because the first period was a closet full of junk. Canada dumped and chased, couldn’t put passes together, ran nowhere. It was scoreless after one. It was in Vancouver, too.
Then they figured a few things out, and spent the second period in Norway’s kitchen. The two shots Carey Price saw were a dump-in on a line change and a rolling apple that wasn’t going in, and Canada got 14 shots on goal the other way. Canada found another gear. That matters.
They scored on a Shea Weber thunderbolt from the point at the 6:20 mark on a delayed penalty, and scored again on the kind of clockwork they are striving for — Drew Doughty with a tape-to-tape breakout to Patrice Bergeron, who whipped it to a charging Jamie Benn with John Tavares driving the net and diverting traffic, and Benn drilled it in at the 15:19 mark. That’s trust and skill, and not overthinking things. That was hockey.
“For the most part we’ve got to trust our instincts, we’ve got to play together, and make plays when we know that they’re there,” said Jonathan Toews. “There’s systems that we really want to pay attention to on the defensive side, but we’ve just got to have patience and confidence with the puck, and I think that got better as the game went on. You could see us loosen up.”
Norway succeeded by stacking players across the blue line and mucking up the game, and its one goal was a power play marker that deflected off a player and a goalie. Then Doughty attacked and scored on a backhand — he told Babcock it was the first backhand goal of his life — 1:25 later.
Canada was by far the better team, outshot the Norwegians 39-20, and figured it had 24 chances. Norway might have had four or five.
But there is work to do, trust to build, instincts to create and rediscover. Who stops thinking first, and just starts playing? How different will they look against Austria Friday night?
In this game, Benn and Bergeron and John Tavares and Martin St. Louis, ostensibly the bottom four forwards,
‘I thought we did a lot of good things tonight, don’t get me wrong, but we can be way better. We understand that, and we’re confident that we’re gonna be.’
MIKE BABCOCK Team Canada head coach
combined to be Canada’s best line. It’s a start.
“What I liked about tonight’s game is that it was hard,” said Babcock. “Now, we had chances enough for the score to be different. So what? We didn’t score, and our power play wasn’t dangerous, and we gave up a penalty-kill goal, so we have a lot to work on.”
Everyone has left the starting blocks in this tournament now.
When Pavel Datsyuk was asked how the Russians felt being up 3-2 after two periods against the tiny Slovenians, he said simply, “Tension. Warning.” And then the Russians found themselves again, and walked away 5-2, with goals from stars like Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, and Ilya Kovalchuk and a fervent Russian crowd. The Americans were tied 1-1 30 seconds into the second against Slovakia, then exploded for a 7-1 victory. The Finns fell behind 2-1 to Austria, and won 8-4.
Everyone is trying to piece themselves into a puzzle, and at some point the powers that be are going to collide, and that’s the only thing this tournament has in common with what happened in 2010. Remember the golden goal, Iginla to Crosby? Instinct, and trust. Whichever power gets better fastest, whoever decodes themselves and their teammates best, will probably have the best chance to win. The fastest race in hockey is on.