Hold the autopsy: Canada lost on merit
Team lacked depth and talent required to win a medal at world junior championship
Be disappointed that Team Canada won’t medal at the World Junior Championship. Don’t be surprised.
Forget Aleksi Heponiemi’s tying goal for Finland in the final minute of regulation time Wednesday, which could have been an apt ode to the old McDonald’s trick shot commercial featuring Michael Jordan and Larry Bird with how it hit about 12 things before finally settling in the net.
Forget the overtime winner, which started deep in Finland territory when Canadian defender Noah Dobson had his a stick spontaneously combust on an attempted one-timer and ended on the ensuing rush up the ice when Finland’s Toni Utunen’s shot found net after it nicked the stick of Cody Glass, the Canadian centre who was back deep filling in for Dobson.
Bad luck struck Team Canada square in the midsection in a 2-1 overtime loss in the quarter-finals to the Finns. It knocked the wind out 17,000 people, give or take, at Rogers Arena.
It doesn’t change the fact this wasn’t one of those powerhouse world junior teams from this country. They came in bordering on final-four talent and that’s exactly where they finished. It’s just where the development cycle is at.
Consider that the Hlinka Gretzky Cup (formerly the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament) regularly features the top Under-18 players in the world every August. Also consider that Canada has won gold in 10 of the past 11 tournaments and the one where they didn’t was in 2016, when they placed fifth with 13 players who were also members of this year’s world junior team.
This Team Canada scored 14 goals in the first game of the 2019 tournament, a debacle against Denmark. They scored 10 in their remaining four games combined, and just two in their final two games.
Their power play was 3-for18 (16.7 per cent) through its five games, including 0-for-8 in those final two losses to Russia and Finland. Team Canada’s power play, on their way to beating the Swedes for the gold in Buffalo last year, was 13-for-29 (44.8 per cent), and it was 10-for-35 (28.6 per cent) in 2017 when they were runners-up to the Americans in a tournament hosted by Montreal and Toronto.
Coach Tim Hunter cancelled morning skates throughout the tournament. Maybe a little extra time on the ice working on the power play would have brought about change.
Or maybe Peterborough Petes defenceman Ryan Merkley, who was leading all OHL defenceman in scoring 42 points (in 32 games) and all OHL players in power-play assists (20) as of Thursday. would have helped.
Merkley, 18, has played in four different Hockey Canada events over the years, so the powers-that-be had plenty of Intel on him and still didn’t invite him to the tryout camp in Victoria. Those points are open to debate. They’re certainly difficult to quantify now. We’re all just guessing.
What isn’t a guess is that Team Canada should be trending upward in the next couple of years. Team captain Maxime Comtois, a leftwinger, was their lone returnee from the Buffalo tourney. They had seven returnees a year ago from the 2017 squad.
There are six players who performed here who will be eligible to be part of next year’s Team Canada in the Czech Republic cities of Ostrava and Trinec, including Dobson and fellow rearguards Ty Smith and Jared McIsaac.
The game is being driven much more by the ability to go from defence to offence in a heartbeat, to get the puck up to the forwards in full flight. To have no returning defencemen one year to having three the next should be notable.
So be disappointed with this year’s outcome, which marks the first time in 14 tournaments on Canadian ice that Team Canada has not medalled. Be especially sad for the teenagers who gave so much while wearing jerseys with the red, the white and the Maple Leaf. Just don’t be promoting a major overhaul. Not just yet.