Familiarity feeds hope for Canadians
The Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche didn’t make the NHL playoffs. Instead, they’ve set up shop on Team Canada.
Five Flyers and four Avalanche are on coach Jon Cooper’s squad for the IIHF world championship that opens Friday in Paris and Cologne, Germany.
“On the two power-play units especially, there’s one with nearly all Philadelphia players and the other with nearly all Colorado players,” defenceman Mike Matheson of the Florida Panthers said this week. “I think the coaches and management have done a good job of finding a group of guys who already have chemistry.
“That makes a difference in a short tournament.”
The Flyers are all forwards — Claude Giroux, Wayne Simmonds, Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn. The Avalanche contingent includes goalie Calvin Pickard, defenceman Tyson Barrie and forwards Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon.
There are also three Winnipeg Jets in goalie Eric Comrie, defenceman Josh Morrissey and centre Mark Scheifele.
It may have helped that Canada’s general manager Ron Hextall is also GM in Philadelphia.
Canada will be gunning for a third straight world championship gold medal at the 16-team tournament, after topping Finland 2-0 in last year’s final and going undefeated in 2015.
They look to have drawn the weaker of the two eight-team preliminary round groups.
They open Friday in Paris against the Czechs, followed by clashes with Slovenia, Belarus, France, Switzerland, Norway and Finland.
The United States, Sweden and Russia are in the Cologne-based group along with Germany, Latvia, Denmark, Slovakia and Italy.
The top four from each group advance to the quarter-finals on May18. The semifinals are on May 20 in Cologne with the final a day later, also in the German city.
Canada dominated the Swiss 4-1 in their lone pre-tournament game on Tuesday in Geneva, outshooting them 41-17. Giroux and Simmonds each picked up a goal and an assist.
“It gives us a lot of confidence going into the tournament with the ability we have,” Matheson said after the game. “Switzerland has a very good team and they’ve had a long training camp to get ready.”
Chad Johnson of the Flames will likely be the starting goaltender, backed up by Pickard and Comrie, who spent most of the season with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose.
The defence so far has Barrie, Morrissey, Matheson and his Panthers teammate Jason Demers, Calvin de Haan of the Islanders and MarcEdouard Vlasic of the Sharks.
The strong group of forwards also includes Scheifele, Brayden Point and Alex Killorn of Cooper’s Lightning, Mitch Marner of the Maple Leafs, Jeff Skinner of the Hurricanes and Ryan O’Reilly of the Sabres.
Four players have already won a gold medal for Canada this season as Vlasic, Giroux, Duchene and O’Reilly played in the World Cup of Hockey in September. Couturier, MacKinnon and Scheifele played for Team North America in the World Cup. Vlasic and Duchene were also on Canada’s 2014 Olympic gold medal squad.
There are five players back from last year’s gold medal team — Pickard, Matheson, Duchene, O’Reilly and Scheifele.