Canada turns up the tempo
Team brass happy with effort in eight-goal game against Czechs
Relentless — that’s one description of the kind of hockey Canada is going to play at the 2017 world junior championship.
That much is clear following the club’s selection camp at the Centre d’Excellence Sports Rousseau in Boisbriand this week.
The Canadians treated the puck like their lives depended on keeping it — or getting it back — during an 8-0 victory against the Czech Republic on Wednesday night in a pre-tournament game.
The hard-driving effort came after a couple of exhibition games against a group of university players who didn’t have much business being in the same building.
Said a Hockey Canada official af- ter two periods: “We’re playing a lot harder than we did in any game during the tournament last year.” That couldn’t be argued. “It was simple, but at the same time we played together,” head coach Dominique Ducharme said.
“That’s what we want to do (is attack). We see we’re getting better at it. We’re getting into that rhythm.
“It was competitive. Guys want to be part of it. Everyone did a good job.”
Canada is not going to look to one or two players when the tournament starts and ask that they supply most of the scoring.
It certainly was spread out on Wednesday, with Mitchell Stephens, one of five returning players from last year, scoring two goals.
While several Canada goals were of the tick-tack-toe variety, the prettiest was the game’s opener, when Julien Gauthier, another returning player, burst past a Czech defender, controlled the loose puck and beat goalie Daniel Vladar with a backhand deke.
Taylor Raddysh, the leading scorer in the Ontario Hockey League for the Erie Otters when camp started, also scored two goals.
Dillon Dube, Anthony Cirelli and Mathew Barzal also scored for Canada.
The shutout was shared by Connor Ingram, who started and made six saves, and Michael McNiven, who entered the game at 11:04 of the second period and stopped 11 shots.
The Canadians consistently won loose puck battles against a Czech team that is not expected to carry much weight in the world juniors.
Certainly at forward, the decisionsforHockeyCanada’sbrass on the final cuts were not easy. The plan was to cut five players — a goalie, two defencemen and two forwards — late on Wednesday night to bring the roster to two goalies, seven defencemen and 13 forwards.
The players who were released were then going to be taken to an airport hotel with flights home scheduled for Thursday.
Hockey Canada on Wednesday night got definitive answers from the New York Islanders on the availability of forward Anthony Beauvillier and from the Arizona Coyotes on forward Lawson Crouse and defenceman Jakob Chychrun. None of those players will be loaned, which means there will not be an influx of NHL players in the next few days.
POINT SHOTS
Both Dube and Michael McLeod of the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads needed breathers on the bench after taking high hits. There was a penalty on the check on McLeod, but not on the one that had Dube collecting his thoughts … Tyson Jost (leg) was kept out for precautionary reasons. Had it been a tournament game, Jost would have played … Defenceman Thomas Chabot played in just one game for the Ottawa Senators before he was sent back to junior, but when he rejoined Saint John of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, there was an adjustment. “The speed of the game is so much different, sometimes you wait for the puck and it is not always coming,” Chabot said. “In the NHL, as soon as you are open, the puck is usually coming. It’s a lot different.”