Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
For the first time in a couple of years, Team Canada’s players are leaving the IIHP World Juniors tournament with medals around their necks.
The team fell to Czechia on Sunday night in the semifinal game, but came back to beat Finland 6-3 in the bronze medal game.
Matt Cullen, world juniors hockey broadcaster, joined The Green Zone Tuesday afternoon to talk about the tournament.
Listen to Matt Cullen on The Green Zone:
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The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Locker: Not the colour that Canada wanted this year, but I’d like your take on the team as overall.
Matt Cullen: Really good tournament. Obviously what Canada came for was the gold medal, and it just didn’t quite happen this year.
But a lot of strong players, a good team, and they eventually ran into a really tough Czech team that ended up bouncing them in the semifinal game. Canada’s not lost historically in the semifinal very often, they were just 20 and five coming into that semifinal, so there’s five losses in 25 games.
But the Czechs got them with a late goal and it was the third straight time that Czechia scored a late goal against Canada to knock them out. Certainly, that was a bitter pill to swallow, but I thought what was really important is they did come back and play a decent game. It wasn’t their best game in the bronze medal game but it was enough to beat Finland, who also had a heartbreaking loss in the semifinal.
Obviously, now that’s three straight tournaments without a gold medal for Canada, and that doesn’t sit well with Hockey Canada or Canadian hockey fans.
It was a really good tournament across the board, with a lot of really great players.
It does seem to be, when Canada loses one of these big games in one of these tournaments, they get outplayed by a team that looks more Canadian than them, and I thought that might have been the case with the with that Czechia match-up on Sunday.
Cullen: Jeff O’Neill said it perfectly — the Czechs beat them at their own game.
The Czechs played a really hard, physical game that frustrated Canada. There just wasn’t a lot of clean passes, there wasn’t a lot of clean break-outs, there was a lot of flip down to the other blue line and try and skate onto the puck and use the speed.
But once that didn’t work, the Canadians didn’t really have any sort of answer apart from trying to get back in on the forecheck and creating chances. That did work for some time, but every time after a big Canada goal, the Czechs had an answer.
That was a theme in other games in the tournament as well – leads didn’t last very long.
The Czechs were a really fun, hard team, and were silver medallists. They had a push against Sweden, who was also a really skilled team, in that gold medal game. The Czechs have now medalled in four straight tournaments, and that’s better than Canada.
Does hockey in Canada need fixing? And if so, what?
Cullen: That’s been mulled over a couple of times, and my answer is give me a call in a couple of months after the Olympics in Italy. That goes for both the women’s side and the men’s side. I think the men’s team is stacked with a tons of good players, and I think there are a lot of great other teams in there as well.
I think the juniors is up and down, and I think that’s just sort of the nature of junior hockey. There was a stretch about 15 years ago where Canada didn’t win a gold medal for five straight years. Then they come back, they have a good cycle of players, they win a couple more golds, and the conversation goes away. Now it’s back again.
I think there’s a combination of factors, and the rest of the world is starting to develop some really good hockey, 100 per cent – Sweden, Finland, the Czechs, the Russians, are always good.
(Russia) didn’t play in the tournament this year, they haven’t in the last couple of years, but they’re always strong. How about the Latvians taking Canada to overtime in the round robin the last two years? A micro-nation, and Latvia is up there competing with Canada on the biggest stage in junior hockey.
If Canada could win gold at the Olympics on both the men’s and the women’s side, those conversations about what needs to change in Canada will go away.
The last couple of tournaments at the world juniors, Canada has not looked like the favourites that they have in years past, and they’ve been beaten in big games as a result.
Let’s grade Minnesota for the host job that they did.
Cullen: This is a fun tournament, there weren’t a lot of bad games, and in terms of hosts they had a unique situation there. The rink where the Wild play, that’s a state-of-the-art hockey rink. It’s a building with a ton of energy, and I felt that through the United States games, particularly.
It would’ve been nice to have more fans in the Minnesota Gophers arena — it’s a 10,000 seat arena, I don’t think it looked full once. Maybe the New Year’s Eve game when Canada played Finland, it was getting pretty close.
The United States hasn’t hosted the world juniors since 2018 I think, so it had been a long time.
The world juniors is a huge property in Canada, and it is in Europe as well. We’ll be heading back over to Red Deer and Edmonton for the next time, and going over to Finland and coming to Quebec City, and then going back to the U.S. after that. All of those coming up are going to be really great tournaments.
It’s hard to put a finger on the grade – loved the hockey on the ice and the fan support would have been the lacking element there.
Who stood out for you from the Canadian squad based on your vantage point calling these games?
Cullen: Lots of those players are going to have really bright futures, despite what they might think is a disappointing result. A lot of them can hold their heads high.
Gavin McKenna was the big name, and he had some struggles at times, but I thought the way he bounced back in the bronze medal game was important. He’s a player that’s done a lot of winning over his career, and he’s having a more challenging season now that he’s playing in the NCAA.
He had over 130 points playing with Medicine Hat last year, who went to the Memorial Cup final. They won the WHL, and that’s been the story of his hot career up to this point.
I really like Michael Hage as well, that’s a great story. Canadians prospect, really good shot — he got denied by the post three times in the semifinal. We would probably be having a different conversation if a couple of those pucks went in against the Czechs.
(Zayne) Parekh has got a great shot, he’s a great offensive talent. I think he’s going to be a really good NHL player.
Also love the two 17-year-old defencemen that really grew into the tournament — Keaton Verhoeff and Carson Carels — two players wearing a full face mask in and out of the lineup in the beginning and in the end they were taking a regular shift. I think both those guys, big guys, 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-2. There’s going to be some bright futures there.
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