World Cup of Hockey Recap

Well, the World Cup of Hockey has come and gone and I suppose it was a bigger success than I initially thought it would be.  The Air Canada Centre sold out for every game and it seemed that the players involved bought-in enough.  I still don't think that it is good enough to replace the Olympics, so if that happens, it will be a huge letdown.  As far as the results of the tournament, it really was no surprise that Canada won.  They're the most talented hockey nation in the world, and it's probably not even close.  The biggest surprise was Team Europe, who were written off by nearly everyone, including myself, as a team that was too old and had too many different pieces to actually be successful.  The fact that they were able to upset Team Sweden in the semi-finals and get all the way to the finals was truly shocking.  The other shocking part was just how badly Team USA played.  I didn't think that they would win the tournament, or even make it to the finals like some people did, but I expected them to at least win a game or so.  The fact that they went winless against Team Europe, Team Canada, and Team Czech Republic is staggering.  I will get to a sort of team-by-team breakdown after I go through the standings.

Standings

1.) Team Canada: 3-0-0 in tournament, won finals against Team Europe

2.) Team Europe: 2-1-0 in tournament, lost to Team Canada in Finals

3.) Team Sweden: 2-1-1 in tournament, lost to Team Europe in semi-finals

4.) Team Russia: 2-1-0 in tournament, lost to Team Canada in semi-finals

5.) Team North America: 2-1-0 in tournament, failed to advance to knockout stage

6.) Team Czech Republic: 1-1-1 in tournament, failed to advance to knockout stage

7.) Team USA: 0-3-0 in tournament, failed to advance to knockout stage

8.) Team Finland: 0-3-0 in tournament, failed to advance to knockout stage

Team Canada

• Top Scorer: Sidney Crosby, 10 points (MVP of Tournament)
• Top Goalie: Carey Price: 5-0-0, 1.40 GAA, .957 save percentage
• Canada was the best team in this tournament, by far.  Team Europe played a close game in the finals but it was really always Canada's to lose.  Even if the players left off the roster were put on a new team, that team could still probably place at this tournament.  Canada is by far the most talented hockey nation in the world and will be probably until the end of time.  

Team Europe

• Top Scorer(s): Mats Zuccarello, 4 points; Anze Kopitar, 4 points
• Top Goalie: Jaro Halak: 3-3-0, 2.15 GAA, .941 save percentage
• Europe shocked everyone by even getting out of their grouping and making it to the semi-finals. They came together as a team and played a solid system against some really good teams. Goaltender Jaro Halak was excellent and that has to be good news for Islanders' fans.  Although this team looked like a bunch of different pieces that was like trying to put together a puzzle, some players (Christian Ehrhoff and Dennis Seidenberg) played well enough to get signed to contracts with NHL teams.  I was really happy that the players on this team were given the opportunity to play in this tournament since their countries weren't going to be able to play like they would be at the Olympics.

Team Sweden

• Top Scorer(s): Niklas Backstrom, 4 points; Erik Karlsson, 4 points
• Top Goalie: Henrik Lundqvist, 3-1-1, 2.25 GAA, .940 save percentage
• Team Sweden played about as well as I thought they would.  Henrik Lundqvist seemed to have shaken off any of the struggles he had in the playoffs last season and played quite well.  Sweden still has the best defensive group of any nation and they lived up to the hype.  They just didn't score enough during this tournament and this will be something they need to focus on in future tournaments.

Team Russia

• Top Scorer(s): four players tied with 4 points (Kucherov, Malkin, Ovechkin, Telegin)
• Top Goalie: 2-2-0, 2.53 GAA, .930 save percentage
• Russia was basically what a lot of people thought they would be.  They scored a bunch of goals and just barely had a positive goal differential.  Russia will struggle to excel in these tournaments until they start developing top-tier defensemen and goaltenders again.

Team North America

• Top Scorer(s): Johnny Gaudreau, 4 points, Shayne Gostisbehere, 4 points
• Top Goalie: John Gibson, 2-1-0, 2.09 GAA, .932 save percentage
• Team North America was everyone's darling of the tournament and they came through.  They actually tied with Russia to be the second team to advance from Group B, but lost the tiebreaker.  They were the most fun team to watch in the tournament and were the fastest team by far.  Canada and America have bright futures based on how successful this team played.

Team Czech Republic

• Top Scorer: Milan Michalek, 3 points
• Top Goalie: Petr Mrazek, 2-1-0, 2.98 GAA, .925 save percentage
• The Czech team continued their struggle in international tournaments at the World Cup by only winning one game against Team USA and failed to advance out of their group.  If this tournament were comprised of individual European teams that made it through a qualifier instead of an all-encompassing Team Europe, then the Czech Republic team probably wouldn't have made the tournament.  They're really struggling to excel in recent years on the international stage and are having issues developing players like they used to.

Team USA

• Top Scorer(s): 3 players tied with 2 points (McDonagh, Kane, Pavelski)
• Top Goalie: Jonathan Quick: 0-2-0, 3.56 GAA, .863 save percentage
• The Americans struggled mightily in this tournament, probably even more so than what people expected them to.  I expected them to have problems scoring goals but they struggled way worse than I thought they would.  They were supposed to be strong on defense and in net, but going with Jonathan Quick as their starter proved to be the wrong choice, as his GAA was over 3 and he had a sub-.900 save percentage.  They should have gone with Cory Schneider or Ben Bishop in net, both of whom have been better than Quick in recent seasons.  The failings of this team bring all of their decisions into question and it has to start at the top.  Hiring Dean Lombardi to be the GM of this team should have been a good move based on the successes of the LA Kings, but I think his choice of John Tortorella as head coach was wrong.  Tortorella was definitely given some free rein to make roster decisions and that was Lombardi's big mistake.  The roster was definitely a Tortorella team that valued "attitude" and "grit" over talent.  Taking players like Abdelkadar, Backes, and Jack Johnson over Tyler Johnson, Phil Kessel (who wouldn't have been able to play due to injury), and Justin Faulk was a huge mistake.  They failed to place any emphasis on playmaking and taking players with this ability. The only player on their roster that really had the ability to score a goal at any time was Patrick Kane and opposing teams recognized this as well.  It seems as though the people leading USA Hockey are content with penciling in the same names that they used in the most recent tournament.  Parise? Yup. Jack Johnson? Yup. Ryan Kesler? Yup.  T.J. Oshie? JVR? Matt Niskanen? All have had experience for Team USA at major international tournaments and at one point in their careers were good enough to do so. But now they are older, slower, and don't have the natural playmaking abilities of a player like Phil Kessel, Tyler Johnson, or even Kyle Okposo.  On defense, they only took two defensemen (Carlson and McDonagh) that are good puck movers and who can make quick decisions.  They left off players like Keith Yandle, Cam Fowler, and Justin Faulk, all of whom would have been improvements over this roster.  One could argue that the players left off this roster could beat the players that actually made this roster.  It's embarrassing how poor of a showing this team had at the tournament, and the country expects and deserves better.  The first thing that needs to happen is John Tortorella should never be allowed coaching a USA team ever again. He will constantly take his own players (Dubinsky has no place on a team in this type of tournament) and his style of play will constantly lose to sound strategies implemented by teams like Canada, Sweden, and apparently, the Czech Republic.  On Tortorella's bench were Mike Sullivan, reigning Stanley Cup-winning coach, and John Hynes, who took a bad Devils' roster and nearly led them to the playoffs last season.  Tortorella is bad and should not be allowed to be around a national team.  On the bright side of things, the next time there is a major international tournament, either in 2018 or 2020, the USA roster will probably be a lot better and more innovative.  As long as someone with common sense is picking the roster, then players including Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Johnny Gaudreau, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Seth Jones (among others) will all be on the Team USA roster.

Team Finland 

• Top Scorer(s): 3 players tied with 1 point (Komarov, Filppula, and Jokinen)
• Top Goalie: Tuuka Rask, 0-2-0, 2.02 GAA, .920 save percentage
• This is the one result, after perhaps Team USA, that I am most blown away by.  I thought Finland had a chance to finish in the top three, or at least get into the semi-finals.  They ended up going 0-3-0 during their preliminary games and only scored one goal.  So that's obviously an issue that Finland dealt with and something they'll need to work on and fix before the next tournament.  There are reasons for optimism, however, and they all come in the form of youth. In this year's NHL draft, three of the top five draft picks were from Finland, and only one, Patrik Laine, was on Team Finland's roster.  That's encouraging.

How did my projections fare?

Here's what my projections looked like:

1. Canada
2. Sweden
3. North America
4. Finland
5. USA
6. Russia
7. Europe
8. Czech Republic

So basically the only one I got right was picking Canada to win, which was an easy choice.  I at least had Sweden making the semi-finals, so there's that.  But overall, I didn't do good in projecting the World Cup.

The Good, the Bad...

The Good

• Team North America was a fantastic team to watch.  They were exciting and enjoyable and play a game that exhibits the model that works in the NHL currently.  I would love to see an installment of this team in future World Cups, but we'll see.  I think the fact that Team USA was without several of its best players because of their age, may make it so this was a one and done.
• It was nice just seeing a best-on-best tournament again.
• Competition was incredible
• Ref Cams

The Bad

• No one was really able to compete with Canada in the tournament.  During the Olympics, teams are always competing with Canada, even if they don't win.
• Viewership was down, especially in the United States
• Hockey on ESPN is weird...Barry Melrose is way worse than either Pierre McGuire or Doc Emrick, which I didn't know was possible.
• Any success that the World Cup has could affect the future of the NHL in the Olympics, which would be sad...word is that several of the Russian players will threaten to leave their teams to play for their nation in 2018 no matter what.  The NHL can't afford that.
• Playing a short tournament in September just feels like an exhibition tournament, which is what it was.

Lasting Thoughts

• If the NHL is set on making the World Cup a regular event that occurs every four years, then they need to do something to work it in with the Olympics.  There is no way that the World Cup will ever be equal to the Olympics in terms of importance or popularity and the NHL needs to understand that.  The only way I see the World Cup continuing as a success would be to either make the World Cup take place during the season, similar to when the Olympics are scheduled. The World Cup would just end up taking place during the Summer Olympic years; I think this would make the most amount of people happy, including the players.  The other option I see, would be for the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) or the IOC to make a ruling that only amateur players can play in the Olympics.  If this took place, the World Cup could become a bigger tournament with more on the line and it would increase the popularity of the tournament.  This would also take the hockey tournament at the Olympics back to what it was intended to be, an amateur competition, similar to the rest of the sports.  If this took place, the World Cup could also travel to various cities every four years, and it could allow more teams into the tournament - maybe 16 teams divided into four groups with a qualifying tournament taking place the summer before the World Cup takes place.  This would get rid of a Team Europe and instead, each nation would have an opportunity to qualify and there would be no reason for a Team North America, although it would still make sense to have that team.  I'd be a fan of the World Cup if either of these options were researched and considered.  But as it is right now, I don't like it and just want the Olympics to be the major best-on-best hockey tournament.