Gallagher makes Team Canada

[dondo]

Very OHL heavy, two OHL goalies and to be blunt I am not impressed. OHL players are notorious for not playing a solid two-way game and Canada needs character guys who are willing to gut it out. I don't see that. There's a reason that the Dub is the league that has more NHL draft picks than any other league in the freaking world.

I have a feeling that Hockey Canada had their paws in this. They already interfered in the selection of who was invited to camp, now it feels like they forced an OHL laden squad.

They are also quite old, lots of 19s as is often the case, but no 17 year olds. A handful of 18 year olds.

Am I biased? damn right I am. Am I wrong? We shall see.

http://www.hockeycanada.ca/index.php/ci_id/75137/la_id/1/season_id/170838/profile_id/170836/team_id/81604/ss_id/56000/

[steamer1112]

I've long been of the opinion that the WHL is the most "team" oriented league. The OHL is a combination of "team" but lots of individual stuff. The QMJHL is entirely individual, hence the rather obvious lack of Memorial Cup winners.

[dondo]

I was at Canada vs Finland and I have to say that my fears were confirmed in a few too many ways. The boys played very loose for a lot of the game and back-checking was soft. This is a team that is going to have to score lots and often to have a hope and if they run into a hot goalie they could have their run cut short.

Now that said -- this was a pre-tournament game that they didn't take very seriously, leaving the ice early when there was still time in the warm-up and coming out with pretty soft two-way game in the first. They created chances by having lots of cherry-picking players cheating out of their zone and against the best teams in this tournament that play will kill them. They also have a tougher pool.

As the game went on they got better and obviously won the game and I have to say their goals were pretty, but my fav goal was Gallagher's as he was knocked down as he got the puck to his teammate, got back up and tipped the puck across the goal-line. That kind of heart was missing from a more players than I like to see.

A few of those players who got sent down by their NHL clubs back to the minors as final cuts seemed to still have a chip on their shoulder and a serious float in their game. I'm looking at you Schieffle. I still worry that the lack of a complete game of all of those OHL players will hurt them in the long run.

Its clear to me at least that the coaches and Hockey Canada have gone all offense and have less grit than they should have in tournaments like this. It could benefit them or it could back-fire badly.

I watched Finland and Slovakia tonight and felt that the battle at both ends of the ice were better than what Canada brought in their first game. I'm hoping the coaching staff is ready to instill a sense of urgency in the boys once the tourney actually starts.