Team Europe finds Canada’s flaws, its own confidence in loss

TORONTO – Frans Nielsen of Team Europe said playing Canada is an exercise in dashed expectations and sudden frustration.

“You feel like you’re doing good, you’re creating chances and then just a small mistake and they score. So it’s so tough,” he said.

Of course, this is also how every team that’s faced Team Europe described that experience, to the point where hockey power like Sweden has offensive paralysis set in while worrying about a gaffe.

“You’re right,” said Nielsen, with a laugh, “but Canada is just so good.”

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That they are. Canada moved to within one win of hoisting – or clenching or snuggling or whatever the hell you do with this thing – the World Cup of Hockey after their 3-1 win over Europe on Tuesday night in their best-of-three final. It was the closest game Canada had played in the tournament, and a remarkable turnaround for a Europe team that gave up 83 shot attempts in their preliminary loss to the host nation.

But if you ask Canada, the game was close because they laid an egg.

“I think we’re disappointed in the way we played. I didn’t think our team was overly happy with the way we played tonight. We talked about it in our room a little bit in between periods and after the game, we weren’t overall excited about it,” said center Ryan Getzlaf, whose steal-and-assist play set up Canada’s second goal. “I thought we were sloppy with the puck.”

Said defenseman Alex Pietrangelo: “If you look at our execution, if we had a play to be made, we didn’t make it.”

It was a missed opportunity for Team Europe to catch Canada on an off-night, which might be a point of frustration for another team. But coach Ralph Krueger said that his veteran-laden roster – the oldest on average in the World Cup – won’t dwell on that.

“This is going to be our ninth game tomorrow. One of the things that makes us strong is that we don’t look too far back or too far forward. We’ve picked a couple of simple areas where we can improve on,” he said.

So what can they improve on?

Team Europe was at its best when they turned up the heat in the Canadian defensive zone, defying its reputation as a team that sat back in other tournament games. It disrupted breakouts and, according to Nielsen, exposed what might be one of the few weaknesses in the Canada’s makeup.

“We have to make them defend. When you look at their forward lines, it’s all forwards that are used to playing offensive and playing in the offensive end. Scoring 80-plus points, all of them. Any weakness on their team is probably playing in their own end, if you look at their forwards. They do have some of the best two-way players, but a lot of them, you know, are used to just playing in the offensive zone and being good down there. So we have to make them defend,” he said.

While the end result was unsatisfying, the Team Europe players say enough dents in the armor, cracks in the wall and moments of potential vulnerability to encourage them about their Game 2 chances.

“We showed we can play against Canada,” said winger Tomas Tatar. “We showed they are human as well. We all respect them. They’re the best in the world right now. But we’re playing good hockey. We’re not afraid to play anybody right now.”

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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