Me: “shouldn’t overreact after 1-game”

Also me, after 1 loss: “we’re doomed”
Me again, after 1 win: “we’re gonna win it all”

Onward, fans

It's a single knockout... Anything can happen...

Who knew that the Canadian would turn into Swiss cheese?

Yep, USA did well in prelims and pretty much got a bye in the first round. It's really anybody's tournament

Right lol, it didn't age well.

It's just my opinion, but I believe the game against the Swedes on the 29th of December planted seeds of doubt in the minds of our players, because, for the most part, we looked good against Finland and Latvia(not that it's a particular accomplishment to look good against Latvia but still).

Everything changed during and after the game against Sweden. Against Germany our Canadian guy just looked confused out there.

And against the Czechs we might as well have missed a thousand scoring chances, so we had our loss coming.

It's not that big of a deal IMO, we can't win every year. We've made the finals 4 years in a row (2020, 21, 22 and 23), won three of them, and actually, out of 10, made 7 finals since 2015, only losing twice, both of which against the US. We can't really complain.

Sweden has 1 gold medal in 4 decades at the WJC and Finland only has a handful of medals since 2007.

The Czechs deserve this tbh. After a decade of mediocrity (from the late 00s to the late 10s I'd say), they seem to be back, which is fantastic for the sport.

Our team's gonna be (much?) better in Ottawa next year. 7 guys can potentially be back, 8 if one includes Molendyk who was injured just before the tournament and who had to be replaced at the last minute.

The defense wasn't the issue in fact.

Not saying it was great, cause it wasn't, and Mateychuk drove me nuts with the mistakes he made, but we just couldn't get a goal. For instance, Savoie not scoring a single one is borderline unforgivable. He should've had at least 2 in those 5 games.

Think about this:

Latvia defeated Germany, Germany defeated Finland, Canada defeated Finland, Finland defeated Sweden who didn't allow a single goal against Canada, Latvia and Germany, Canada struggled against Germany...

Where did I mention defence? Goaltending was brutal

Prediction time.

Finland wins USA 5-4 on regulation, or USA wins 9-1.

Rip Norway.

All of this ended up off, other than Finland.

Gold medal game: USA vs. Sweden.

‘merica

Lack of chemistry and 1 game eliminations are what makes this tournament amazing. Anyone can win at any time

Not a good prediction.

F*ck the refs.

They did really well compared to historical performance. To take Germany to OT in an elimination game says alot for them. Their only real NHL talent has ever been Mats Zuccarello and Espen Knutsen with only max 2 NHL-fringe players at at time ever; and big gap from Zuccarrello to Michael Brandsegg-Nygård. Perhaps some of their other players will get some looks by NHL teams now (Vesterheim and Steen)?

You have the Big Six, then the "next three" (Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia) and then a 3rd tier that is getting more and more competitive over time; with NHL talent coming from their as well.

Latvia, Denmark, Austria, Norway, France, and Belarus (when eligible).
I really want to see England, Italy, and Poland also sustain some more growth in their programs as well. England is a sleeper country for ice hockey, IMO and the Olympics in Milan might see that region gain some momentum in their program.

wtf happened, it was 5-2 Finland last I checked, now it's 6-5 Czechia

Poor Finland

Finland was mocking Czechs after 2nd period pretty hard. Czechs got passed off and made it personal in a productive way

From what In can tell, the SH goal at the end of the 2nd was a huge momentum swing and the Czech's rode it to the win

Rip Sweden, they got severely hampered by the missed calls in the mid 2nd

Yikes Augustine, taunting the crowd up 6-2, you don't do that

Well, that’s all! That was a fun tournament.

Looking at next year though, the US, Finland and Canada will all be in the same group, that's going to be a tough group

Nobody is ready for Kazakstan next year. Stay tuned!

Lane Hutson.
Goon.