Gare Joyce

Gare Joyce writes regularly on junior hockey for Sportsnet.ca. A veteran journalist, Joyce is the author of Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts, When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game and Sidney Crosby: Taking the Game by Storm. He also writes for ESPN The Magazine, espn.com and several Canadian magazines.

You could go a long time and not see a meaningful game with so many mistakes. If you had looked at last night's SF win over Russia with a critic's eye, you'd wonder how the Canadian program is on a run of four consecutive championships.

You could also go a long time and not see a big-stakes game with more raw emotion. If you just looked in the faces of the players on both sides last night, you'd understand that they have never been so deeply committed and invested in any evening on ice.

And so, Canada advances to the gold-medal game vs Sweden on Monday night.  Meanwhile the Russians are headed to what must appear to them the empty consolation of a bronze-medal game against Slovakia.

The Canadians have plenty of reasons for concern. Thomas Hickey, who's supposed to be the first option to protect a one-goal lead, was spun around like Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars. He wasn't the only offender nor necessarily the worst--Tyler Myers looked like he was on roller skates out there. It just might be that the best d-man last night was P.K. Subban ... he gave the puck away a couple of times (biz as usual) but he never has moved faster to cover his mistakes, the benefit of speed possessed by no one else on the Canadian back end. If the Canadians had trouble with the Russians whose talent up front runs not quite two lines deep, then the Swedes should pose even more problems. The Russians don't move as fast, flash as much skill and work together so seamlessly as the Swedes.

(One scout's read on the Brampton Battalion's Evgeni Grachev: "He looked great out there ... He didn't need the odd-man rush to generate a chance. One-on-one the Canadians just had no answer for him." On Nikita Filatov, Columbus' 2008 first-rounder now with the CBJ affiliate Syracuse Crunch: "He was better earlier in the tournament. Not as good on the big stage." On the Russian talent up front: "They should have been better. They didn't take [the Windsor Spitfires' Andrei] Loktionov--he was injured before but he was cleared to play ... maybe that explains it. But there's no way to explain why they didn't take Maxim Mayorov [a Columbus draftee playing with Filatov in Syracuse].")

The Swedes can go to school on the Russians' impossibly narrow loss Saturday night. It will be like stolen intel. For their part the Russians did a pretty comprehensive work-up on the Canadians at the under-18s and, especially, during the ADT Challenge tour of the CHL a few weeks back. In the SF the Russian D jumped up into the rush and poured in on goal with almost as much abandon as P.K. Subban in a game of shinny. The best on this count was Maxim Goncharov--one scout said the big Phoenix draftee was "terrific." I asked assistant coach Guy Boucher (who worked as a Quinn sidekick at the U18s and the head guy in an ADT Challenge game vs QMJHL guys) if he was suprised by the Russian D's daring. Boucher: "It's exactly what we expected. We could see that the ADT Challenge was a chance for them to try things out--they could get a good look at our talent and their talent and they could see what would work against Canada. It's not like their D did that in every game [on the tour]. And they didn't show it really in [WJC] games here. But they had success with it at the ADT so we kept that in mind and it was part of our preparation." 

Another focus of the Russians' pre-tournament intelligence was John Tavares. Boucher again: "They did a real good job closing the gap [on JT] and they got their top D pair Goncharov and Pashnin out there against John's line in the five-on-five." Victor Hedman and Robert Karlsson vs JT? One of the intrigues of the final. Immoveable object in gold and blue vs irresistible force in red and white with the No. 1 pick in the draft as the stakes. If JT can light it up vs Hedman and Co. that's all she wrote ... but if Hedman can win the day, the debate is re-ignited. 

It wasn't beautiful but it was exciting. JT had it right when he said in the post-game that Canada will have to be better in the final. The Swedes just smoked the Russians in the first round (although, as is often the case in so many tournaments, the Russians were betrayed by some awful goaltending). There's more than a small chance that some sandbagging was involved--the Russians went with the okay Vadim Zhelobnyuk in goal vs Canada instead of the useless Danila Alistratov who faced the Swedes in the Q round. Canada will face the best goaltender in this tournament in the final: Sweden's Jacob Markstrom is just a giant back there. He doesn't just cover the net ... fans in a couple of sections of end seats complain that he obscures their view of the game up the ice.

STFOOMN

•   One scout on Richard Panik, the marquee draft-eligible on the beloved Slovaks: "It's a question of heart. The talent is there but is the effort? He shows you it on some shifts but not every shift. He teases you with talent." After I told the scout that Panik said that he was fine with playing fourth line minutes with his Czech league team: "That's something that you worry about. He gets some money and he's happy to have it. He has the parts but is there hunger in his game."
• The other Slovak draft-eligible would caught scouts' attention was Tomas Tatar, a late 90 centre. One scout's take: "He's not much of a skater but he was around the play all the time and competed hard." He left unsaid the idea that he competed harder than Panik.
• Oscar Moller missed most of the Russia Q-round game with a shoulder injury--Sweden had it well in hand. Moller told me that it was fine in the SF win over Slovakia. We'll see. The Russians did try to run him but it doesn't look like the Canadians have anyone on the blueline who could throw a scare into him. The closest thing they have to a banger back there is Colten Teubert and he'll have to find Moller to hit him. At least Teubert could have a bit of a book on him from the L.A. camp. I'd bet, though, that if Moller takes a lick it's going to be delivered by Patrice Cormier.
• One Scandinavian-based scout on Hedman: "What you see here with Hedman is what he is in the Swedish league, a very good league. He isn't selfish. He only cares about results, his team, wins, not statistics. He hasn't looked for offence too often here but he did late against the Slovaks. He plays a safe game and maybe that doesn't impress too many people--but if Sweden goes up a goal or two, they'll notice how effective he is."
• Canada didn't have a prettier goal than Angelo Esposito's SH number in the third period. I'm sure there wasn't a Canadian sportwriter up in the press box who wasn't hoping that it would stand up as the winner. Not that they're boosters. Just that they wanted a chance to work a line about a former figure skater's pirouette to pick up the puck for the breakaway. 
• Scouts I talked to were impressed and even surprised by the Russians' competitive fire. When they flat-lined against the Swedes in the first round, scouts said these were the same old Russians, just like the team that rolled over and played dead vs Canada in U18 last spring (8-zip in front of a whistling horde in Kazan). Coming back to tie the game four times and take the lead with a fifth goal ... the Russians went into a pretty hostile environment, in front of the biggest crowd they had ever seen, and never quit.
• The Russian I like in the three games I viewed was No. 21, Nikita Klyukin. The Russians' choice on the penalty kill and the guy they put out vs Tavares when they could. He managed to pass through the NHL entry draft twice. One scout showed me his book on him. "Good two-way centre," it said. That was it, nothing more. He explained that there was no point in doing a more intensive work-up on him. "Unless a Russian has first-line upside we're just not that interested. And even if he does, we go at it pretty cautiously."
• As good as the game was the OT wasn't as good as it could have been. For a five-minute 4-on-4 I can understand not having a flood but for a ten-minute extra period and with the prospect of a shootout down the line the IIHF should mandate a zamboni run ... even it was just to give players a blow it would be worthwhile. They were so thoroughly gassed and so worried about making a mistake that the OT was almost bereft of drama and the level of play took a big dip. I wonder about the ice quality at SBP at this juncture--a lot of games, a lot of practices. I don't doubt nerves have something to do with the mishandles on short passes--but it's not nerves alone. Better legs, better ice, make for a better game.