Doing a turn on radio last week I was asked how the 2015 Canadian team at the world juniors stacks up in comparison to the 2005 squad that brought home gold from Grand Forks, North Dakota.
The host thought the call had dropped. I put him on hold for a five-second facepalm.
“I’m back,” I said. “I’m all about the positive, so let me say this. I think Zach Fucale is an upgrade in goal from Jeff Glass.”
Maybe it’s something about the time of the year — the holiday season, counting down to midnight, the congregation of Canadian youth and a sea of licensed Hockey Canada merchandise. Still, every time Canada wins a game or two, the irrational enthusiasm kicks in.
Okay, the 2015 team has managed to make its way to the gold-medal game Monday night having not dropped a game. The 2005 squad did the same.
That’s about where the comparison ends.
I didn’t get to the 2005 tournament until Day 3 and called ahead to a scout who was there from the get-go. “The other guys are beaten before they take their sticks from the rack,” he said. “They’re dead and they know it.”
This Canadian team doesn’t quite inspire the same awe as that 2005 team. The alumni from that team, the likes of Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Shea Weber won two Olympic gold medals and Jeff Carter, Mike Richards and Brent Seabrook won one each.
Maybe there will be Olympic golds in the future of Connor McDavid, Sam Reinhart, Max Domi and Darnell Nurse. That remains to be seen. On the level of skill, these and a few others on this team you’d put in the same bracket with their forebears.
Let’s not forget that Crosby in 2005 was not the Hart Trophy winning Crosby of 2007 but rather a winger playing beside Bergeron. A lot of people watched him at the tournament for the first time and wondered what the big deal was. Even scouts who had seen him in Rimouski for two seasons thought that he had a tournament that was no better than good. (Something that McDavid and his doubters should keep in mind.)
Let’s also not forget that the 2005 squad had a few guys who didn’t make or didn’t stick in the NHL — the likes of Stephen Dixon, Jeremy Colliton, Danny Syvret and Nigel Dawes.
No, it’s physical intimidation that separates these teams a decade apart. The 2005 squad had opponents looking for the exits the first time they saw one of their own being helped off the ice. That team in Grand Forks didn’t play a possession game so much as a percussion game. Those Canadian teens, Weber, Perry and Dion Phaneuf among others, were most dangerous to your health when you had the puck.
These Canadian teens lack that intimidation quotient — the Russian team they face at the ACC might be afraid to lose but not afraid for their health and welfare. The host team has beaten everyone put in front of them but not beaten them up — a show of mercy against the overmatched Danes.
If you go into the archives, you’ll see that the 2005 team scored a 3-1 win over the Czechs in the semifinal, seemingly a tight game. The final score was a well-crafted lie — Canada outshot the Czechs 42-11 in that one. The Czechs might have had only three half-baked scoring chances across 60 minutes.
On Sunday this year’s edition beat the Slovaks 5-1 and outshot them 44-13, an almost identical outcome in the same circumstances. And the Slovaks had to believe they had no hope coming in, although that had a lot less to do with brute force and malice and everything to do with an 8-0 blowout loss to Canada in the opening game in Montreal.
What made the reputation of that team in 2005 was not its routs of the Germans, the Swedes or the Finns, not even the tidal wave that the Czechs weathered. No, it was a 6-1 pounding of the Russians in the gold-medal game, the most physically brutal junior game of the few thousand I’ve watched. (I started banking them when Ron Ellis played for the Marlies.) Alexander Ovechkin absorbed a bunch of big hits — even Crosby got in one — and didn’t make it past the second intermission. For the last 40 minutes, it was the Russians who didn’t want to wake the bear.
It’s not going to happen tomorrow, not the way it did in 2005.
It’s a different team — if you’re looking for big hits from Domi, Reinhart or McDavid, you should tune in to the tournament at some point. They’re not that type of player. They might be ridiculously skilled but they don’t have an ounce of menace in them. Not Nic Petan, Curtis Lazar, Anthony Duclair or Nick Paul either. They’ll be competent pros, but no Russian is going to physically fear them. These Canadian players will do well to keep up with the level of contact and power along the boards that the Russians demonstrated to clinical effect against the Swedes in a one-sided semifinal matinee.
It’s also a different time. The game is different these days. It has changed a lot since 2005. I suspect that if those same two teams from Grand Forks were to play exactly the same game today, refs would be wearing out whistles and a couple of Canadian players in the overflow would be assigned to the auxiliary penalty box.
Comparisons between the teams and the times are not operative.
I suspect that this Russian team, even lacking a fraction of the star power, will be a heck of a lot more competitive than Ovechkin, Malkin et al in Grand Forks. I’m suspecting Zach Fucale will be busier than Jeff Glass who only had to clear cobwebs in the cage.
I’ve seen Canadian teams wax Russians in this tournament, ’05 edging out ’06 in Vancouver. I’ve seen Russian teams knock off Canadian teams, sometimes in games decided by nothing more than a bounce, a call or non-call. The Russians were the most dangerous opponent this Canadian team can face. When the puck drops at 8 p.m. Monday, history, years past and in this week past, will be meaningless. History will start being written at about 8:01.