TORONTO – For many, this was viewed as the second-best outcome.
But what a consolation prize.
“Canada-Russia always sounds good,” Mike Babcock said Thursday before officially learning hockey’s oldest rivals would meet in Saturday’s World Cup semifinal.
Yes, it could have been the kids instead. But Team North America was eliminated when Russia finished off the preliminary round with a 3-0 win over Finland.
That gave Russia its first semifinal berth in a best-on-best competition since the 2006 Olympics in Turin. For mainstays like Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, it’s been an eternity. They endured a 7-3 pounding from Team Canada in the quarter-finals of the Vancouver Olympics and flamed out at the same point of the 2014 Games on home ice in Sochi.
They’ll enter this game as underdogs on hostile ice at Air Canada Centre, but at least they have a chance.
“It’s a big opportunity for us,” said Ovechkin. “It’s going to be like Russia when we play Olympic Games. Everybody going to be crazy. Atmosphere’s going to be unbelievable.
“It’s going to be a great match to play and be involved and be in the stands and be on TV (to) watch this kind of rivalry.”
Many will no doubt stretch to make this about Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, just as they’ve done before. Those men entered the NHL being pitted as rivals and are each wearing the C for their country here.
But what this World Cup has represented more than anything is a turning of the page for the sport, and we should leave that talk behind as well.
Instead, how about giving Team Canada its fair due?
This group has terrorized the top level of international hockey by winning 13 consecutive best-on-best games in a row. It’s been a one-sided “rivalry” with Russia for some time now and you can bet Ovechkin is tired of seeing the Maple Leaf flying so high at these events.
Under the guidance of Babcock, this group has developed a system of protecting they puck. It’s not a stretch to suggest they may have perfected it. The emphasis is on completely eliminating the kind of turnovers that quickly become heartbreaking goals against.
It is especially important when you face a team with as many individual offensive weapons as Russia – Ovechkin and Vladimir Tarasenko, with 90 goals between them last season, connected for a beauty against Finland – but the real benefit for Team Canada is that it put basically all of the emphasis on itself rather than its opponents.
“The way I’ve always looked at it: Any successful team that you’re on, I think that you worry more about yourselves because you can control what you do,” said Canadian forward Brad Marchand. “You can’t control what the other team’s going to do, you can’t control how hard they play, the plays they make. But you can control your work ethic, being in the right position, playing the system the right way.”
Even with a collection of all-stars due to earn more than $170 million this season, they will play a simple game.
The motto of this generation of Canadian players might as well be “We before me.”
Crosby and his linemates Patrice Bergeron and Marchand dominated an opening win over the Czech Republic. Ryan O’Reilly’s fourth unit found glory against Team USA. Then the Jonathan Toews trio carried the flag highest against Team Europe on Wednesday night.
You get the idea.
When your brightest stars are playing the game the right way then everyone else quickly falls in line. Ovechkin and Tarasenko have been difference-makers so far for Russia, with Crosby, Toews and Drew Doughty driving the engine for Team Canada.
“When you see the top guys in the world doing it (right), when you see Sid putting pucks in and going after it, when you see them backchecking hard, it makes you do that too,” said Marchand. “You know, I’m playing with one of the best defensive players in the world (in Bergeron) and when he’s coming back hard and he’s always in the right position it forces you to have to do the same thing.
“It’s easy to buy in when everyone on the team is doing it and you have such great leaders.”
Still, this is the most dangerous game in a tournament for a team like Canada. They’ve been the class of the preliminary round, but that won’t mean very much if they lose Saturday night.
For anyone chasing an upset, that’s what makes the tournament format so enticing. The World Cup final is a best-of-three competition, but the semifinal is winner-take-all.
“It’s a dream game,” said Russian centre Evgeny Kuznetsov. “Most guys don’t get a chance to play against Canada – this Canada. It’s going to be a great, great challenge, and we accept it.”
Indeed, this matchup won’t be so bad after all.
