MONTREAL — “We’re going to have to play a structured game or we’re going to get burned. Let’s face it, they’re faster than us.” — Team Europe’s Anze Kopitar
Structure for Team Europe in Sunday’s rematch against Team North America would’ve consisted of blocking up the neutral zone, supporting the puck and managing it, and throwing some hits to make up for the dramatic speed gap between both teams. Those were the tactics head coach Ralph Krueger emphasized in his pre-game comments.
Unfortunately for Krueger, his team only began to execute his plan in Period 2, already trailing 5-1.
This one had gong show written all over it before the Europeans found some semblance of a team-game and managed to push back to 5-4, but the kids on the other side put it out of reach with two more goals in the third period.
The tournament has yet to begin, and the Europeans are no closer to solving their biggest issue.
How will a conglomeration of players from eight different countries come together to form a team in such a short period of time?
They’ve got one final pre-tournament game to iron out the kinks or this will be a short contest for them.
Before they get there, let’s look at what happened in Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the kids.
Communication breakdown
How did Team Europe allow three goals in a minute and 59 seconds before half of the first period was played?
“We didn’t play smart,” said defenceman Dennis Seidenberg. “We just pinched at bad times without any support.”
The Europeans didn’t just get caught; they committed eight giveaways in the first period – six of them in the first eight minutes of the game.
Aaron Ekblad’s two goals bookended one from Dylan Larkin before Europe’s Pierre-Edouard Bellemare banged in a puck from the goalmouth of Team North America goaltender John Gibson’s net.
How is it that defenceman Morgan Rielly scored less than two minutes later, chasing European netminder Thomas Greiss from the game? The Europeans got caught standing around in their own zone.
“Hockey’s played with communication all over the ice, and we weren’t doing it at the beginning of the game,” said Seidenberg. “For us, in order to be successful, we have to be smarter and talk a lot more on the ice.”
You can’t hit them if you can’t catch them
“We definitely need to add some grit to our game today and that will slow them down,” said Kruger Sunday morning.
But the Europeans couldn’t catch the young North Americans, let alone hit them in that first period.
By the time the score was 4-1, just over halfway through the first frame, the Europeans had only three hits on the board – one of them care of their most diminutive forward in Mats Zuccarello. It’s a telling statistic, considering they barely had the puck over that stretch.
“We have to be more physical,” said Seidenberg. “It’s one point of emphasis we need to bring to our next game.”
Oldest team benches youngest player
One of the most interesting things Krueger said Sunday morning was that German centre Leon Draisaitl had gotten over being awestruck by some of his veteran teammates — players like captain Kopitar, who Draisaitl idolizes.
“[Draisaitl] can now stop watching how [Kopitar] ties his skates,” Krueger quipped.
Draisaitl may have obliged his coach on that task, but he spent all but two shifts over the final 40 minutes of the game watching Kopitar and his teammates skate by him as he sat in the middle of the team’s bench.
Krueger downplayed Draisaitl’s benching, reminding that the young centre had been heavily taxed with Team Germany in their Olympic qualifying games preceding the start of the World Cup pre-tournament.
He also mentioned that the decision wasn’t solely based on Draisaitl’s play.
“To get the rhythm up on some of the top players somebody’s going to pay a price for that,” Krueger said. “Like we would in any other situation, we were going with who we thought would give us a chance.”
It’s peculiar that Krueger chose to bench his youngest – possibly his fastest – player on a team that looked old and slow in two games against the youngest, fastest team in this tournament.
But the Europeans did manage three of their four goals while Draisaitl looked on.
“There’s no problem with bringing him back into the fold,” Krueger said.
Building blocks for Team Europe
Marian Gaborik scored two goals, while Bellemare and Frans Nielson added the others. Defenceman Roman Josi had two assists, Zuccarello also had two assists and Thomas Vanek had one.
Zdeno Chara mentioned it was encouraging that six of his teammates got on the board, especially after the way the game started.
As for what turned the game, enabling the Europeans to score their first goals of the pre-tournament, Krueger isolated a couple of key details.
“The effort of everybody increased, but more than anything we showed more patience in our game,” the coach said. “We made more patient offensive decisions with the puck, you saw more control, we spent more time in the offensive zone and the goals were a result of that work.
“That was hard but also smart, and that’s the kind of team we need to be.”
Team Europe will try to take that blueprint into their final pre-tournament game, which will be played in Washington, D.C, against Team Sweden Wednesday.
