Team USA--WJC

[Greyeagle]

Re: Team USA--WJC

During the anthem this is the exact picture I hoped someone took. Hopefully a picture like that is available to purchase somewhere.

I was too, it's a shame all those media schmucks are in the shot.

 

[cross cheque]

Re: Team USA--WJC

I apologize if this has been posted already.


[video]http://canada4thbest.ytmnd.com/[/video]

 

[bothman]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Here's a shout out to Rocco for taking a potential negative, turning it into a positive, and becoming a difference maker when it mattered most.

 

[MCgrad07]

Re: Team USA--WJC

I apologize if this has been posted already.


[video]http://canada4thbest.ytmnd.com/[/video]

ha, that is great

 

[goldy_331]

Re: Team USA--WJC

So Phil Housely, that over his head twit, did a pretty goddam good job. And John Gibson is a freaking stud.

I always hate it when I have to agree wholeheartedly with Dirty, but when he's right, he's right. Add Rocco to the list who came through with a pretty dam good job.

 

[Koho]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Is there somewhere this game will be replayed online? Don't get NHL network. I watched an earlier game that was replayed, I thought on NHL.com, but all they show now are short highlight videos (and the one from Gold medal game so far is just Gibson's saves.

 

[HarleyMC]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Congratulations Team USA on a great win!!!

Jon Gibson gets my vote for MVP of the tournament for USA. Granted he had a solid team in front of him and lots of standout players, but this kid is a flat out backstop and without his consistent, game changing performances, I don't think USA is wearing the Gold today.

Tonight was another outstanding effort by Gibson as he burned several Sweden players on point blank shots and put on a goalie clinic playing the butterfly style to perfection. He now holds the best SV% ever for Team USA, a record that will be very difficult to surpass.

Team USA Best Save Percentages/GP

J. Gibson (2012) - .955/7
A Montoya (2004) - .944/6
J. Campbell (2011) - .941/6
J. Frazee (2007) - .938/5
B Goepfert (2003) - .937/7
R. Dipietro (2000) - .935/5

 

[alnike]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Does anyone know how many of the US players spent time with the NTDP?

Those who do not have a NTDP background...
Backup goalies: Gillies (Prov), Sparks (OHL)

Defense: Gotisbehere (Union), Reilly (MN)

Forwards: Galchenyuk (OHL), Gaudreau (BC), Kuraly (Miami), Lucia (MN), Trochek (OHL), Vesey (Hvd)

Great for team USA, but it would be even better for certain college programs if some of these players had honored their LOI's (Gibson - Michigan), (Murphy/Sieloff/Hartman/Biggs - Miami), (Miller - NoDak) and went to college, but can't get them all. The talent level in college hockey would have been helped as their is a leak at the top with about 30 players a year turning pro, then we had a couple summers where many recruits defected to the CHL.

 

[Dirty]

Re: Team USA--WJC

@THNRyanKennedy: Awkward: Apparently Sweden, Team USA, Canada and Finland are on the same charter flight out of Ufa tonight.

But is Steve Spott?

 

[defkit]

Re: Team USA--WJC

@THNRyanKennedy: Awkward: Apparently Sweden, Team USA, Canada and Finland are on the same charter flight out of Ufa tonight.

But is Steve Spott?

LOL. He hasn't decided whether to fly to Siberia or the far reaches of the Northwest Territories/Nanavut/Whatever it is called these days.

Perhaps Subban feels some level of vindication against all those that claimed he should have been on the bench the whole tourney. His replacement didn't look any better this morning.

 

[Ralph Baer]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Thanks, alnike

 

[MUhawks628]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Great for team USA, but it would be even better for certain college programs if some of these players had honored their LOI's (Gibson - Michigan), (Murphy/Sieloff/Hartman/Biggs - Miami), (Miller - NoDak) and went to college, but can't get them all.

<img src="http://www.gifbin.com/bin/042012/1334602480_guy_gets_a_nut_shot.gif">

 

[First Time Long Time]

Re: Team USA--WJC

All the goals in the medal round were scored by college players.

Trochek get the empty netter.
He's in the OHL
So all against goalies sure.

 

[Jeff_Jackson_for_Pres.]

Re: Team USA--WJC

forwards: ... Lucia (ND), ...

fyp

 

[SteveP]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Congratulations Team USA on a great win!!!

Jon Gibson gets my vote for MVP of the tournament for USA. Granted he had a solid team in front of him and lots of standout players, but this kid is a flat out backstop and without his consistent, game changing performances, I don't think USA is wearing the Gold today.

Tonight was another outstanding effort by Gibson as he burned several Sweden players on point blank shots and put on a goalie clinic playing the butterfly style to perfection. He now holds the best SV% ever for Team USA, a record that will be very difficult to surpass.

Team USA Best Save Percentages/GP

J. Gibson (2012) - .955/7
A Montoya (2004) - .944/6
J. Campbell (2011) - .941/6
J. Frazee (2007) - .938/5
B Goepfert (2003) - .937/7
R. Dipietro (2000) - .935/5

I'll add my congrats to Team USA for a well deserved gold. Thirteen collegiate players on the team, not one on Team Canada. I could be wrong but I don't believe that any Canadian NCAA players were invited to the selection camp. Me thinks it's long past time that the deep thinkers at Hockey Canada change the game plan.

Four Pittsburgh-area boys on the team, including Gibson. A decade or so ago that would have been unthinkable. Gibson clearly deserved the MVP, but here's a question raised by some of our team staff this morning when Mears and Hradek brought up the US goalie numbers over the past several tournaments:

Where are they now? For whatever reason, the ones in Harley's list have not gone on to bigger things on the bigger stage.

Could Gibson be one to change that? I guess only time will tell.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Team USA--WJC

I'll add my congrats to Team USA for a well deserved gold. Thirteen collegiate players on the team, not one on Team Canada. I could be wrong but I don't believe that any Canadian NCAA players were invited to the selection camp. Me thinks it's long past time that the deep thinkers at Hockey Canada change the game plan.

I could see that kind of a shakeup if Canada had faced relegation (as some doomsayers are predicting they would have if the NHL hadn't locked out), but since they did finish 4th, I think it's more likely Team Canada's brass will change coaches and call it a day. Cherry's attitude is pretty deeply engraved in the current minds of Hockey Canada officials.

 

[giwan]

Re: Team USA--WJC

Is there somewhere this game will be replayed online? Don't get NHL network. I watched an earlier game that was replayed, I thought on NHL.com, but all they show now are short highlight videos (and the one from Gold medal game so far is just Gibson's saves.

hockeywebcasts.com

 

[SteveP]

Re: Team USA--WJC

I could see that kind of a shakeup if Canada had faced relegation (as some doomsayers are predicting they would have if the NHL hadn't locked out), but since they did finish 4th, I think it's more likely Team Canada's brass will change coaches and call it a day. Cherry's attitude is pretty deeply engraved in the current minds of Hockey Canada officials.

Bob McKenzie has a great, but lengthy, analysis of the tournament from a Canadian perspective.

I agree with Manny Malhotra, who tweeted it's time Canada puts an end to the gold-or-nothing mentality. Fer chrissakes, it's 17, 18 and 19 year olds playing a game!

The perception of coaches in this WJC -- winners and losers, good coaches and bad coaches -- has always amused me at this tournament, where the margin between glory and disaster is paper thin.

I remember after the 2010 WJC in Saskatoon that the popular theory, espoused by many after John Carlson's overtime winner to give the Americans gold, was that Team USA's Dean Blais did an amazing job, out-coaching Team Canada's Willie Desjardins. Which is pretty funny, if you think about it in an overtime game for gold, where Canada missed its two-on-one at one end and the Americans zipped theirs in at the other end.

The next year it was Dave Cameron's turn to be the dumb-dumb behind the bench who was less than 20 minutes away from a rather dominant Team Canada WJC effort before an incredible, near miraculous comeback by the Russians. Last year, it was Don Hay's turn to wear the goat horns. It didn't matter Hay won the tourney in 1995, or that he won a Memorial Cup, his team didn't show up for the first 40 minutes of the semi-final against Russia, so he was the cardboard cutout behind the bench.

Speaking of which, it's really too bad the 7th-place Americans last year couldn't get a guy like Dean Blais to come back and run the team after his heroics in 2010 in Saskatoon.

Uh, what's that? Oh, Dean Blais was the coach of the 7th place Americans last year...just two years after winning gold in Saskatoon. Go figure.

 

[alnike]

Re: Team USA--WJC

I'll add my congrats to Team USA for a well deserved gold. Thirteen collegiate players on the team, not one on Team Canada. I could be wrong but I don't believe that any Canadian NCAA players were invited to the selection camp. Me thinks it's long past time that the deep thinkers at Hockey Canada change the game plan.

Gibson clearly deserved the MVP, but here's a question raised by some of our team staff this morning when Mears and Hradek brought up the US goalie numbers over the past several tournaments:

Where are they now? For whatever reason, the ones in Harley's list have not gone on to bigger things on the bigger stage.

Could Gibson be one to change that? I guess only time will tell.

In terms of Canadian-born/NCAA players eligible for the WJC, please name a few candidates who could have made that team with 1993 or 1994 birthdates?

Phil DiGiuseppe of Michigan was invited to the summer camp, but a combination of a very slow 1st half and NHL players being locked out, he had no chance to be invited to the December tryout. DiGiuseppe played himself off the first line for a struggling Michigan team.

BC freshman Mike Matheson may be invited next year, but too young this year. Other freshman like Jankowski at Providence and Shore at Maine are not making huge impacts so far.

I can't think of any others candidates. That kind of shows the lack of Canadian talent the NCAA is pulling from Ontario, BC and Alberta. Maybe teams are shying away too with all the players that defect to the CHL.

 

[SteveP]

Re: Team USA--WJC

In terms of Canadian-born/NCAA players eligible for the WJC, please name a few candidates who could have made that team with 1993 or 1994 birthdates?

Phil DiGiuseppe of Michigan was invited to the summer camp, but a combination of a very slow 1st half and NHL players being locked out, he had no chance to be invited to the December tryout. DiGiuseppe played himself off the first line for a struggling Michigan team.

BC freshman Mike Matheson may be invited next year, but too young this year. Other freshman like Jankowski at Providence and Shore at Maine are not making huge impacts so far.

I can't think of any others candidates. That kind of shows the lack of Canadian talent the NCAA is pulling from Ontario, BC and Alberta. Maybe teams are shying away too with all the players that defect to the CHL.

You're right that with the lockout there was an overabundance of talent available. I think the overarching issue is the "battle" between the NCAA and CHL and that's keeping Hockey Canada's mind set on only going with junior players.

I just think they need to change that mindset in the future and look at some guys playing D-1 that might have the skills.