Re: US National Teams: U30s & Mrs. Potter, U22s, U18s Part II
Is the International play getting better? The Czech's u18 national team wouldn't appear to be in the top 10 for u19 USA teams.
I think it is important to put things in perspective regarding the relative quality of International play. For example, the average age of the Czech team is 16. They have five 17 year olds, twelve 16 year olds and four 15 year olds. So it would be perhaps better to look a them as a U16 team if you want to make some kind of comparison.
Despite the fact the IIHF lists the number of registered Czech women players at 2.647, the number of active players is actually about 350 - 380. Sweden has 3.434 registered players and Finland has 5.830 registered players. On the other hand, the USA is listed as having 67.230 registered women and Canada is listed at 86.612. Even if those numbers for the USA and Canada are off by 20%, the difference in depth is huge.
All that being said, what are these countries with less depth of talent to do in order to keep the score down when playing USA or Canada. The Czechs and especially the Russians simply pack the D zone and play like it is a constant penalty kill, and then look for the occasional chance to counter-attack. It is not the most entertaining hockey, but it makes for a respectable score line.
This is what allowed the Czechs to take the USA into the third period at last year's Worlds semi-final with a 1-1 tie (the game ended 3-1 for the US) and the Russians to take the Canadians into a 0-0 overtime which the Russians lost 1-0.
One measure which I like to look at to judge the relative talent level is the power play conversion rate. With such a distinct depth advantage, teams like the USA and Canada should be converting their PP opportunities at about 30% or higher. So far this year, the US PP was 0-3 against the Czechs and 1-6 against the Russians.
