Team North America Is Going to Shake up World Cup of Hockey
Team North America was seen as a gimmick by many hardcore fans before the World Cup of Hockey started. Not anymore.
Team North America is that group of under-23-year-old players that was supposed to bring some youthful names in that wouldn’t have made their countries parent clubs and add a little excitement.
It is starting to look like everyone is getting more than they bargained for with this team. Granted, their first two exhibition games were against Team Europe, a team that may be worse than people thought but who really knows? The youngsters have scored 11 goals in those two games and thrown a shutout in, to boot.
There was no question before the tournament that they had some talent with the likes of Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel as well as Johnny Gaudreau, Nathan MacKinnon, Aaron Ekblad and Matt Murray. The biggest questions were how well would they mesh together from two countries and how good would the goaltending be?
They are looking scary good and have meshed very well so far. Gaudreau and MacKinnon have four points each in the first two and probably their best player, McDavid hasn’t even tallied a point yet. Ekblad has two goals already.
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Matt Murray threw up a shutout against the Europeans and made it look easy. John Gibson of Anaheim gave up four on 36 shots but will be a capable backup.
The team boasts five of the past six number one overall picks with 2016 top selection Auston Matthews joining McDavid, Ekblad, MacKinnon and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Even team Canada may have a hard time fielding a line better than McDavid, Eichel, and Gaudreau. It seems that the way the NHL is trending is toward younger and faster and this team might just reinforce that.
Their new biggest question is how they will do against a team like the USA that is playing a highly physical game so far in the pre-tournament. Or against teams like Finland or Sweden that have lots of experience playing together and are much more defensive-minded. Can the North Americans play a defensive game if needed?
They have one more pre-tournament game on Wednesday against the Czech Republic in Pittsburgh. It will be interesting to see if their game changes before they enter their three-game round robin against Finland, Russia, and Sweden next Sunday.
Team North America is certainly not a gimmick at this point and they prove to add a bunch of excitement to the tournament. Wouldn’t it shake things up if they actually won the whole thing?
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