EHM The Blue Line

So Canada just got upset 3-2 by France....regardless of the talent, a team full of NHLers shouldn't lose to a team with 0. Czechs, Americans and Russians also opened up with wins.

France has Roussel from Dallas!

DJP19 wrote:So Canada just got upset 3-2 by France....regardless of the talent, a team full of NHLers shouldn't lose to a team with 0. Czechs, Americans and Russians also opened up with wins.

Not quite true, Antoine Roussel of the Dallas Stars plays for France! And of course former NHLer Cristobal Huet was a huge factor in the game for France. No excuses offered, Canada definitely should have been able to beat them, even if they aren't exactly the strongest Canadian team ever iced. We'll wait and see what happens over the next couple games, but I'm not seeing a lot of scoring threat on Canada, and if they keep giving up so many odd man rushes, especially once they start playing the stronger teams, I can't see them doing well...

Canada, with any team from top 150 of their NHLers should win against France. I watch one period of the game and they didn't look good. France is not bad team, but come on... that should be easy 6-2 win.

Nothing to worry about. Many of the big nations usually start slow in the Championship.

Finland lost against Latvia. Horrible play by Finland...

hehe wow looks like its going to be interesting WC...i guess Sochi olympics stole the show this year but can Switzeland do a magic like last year? Can any other "small" hockey nation surprise?

Kopi wrote:hehe wow looks like its going to be interesting WC...i guess Sochi olympics stole the show this year but can Switzeland do a magic like last year? Can any other "small" hockey nation surprise?

Sochi stole the show and wasted it. Most boring olympic hockey games I've ever seen.

Both nations that had upsets in their first games lost today. France to Italy and Latvia to Germany

Agreed with Manimal.

And Canada with Bieksa as captain..well at least he used to giving the "um...I do not really know what happened out there" speech from Vancouver. With him as captain, and Reimer in net, and 2 other Canucks and a few other Laffs...it is no wonder this team plays like the Oilers.

Looks like Finland is going to play against relegation to 1. division

Finland lost to Russia yes.

A thing that will be talked about is Shipachyov's hit on Jormakka.

What do you think about the hit? (no penalty was given)
A few hours after the game, they think it's a major concussion.

Elbowing to the head from a blind side? Get him out of the championships

Manimal wrote:Elbowing to the head from a blind side? Get him out of the championships

I looked him up in eliteprospects.com; it says - "Isn't overly efficient in physical battles."

Seems to me it was only the blind side because the Finnish player is turned completely around because he wanted to watch his own drop pass...had he ever played in a contact league before? Did he realize there was another team on the ice? The first replay shows how oblivious he was...I don't understand why players regularly put themselves into such positions nowadays

nino33 wrote:Seems to me it was only the blind side because the Finnish player is turned completely around because he wanted to watch his own drop pass...had he ever played in a contact league before? Did he realize there was another team on the ice? The first replay shows how oblivious he was...I don't understand why players regularly put themselves into such positions nowadays

He was looking in that direction for a long time so he did not see the Russian. He should be more aware but that hit was clearly to the head, IMO and that has to go away

I understand that the Finnish player should have looked around himself. It's dangerous to play that way.

But the Russian player had a second or two on the hit. He decided to kill the player, cause he knew/saw that the Finn isn't looking. Everyone knows the result of that kind of hit.

Even if the Finn was looking straight foward it would have been a solid hit and probably on the head anyway. The Russian player looks like he was going straight for the big hit no matter what.

It's been confirmed now that Jormakka suffered a mild concussion.

It was a borderline hit. I don't think it was overly dirty, however, who likes headshots? 1/2 games suspension

France beated Slovakia. The hell is going on.

France lost to Italy. Italy will win gold in the most useless, who cares hockey tournament ever. I mean now even the Swedish players do not go and suit up.

Olli Jokinen visited Ruslan Salei's grave. I nice gesture.

Picture on twitter: https://twitter.com/MrsJoki/status/4666 ... 57/photo/1

I want to be upset about Team USA but... *shrug*... they basically sent a WJC team in many ways.

The two goalies behind Thomas are 19 and 20.

Jones and Trouba on the blueline are 19, and IIRC MCCabe and Murphy are 20. Gardiner is 23, DeKeyser and Donavan are I think 24.

Forward is a bit better, but... maybe their top forward Gaudreau is all of 20 himself. Justin Abdelkader is the captain for crying out loud.

In some ways I'm surprised they've done as well as they have. I don't know if USA has any roster spots left to call say Krug?

Again, this is a tier 3 tournament at best. Does not matter at all in the world of hockey. Has no meaning to anyone except the plug countries who have no or few players in the show. Because they get to showcase themselves against other 3-4 line NHLers and maybe get a shot at showing something (ville Leino) that will give them a shot in the NHL as a 3-4 liner.

Speak for yourself, Batdad.

Go Finland