If you missed the game, you can watch it in it’s entirety right here.
Canada’s goalscoring finally (It’s game two, calm down) came to play, led by Jeff Carter, who put up a natural hat trick in under 9 minutes of ice time. The performance likely solidified his place in the lineup, though perhaps as the 13th forward in a net crashing/scoring role considering his ice time.
P.K. Subban started his first game for Canada, playing 11:41 over 14 shifts. He started out jittery, making the safe play at the expense of making the right play over his first few shifts, but midway through the first he started to look like himself.
After a poorly timed pinch by Drew Doughty, Subban executed a great backcheck to take away a chance from Austria, but fell along the boards and looked to be injured. Holding his back as he skated towards the bench, Subban waved away the trainer, showing that he was okay.
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Later in the game Subban covered for Marc-Edouard Vlasic and broke up a 2-on-1 break, then blocked a dangerous shot and cleared the zone. The more ice he saw, the better he looked, and considering the fact that he got two more minutes of ice time than Dan Hamhuis, you would expect that he’s won his job.
Also looking good was Matt Duchene, who was predicted used his speed to create space for himself and his linemates. Whether Duchene won a spot is hard to know though, because Patrick Sharp looked pretty good against Norway as well, though not as impactful as Duchene was.
Roberto Luongo started his first game of the tournament and was his usual solid self, stopping everything he faced, in spite of looking a little shaky at the start and getting beat by the first shot on goal, which rolled through his legs and wide of the net. Rumour is that Luongo will start against Finland, which seems like a mistake given that Carey Price is clearly the superior goaltender to anyone who has eyeballs, but if Canada rolls with Luongo it likely won’t hurt them either.
The difference between the two goaltenders is that Luongo likely won’t let you down, but Price will steal games. Canada may not need a goaltender to steal games though.
Offense from the back end continued to be a weapon with Shea Weber and Drew Doughty both scoring again, but the nicest goal of the game belonged to Ryan Getzlaf, who broke in shorthanded and toe-dragged the jock off of an Austrian defender before putting a perfect backhanded into the mesh.
Canada didn’t score in the third period, but this was a definite step forward for the team. Now if only Babcock would realize that Chris Kunitz has no place on this team, as the 34 year old looked lost yet again today.
