Old ‘friends’ meet again as Canada takes on Russians in semifinal

By Chris Yzerman

January 2, 2009

OTT0102-worldjuniors-2.jpgPhotograph by: Jean Levac, The Ottawa CitizenOttawa • Canada’s first game of the new year will be against its old enemy.


The road to a fifth straight gold medal for Canada at the world junior hockey championship goes through Russia after the Russians knocked off the Czech Republic 5-1 Friday night in the quarterfinals.


After beating the Czechs 8-1 in the opening game of the tournament, the Canadians may have been pulling for Russia to suffer the same fate the favoured U.S. did when it was upset by Slovakia earlier in the day, but it never happened.


Sergei Andronov scored a power-play goal in the first period and then assisted on Nikita Filatov’s insurance marker in the third.


Evgeni Grachev of the Ontario Hockey League’s Brampton Battalion also had a goal and a helper in a game played before a crowd of 18,753 at Scotiabank Place, which will be packed Saturday for the first meeting of Canada and Russia since the 2007 final.


The Canadians won that one 4-2 in Leksand, Sweden.


Evgeni Dadonov and Pavel Chernov, with a late power-play goal, also struck for Russia.


Radko Gudas, during a 5-on-3 power play, had the lone goal for the Czechs, who will have to settle for a place in the fifth-place match after being beaten at the quarterfinal stage for the fourth straight year. Last year, the Russians ended their medal hopes by the same 4-1 score.


The Czechs now face the Americans Sunday night at Scotiabank Place, which was the scene of plenty of offence through the preliminary round, and Friday's earlier quarterfinal between the Slovaks and Americans produced eight goals.


But through the first 40 minutes Friday night, both goaltenders proved tough to beat, and the only difference between the teams came through Andronov’s power-play marker after the midway point of the period.


With netminder Dominik Furch holding the Russians off, the Czechs had a great chance to get even when Milan Doczy was sprung on a breakaway after jumping out of the penalty box, but the big defenceman probably wasn’t the shooter they’d have liked to have in that situation. His deke attempt was handled easily by Russia’s Vadim Zhelobnyuk.


Filatov, the Columbus Blue Jackets’ prospect who came into the game with five goals after the preliminary round, gave the Russians some breathing room early in the third when he took a pass from Grachev in the faceoff circle and whipped a shot past Furch.


The Czechs then had a great opportunity to cut the lead with a two-man advantage for more than a minute, but Grachev spoiled it when he broke away to score a short-handed marker.


Gudas pulled that one back moments later when, with the Czechs still enjoying the 5-on-3 advantage, he beat Zhelobnyuk to make it 3-1, but that’s as close as they could get.


Zhelobnyuk finished with 28 saves, while Furch 30 at the other end.


The Czechs haven’t finished in the medals at the world juniors since winning a bronze at the 2005 tournament.


The Russians won a bronze last year and silvers in each of the two years before, but haven’t won gold since 2003.


Filatov said last night his team is focused on the moment.


“Right now, we aren’t thinking about tomorrow’s game,” he said. “We’re really happy right now because this game could have been the last for us, but now we’re in the semifinals. You can see even a great team like the U.S. is out now.”


Russia struggled in its final preliminary-round game, losing 5-0 against Sweden for its only defeat so far, but shook that setback off last night.


“Because of the game against Sweden, it was important for us to score first,” Filatov said.


Even if he didn’t want to think about it, Filatov wasn’t going to avoid the Canada question.


Can the Russians win?


“Yeah, of course,” he said.


Asked how, he had a simple answer.


“We just have to score one puck more than Canada.”


Filatov watched the Canada-U.S. game on New Year’s Eve and thinks the atmosphere will be similar.


“It’s exciting to play when all the people will be in the stadium,” he said.


“Everybody wants Canada to win. I don’t think it’ll (work) against us. I think it will help us concentrate.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Slovakia stuns U.S. in quarter-final

Erie, Pa.-based goalie hexes his adopted homeland

By Canwest News Service

January 2, 2009

Slovakia goalie Jaroslav Janus loses his mask as he makes a save against the United States Friday at the world junior hockey championship in Ottawa. Janus and the Slovaks stunned the U.S. 5-3.Photograph by: Shaun Best/ReutersOTTAWA — Jaroslav Janus may not be as popular in Erie, Pa., right now as he was when he left a couple of weeks ago.

The star goalie of the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters almost single-handedly eliminated a heavily favoured United States team from medal contention in a shocking 5-3 quarter-final upset Friday at the IIHF world junior hockey championship.

Janus, who was the Otters' MVP last year despite a losing record of 13-29-3, stopped 46 shots to lead Slovakia to a Saturday semifinal against Sweden.

The competition won't get any easier for Janus as the Swedes will be just as heavily favoured over Slovakia as the Americans were.

In a later quarter-final game, Russia took on the Czech Republic for the right to face Canada in the semis, while Germany and Latvia squared off in the relegation round.

The loss ended a string of six straight trips to the tournament semifinals for the Americans, who seemed unable to shed the hangover of the emotional New Year's Eve loss to Team Canada. Instead, they will play for fifth place.

The two nations hadn't met at the tournament since Dec. 28, 2006, when the Americans pasted the Slovaks 6-1 in Leksand, Sweden. The Americans advanced to the semifinals, but lost to Canada in a memorable shootout. They took home the bronze medal with a 2-1 win over the host country.

If the Americans needed a break early to forget New Year's Eve, they seemed to catch it 55 seconds in when forward Colin Wilson was tripped on a breakaway and the U.S. was awarded a penalty shot.

Jordan Schroeder took the penalty shot, but made a feeble attempt at deking to the stick side of Janus, hardly testing test the goaltender.

Janus made 14 first-period saves and only drove the frustration level higher for the Americans, who with eight first-round NHL draft picks in the lineup, arrived in Ottawa thinking this was their year.

Adam Bezak opened the scoring at 11:05 of the first period, but a power-play goal by Ian Cole a minute later evened the score.

But it didn't change the momentum.

Tomas Tatar beat U.S. goalie Thomas McCollum with a backhand at 13:41 and Jozef Molnar made the score 3-1 at 17:03.

With the Slovaks scoring three goals on eight shots, many in the crowd of 18,042 were yelling "shoot" every time a Slovakia player touched the puck, regardless of where he was on the ice.

The Americans outshot the Slovaks 16-2 in the second period but had nothing to show for it.

The teams exchanged goals in the third period before Tatar iced it with an empty-net goal at 17:46.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Canada far from perfect

Lack of No. 1 goalie, two defencemen in the minus both concerns

By Wayne Scanlan

January 3, 2009

Team Canada goalies Dustin Tokarski (right) and Chet Pickard skate at practice. Tokarski has been chosen as the starting goaltender for tonight's semifinal despite giving up three goals in the first period against the U.S.Photograph by: Shaun Best, ReutersIf Pat Quinn had drawn up a to-do list for his team prior to the world junior hockey championship, he would have a lot of check marks next to the items.

Overcome adversity? Check.

Erasing a 3-0 U.S. lead on New Year's Eve pretty much covers that.

Develop reliable special teams? Check.

Canada's penalty killing has been good -- and its power play is the best at the tournament, clicking at a 60-per-cent rate.

Beat the Americans in the preliminary round to earn a bye and a rest before the semifinal? Check.

Establish a No. 1 goaltender during the prelim games ... uh, can we get back to you on that one?

While Quinn confirmed Friday that Dustin Tokarski of the Spokane Chiefs will get the start in today's semifinal against Russia, the fact there was any doubt about it four games into the tournament is a bit troubling.

Tokarski did not look good on at least one of the American shots that led to a 3-0 first-period lead, but he battled back. Had he not stopped Colin Wilson on three separate chances in the second half of the game (including a glove save that hogged time on the highlight shows), Canada might have been playing in one of those quarter-final games Friday.

(And look how risky that was.)

Quinn says he liked the way Tokarski "held steady in a panic situation."

By having Tokarski in that huge New Year's Eve matchup, Quinn and his staff were already leaning in this direction. The job for the medal round was his to lose, and he did enough in what turned out to be a 7-4 Canada victory to hang onto the assignment ahead of Chet Pickard of the WHL's Tri-City Americans.

Goaltending aside, there are a couple of other warts on Canada's otherwise exemplary start to the tournament. This one jumps out: For a team with a 29-goal differential (35 for, six against), how on Earth could a couple of Canada's top defencemen have minuses in the plus-minus category?

Colten Teubert is minus-2.

Thomas Hickey, minus-1.

While appreciating the fact these two players have drawn the toughest defending assignments in each game, it is still shocking that anyone would have a minus on this team when it has scored 35 goals and surrendered six in four games.

They're top defencemen, each a first-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Kings (Hickey, fourth overall in 2007; Teubert 13th in 2008).

Their minus stats are more of a reflection on the team issues while playing five-on-five hockey.

Defenceman P.K. Subban leads Team Canada with a plus-12.

"We're still learning," Subban said Friday. "We're still getting better. There's room for improvement.

"It's little things like chipping the puck, knowing when to carry it and when to move it. If we can do that, it will make it better for us on the ice and we'll be a lot more successful."

To hear Quinn speak Friday about some of Canada's "bonehead plays" and "silly stuff" and "letting their man go," one might have thought he or she was walking in on the scrum of the losing coach in the Canada-U.S. tilt.

Of course, he is trying to get the attention of 17-, 18- and 19-year-old players who might be thinking they're pretty hot stuff after going 4-0 in the first round.

Quinn hammered his boys pretty good in meetings about the risk of giving talented teams like the Americans, Russians and Swedes way too much room to manoeuvre.

"The biggest thing we're working on right now is controlling teams' speed," said winger Cody Hodgson, a 10th-overall draft choice of the Vancouver Canucks. With all due homage to John Tavares and his game-breaking abilities, Hodgson is giving him a run for the money as Canada's best overall forward.

"Last game, our coaching staff was talking to us about trying to get above them -- guys got caught in the offensive zone too much, three guys down low, and we gave them too many opportunities."

Too many opportunities, but they were still able to overcome a U.S. team that thought a 3-0 lead meant game over.

So devastated were the Americans by blowing a 3-0 lead against their chief rival, they were dumped from medal contention by Slovakia in the quarter-finals Friday.

So much for a gold medal-game rematch of the New Year's Eve thriller. But that's tournament hockey. One moment. One goal. One misplaced bit of trash talk can turn a team's fortunes upside down.

Despite being harped at for some of their defensive shortcomings, Canadian players were proud of themselves for having overcome the U.S. test.

"Obviously there are still some kinks to iron out, but overall we're going in the right direction," Hodgson said.

"A couple of games at the beginning weren't too competitive, and we ramped it up against the U.S. to come back. So, we're feeling good right now."

If Canada's power play has carried the team, Hodgson credits the "genius" of assistant coach Guy Boucher.

"We just execute his plays," Hodgson says.

Eighteen of Canada's 35 goals have come with a manpower advantage.

"We've had individuals to put in to play a formation that has lots of options to it," Quinn said. "Sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes you've got only the kind of talent where you just get it to the point, and hammer it to the net and see if you can jam it [in]."

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Russians, surprising Slovaks advance

Highly favoured American team turned aside by hot goalie in quarter-finals

January 3, 2009

More Images » Russia's Evgeni Grachev scores on Czech Republic goalie Dominik Furch in the third period of their game at the world junior hockey championship in Ottawa on Friday.Photograph by: ReutersOne was expected to be there, the other not so much.

Regardless, traditional power Russia and surprising Slovakia are off to the semifinals of the world junior hockey championship.

Russia beat the Czech Republic 5-1 in the quarter-finals Friday night, hours after Slovakia pulled the biggest upset of the tournament so far -- knocking off the United States 5-3.

Russia faces Canada tonight in one semifinal, while Slovakia plays Sweden in the other.

Jaroslav Janus was the hero for Slovakia -- even if it means he won't be as popular in Erie, Pa., as he was when he left a couple of weeks ago.

The star goalie of the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters almost single-handedly eliminated a heavily favoured U.S. team from medal contention in a shocking 5-3 upset.

Janus, who was the Otters' MVP last year despite a losing record of 13-29-3, stopped 46 shots to lead Slovakia.

"This was the best game of my life . . . unbelievable," said Janus, a 19-year-old who has not yet been drafted by a NHL club. "Oh no. I wasn't thinking (about Erie). Maybe I can't go back. Maybe they're not going to like me (in Erie). I hadn't thought about that." The competition won't get any easier for Janus, as the Swedes will be just as heavily favoured over Slovakia as the Americans were.

The loss ended a string of six straight trips to the tournament semifinals for the Americans, who seemed unable to shed the hangover of the emotional New Year's Eve loss to Team Canada. Instead, they will play for fifth place.

Adam Bezak opened the scoring at 11:05 of the first period, but a power-play goal by Ian Cole a minute later evened the score.

But it didn't change the momentum.

Tomas Tatar beat U.S. goalie Thomas McCollum with a backhand at 13:41 and Jozef Molnar made the score 3-1 at 17:03.

With the Slovaks scoring three goals on eight shots, many in the crowd of 18,042 were yelling "shoot" every time a Slovakia player touched the puck, regardless of where he was on the ice.

The Americans outshot the Slovaks 16-2 in the second period but had nothing to show for it.

The teams exchanged goals in the third period before Tatar iced it with an empty-net goal at 17:46.

Against the Czech Republic, Russia used a four-goal outburst in the third period to break open a close game.

"Tonight we paid more attention to defence," said Russian captain Nikita Filatov. "In the second period, we didn't play very well. We stopped skating.

"But in the third, we played more the way we wanted to." The Russians came to the game with their confidence shaken after a 5-0 loss to Sweden on New Year's Eve, and it showed. They had difficulty stringing passes together and they rarely got into a rhythm.

The Czechs came into this game as heavy underdogs and were never able to generate any serious offence. The Czechs outshot Russia 14-7 in the second period, but Russian goaltender Vadim Zhelobnyuk stood tall.

Russia got goals from Sergei Andronov, Filatov, Evgeni Grachev, Evgeni Dadonov and Pavel Chernov. Radko Gudas replied for the Czechs.

In Friday's other game, Roberts Bukarts recorded the hat trick and added a third-period assist as Latvia beat Germany 7-1. Latvia can clinch a spot at the 2010 world junior tournament in Saskatoon and Regina with a win over lowly Kazakhstan, or if Germany loses to Finland. Both games are Sunday.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Momentum on Canada's side

Despite perfect round-robin record, players know they can lose if they don't play well

By Allen Panzeri

January 3, 2009

Team Canada coach Pat Quinn (R) watches as Chris DiDomenico (front), John Tavares and Angelo Esposito (back) take to the ice during the team's practice at the 2009 IIHF U20 World Junior Hockey Championships in Ottawa, January 2, 2009.Photograph by: Shaun BestIn short tournaments like the world junior hockey championship, teams are always looking for a defining moment, one when the players cease being individuals and become a team.

For Team Canada, it might have been its 7-4 comeback win over the United States on New Year's Eve in the final round-robin game for each team.

"It's a thing of momentum, so now we have that on our side instead of having the wind knocked out of our sails like last year," said Team Canada captain Thomas Hickey, referring to a round-robin loss to Sweden in the 2007-08 tournament.

"I think we realize we can be beat, but we didn't have to lose to learn that.

"Each team learned a lesson, but we got away with it here and we're going to keep that in mind as we go forward." Last year, Canada's long, dark night of soul-searching came after it blew a 2-0 lead by allowing three third-period goals to Sweden, eventually losing 4-3 when Tobias Forsberg scored with seven seconds left.

That loss sent Canada to a quarter-final match against Finland and into a crisis of confidence: Would it be crushed by the defeat and not recover, or would it be able to soldier on? Canada bounced back, beating Finland and the U.S. in the playoffs before defeating Sweden 3-2 in overtime for the gold medal -- but only after blowing another 2-0 third-period lead.

On New Year's Eve, the U.S. raced out to a 3-0 lead before Canada started to rally.

Hickey thinks this team is right where it should be and is continuing to grow as a group.

"Obviously, when you win a gold last year, you know you came together at the right time, quickly, and I think this year is much the same," he said. "We've done so many team-building things that the guys are really tight right now. It's right on par with last year.

"It's just a feeling you get. You can't measure it in any way. You just feel it in your gut, and how you feel when you're playing and hanging together off the ice with the other guys." Team Canada coach Pat Quinn hopes his team, which faces Russia in a semifinal today at Ottawa's Scotiabank Place, has bonded, but he has been around long enough to see it ebb and flow, not only from game to game but from period to period.

He points to the New Year's Eve game as an example. While Canada eventually won, some players made horrible mistakes along the way.

"It's something that you work at every day," he said. "I don't care whether it's a two-week tournament like this one or something that goes all season long. You've got to work at it every day, and a lot of times you don't know.

"You feel comfortable about it ... but throw in the other team, the crowd and the pressure of the game, and people make decisions that aren't close to what they planned.

"So we're still finding out, and it'll be every day, all the way." He believes the stiffest challenge is still to come, that the pressure is only going to increase.

"We know they have skill," he said. "We know lots of good things about them.

"The test is like it is for any athlete that wants to have success -- they have to do it when it counts, when it's there and when the pressure is on.

"Some never get to face this sort of stage. At the end of the day, if they win a gold medal, it'll be just a tremendous memory for them, their own legacy.

"But at this point it's just getting warmed up."

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Canada-U.S. game sets viewing record

January 3, 2009

Overnight data from BBM Nielsen Media Research confirmed that 1.67 million Canadians watched TSN's coverage of the thrilling Canada-United States game on New Year's Eve making it the most watched preliminary round IIHF world junior hockey championship game ever.

The New Year's Eve game surpassed the previous preliminary round high (1.41 million) by 19 per cent when Canada played the U.S. in the 2005-06 tournament.

The heavily-anticipated game that saw Team Canada defeat the U.S. 7-4, was the most-watched program overall on Canadian television on New Year's Eve, winning the night in total viewers and in all key demographics.

After the Canada-U.S. game was finished, 752,000 viewers watched TSN's NHL coverage of the battle of Alberta match-up that saw Calgary defeat Edmonton.

A total of 28 IIHF world junior hockey championship broadcasts on TSN have now topped more than one million viewers, the largest being the 2003 gold-medal game in Halifax with 3.45 million viewers, the biggest audience in network history.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Tokarski likely to get semifinal start in net for Canada

By Allen Panzeri

January 3, 2009

Dustin Tokarski allowed four goals -- three in the first period -- in Canada's 7-4 win over the United States on New Year's Eve. Not exactly a great audition for another start in goal.

Tokarski hung on to win that game, and Team Canada coach Pat Quinn announced Friday that Tokarski will start Saturday night in the semifinals of the IIHF world junior hockey championship.

"He fought through it," Quinn said. "It wasn't pretty early on and it wasn't all his doing, but he held steady and got better in a panic situation, showed some control, so he's now been that tested guy, and we figured maybe we'd come back with the tested guy rather than someone else who hadn't been in there and in the two games he played had very little work.

"The biggest reason was that." Tokarski was predictably excited to hear the news.

"I glad the coach showed confidence in me, and I'll be ready to go in the semis against whoever we face," he said before Russia faced off against the Czech Republic on Friday night at Scotiabank Place for the right to play Canada on Saturday.

"It's obviously a big game, but nothing changes from a goalie's standpoint. It's just another game. It's a short tournament and we have to keep getting wins, so I hope to keep it going." Entering the tournament, Tokarski -- a Watson, Sask., native who plays for the Western Hockey League's Spokane Chiefs -- was rated slightly higher than Team Canada's other goalie, Chet Pickard of the WHL's Tri-City Americans. Tokarski has been the more tested of the two goalies at this point of the tournament. Tokarski played in Canada's opening 8-1 victory over the Czech Republic. Pickard was barely tested in Canada's 15-0 win over Kazakhstan and its 5-1 decision against Germany.

Quinn said a case could probably be made that Canada would stick with Tokarski for the tournament final on Monday -- assuming it gets that far -- but he'll wait to see what happens in the semifinal.

Boychuk expected to play Team Canada forward Zach Boychuk tested his sore right ankle briefly Friday, and it looks as if he'll be ready to play in Saturday's semifinal.

Boychuk hurt his ankle during the New Year's Eve game against the United States, when he was checked and fell awkwardly.

While his ankle felt OK Friday, the coaches didn't want him to overdo it, so he left practice early.

"It was a little bit sore at the start, but, once my ankle got warm, it felt really good and I could keep up and basically go full speed," said Boychuk, who plays for the WHL's Lethbridge Hurricanes. "I was out there for 20 minutes and it was really positive." An earful for Subban PK Subban of the OHL's Belleville Bulls has been one of Canada's better defencemen during the tournament.

Before Friday's games, his two goals and six assists left Subban tied for the lead in scoring among defenceman with Kevin Shattenkirk of the United States.

That didn't earn Subban any grace from Team Canada coach Pat Quinn, however, who snapped at the defenceman when he missed his assignment during a drill Friday.

The players regard Quinn as a legend. They know of his long career as a player and coach, have watched him on TV for years and stand in awe of his accomplishments, so, when he talks -- or shouts -- they listen.

"He was getting on me," Subban said. "I wasn't in the right position at the right time. He told me I had to be there and I had to read the play like this.

"As young players, we're still learning and that's the thing about having a coach like Pat Quinn: He's going to give you the right feedback you need to play well. He's well-respected by everyone in the game of hockey and by everyone in this room. All 22 guys believe that Pat Quinn is a great coach and that he's going to lead us to where we want to be." Most-watched game According to overnight Nielsen ratings, 1.67 million Canadians watched TSN's English-language broadcast of the Canada-United States game on New Year's Eve, making it the world junior championship's most watched preliminary-round game ever.

The previous high was 1.41 million for Canada-U.S. in 2005.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal