Team Canada Olympic Hopefuls Can Still Impress Despite Karjala Cup Loss

Team Canada HockeyCanada selected 25 of the best players in the country who are not in the NHL and put them in a training camp under the watchful eye of coach Willie Desjardins and general manager Sean Burke. The 25 pre-Olympic hopefuls would get great opportunities to show off their skills as they were scheduled to play 3 games at the Karjala Cup, then head over to Moscow for the Channel One Cup before going to Switzerland in late December to play the Spengler Cup.

Canada had a good start with a 3-2 win over Switzerland in the Karjala Cup but then suffered back to back losses with a 0-2 loss to Sweden and a 3-4 loss to Finland. While the back to back losses aren’t exactly a great endorsement for the 25 hopefuls, it gives the head coach great insight into what’s not working and whose not performing as well as he would have liked.

The goalkeeper Ben Scrivens was given the opportunity to play all 3 games. Scrivens had moments where he was brilliant but overall his performance wasn’t outstanding with 68 saves from 76 shots in the Karjala Cup. Desjardins will most likely try out Drew MacIntyre or Justin Peters in the upcoming games and see who will make the final cut which is expected to be announced in early Jan.

ReepsFilms

Burke will try out a number of new players at the Channel One Cup which takes place on Dec 13 & 17. Players such as Max Talbot, Matt Frattin, Mat Robinson, Dylan Sikura and Derek Roy who battled injury concerns were unable to play at the Karjala Cup will most likely have a role to play at the Channel One Cup. It is quite possible that Burke will decide to introduce between 6 to 10 new players to see how they perform.

One of the biggest challenges that the Canadians faced at the Karjala Cup was playing as a hockey team and finding cohesiveness. The majority of them had never played together as a team and it showed on the ice.

In a statement, Simon Despres who plays defense said

The first couple of days we were bombarded with meetings about our systems. There were guys in and out of the lineup. You're playing with new guys and getting used to their tendencies. Obviously, we're disappointed with the loss, but we expect to win when it counts at the Olympics

The 25 players will want to make the most of the few remaining games and perform well to represent Team Canada at the 2018 Olympics.

Author Heidi is has always been travelling the globe as such she is the perfect writer for world news, she has a keen interest in tennis as she used play at senior level for her college.