Thursday, May 08, 2008

Canada still undefeated, but barely


The trend has gone from blowouts to hanging on by the finger nails, but the final result still remains the same.

Canada won its fourth consecutive game at this years World Hockey Championships, but they waited until almost the very end to pull it off.

Canada defeated a very competitive Norwegian squad by a score of 2-1, a score that some will be rubbing their eyes at in wonderment as to what has happened to all of that Canadian offence from the first two games.

Norway, not considered a traditional powerhouse in the world championships provided a strong test for the Canadians for the second year in a row, refusing to just let the home side collect another win and be on their way.

The Norwegians relied on the ability to clog the neutral zone and slow down the Canadian attack for most of the game, despite that successful for the most part strategy Canada still managed 52 shots on Paal Grotnes, who proved to be a formidable force in the Norwegian nets.

In the end it was a highlight reel individual rush from Rick Nash that provided the winning margin, Nash went in on his own from the blue line and swept across the goalmouth to tuck in a backhand with less than four minutes to go, providing the Canadian fans in the metro Centre the opportunity to breath again.

Canada once again seemed to be off their game, much like the Americans managed to change the flow of the game two days ago, Norway also found a way to get Canada off of its game plan.

The rest of the tournaments participants will have been taking notes we suspect, possibly finding the chink in the armor of the host nation and making plans to exploit it further along in this tournament.

National Post-- SAME OLD STORY

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