"I think everyone is a little embarrassed right now," --German captain Marco Sturm, trying to make sense of a one sided loss to Team Canada.
An 8:30 am practice call, shook the cobwebs out of the Canadian game on Saturday, as Team Canada laid waste to any ideas that the Germans might have had of an upset, let alone a close game.
In about as near perfect example of execution, the Canadians controlled the play from almost the opening face off, there was a brief period in the early portions of the first period where the Canadians seemed to have a bit of a problem finding their skating stride, but once they started moving their feet there was no stopping Canada.
In a tournament that seems to bring a new highlight reel performer per game, Saturday’s video collection will belong to Eric Staal, who had a four goal, five point performance to lead Canada to a thorough thrashing of the Germans 10-1.
Staal started his scoring splurge with Canada’s third goal of the game fifteen minutes into the first period, from there he added three more goals, and tallied an assist in his contribution to the landslide victory.
Every shot seemed to go as Germany seemed overpowered and unprepared for the Canadian rushes, rattled to the point of giving the puck away at almost every opportunity.
Things went so bad for the Germans that their goaltender indirectly assisted on an open net goal, when he blindly tried to pass the puck off to a defenceman, hitting the back of the net instead and landing the puck on Staal’s stick for an easy tip.
The only German goal on the day, was actually in off a Canadian skate as Dan Hamius, deflected a shot in behind a terribly under worked Cam Ward, who lost his shut out bid at 8:40 of the third, it was only the 14th shot that he had faced to that point, and the floodgates never really opened as he ended up facing 18 shots by the end of the game.
The 10-1 victory was Canada’s most one sided victory since 2006, when they ran over Latvia when that nation hosted the World Championships. The final score making for almost a goal every four shots as Canada outshot the Germans, 41 to 18.
While Canadians may give a suspicious glance at running up the score such as this one provided, the way the World’s are structured means that goals for and against are a key factor in any tie breaker scenarios, so as unkind as it may have been, if the skates were reversed the same could happen to Canada, though we suspect not at the hands of the Germans.
The explosive offence should prove to be a bit of a tonic for those Canadian fans that were grumbling after Canada’s close encounter with Norway two days ago.
With the offence once again on the move, the Canadians have highlighted that speed and scoring may yet mean something on the way to a Monday’s final match of the Qualifying round, a trail they must travel on the way to a Wednesday’s Quarterfinal match.
Ottawa Citizen-- Canada humiliates Germany at worlds
Globe and Mail-- Breakthrough for Staal — and suddenly explosive Team Canada
CBC Sports-- Staal scores 4 in Canada rout
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