Quoting: NHLfan10506
Good call guys
Right lol, it didn't age well.
It's just my opinion, but I believe the game against the Swedes on the 29th of December planted seeds of doubt in the minds of our players, because, for the most part, we looked good against Finland and Latvia(not that it's a particular accomplishment to look good against Latvia but still).
Everything changed during and after the game against Sweden. Against Germany our Canadian guy just looked confused out there.
And against the Czechs we might as well have missed a thousand scoring chances, so we had our loss coming.
It's not that big of a deal IMO, we can't win every year. We've made the finals 4 years in a row (2020, 21, 22 and 23), won three of them, and actually, out of 10, made 7 finals since 2015, only losing twice, both of which against the US. We can't really complain.
Sweden has 1 gold medal in 4 decades at the WJC and Finland only has a handful of medals since 2007.
The Czechs deserve this tbh. After a decade of mediocrity (from the late 00s to the late 10s I'd say), they seem to be back, which is fantastic for the sport.
Our team's gonna be (much?) better in Ottawa next year. 7 guys can potentially be back, 8 if one includes Molendyk who was injured just before the tournament and who had to be replaced at the last minute.