‘Definitely demoralizing.’ Opening loss reality check for Canada at world juniors

HALIFAX—Whoever figured Canada would be involved in a lopsided opener at the world junior hockey championship probably didn’t figure it would be the Canadians on the losing end.

But that’s exactly what happened.

The Czechs used a team-first approach, a potent power play and superior goaltending to overcome the individually skilled but off-their-game Canadians and earn a 5-2 decision to open the tournament at Scotiabank Centre.

“We’re disappointed, for sure,” said Canadian captain Shane Wright, who scored the game’s first goal. “We feel like we let ourselves down, let our fans in the building down, let Canada down as well. We know we’ve got a lot better than that. We know we can be better, and we’re going to regroup here and bounce back for our next game.”

The hosts will try to rebound Wednesday against Germany.

It was a stunning result for a Canadian team that was expected to steamroll through the preliminary round. Every skater has either been drafted by an NHL team or will go very high in the 2023 draft. The talent that Canada is icing in Halifax is much greater than the team that won all seven games in Edmonton for gold at the last event in August.

“It’s just tough. It’s frustrating,” said winger Connor Bedard, who had Canada’s other goal, “but we’ve got to move forward here. It’s one game in the tournament. We’ve got a lot more.”

The Czechs came into the tournament believing they could get a medal after losing to Sweden for bronze last time. A lineup loaded with 12 NHL draft picks left with its first win over Canada since 2013, a span of 3,285 days.

“I never had a better feeling,” said Czech captain Stanislav Slozil. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Michigan ragged

The Canadian players weren’t admitting it, but it sure looked as if they were taking the Czechs for granted. Wright opened the scoring, while Bedard and Adam Fantilli attempted “Michigans” — lacrosse-style, puck-on-the-stick wraparounds. The crowd ate up the fruitless attempts, examples of how the Canadians flashed more skill than will.

“We have a lot of creative players, a lot of guys with high skill,” said Canadian defenceman Brandt Clarke. “In the first 10 minutes of the game, we were thinking like, ‘Hey, let’s get a cute one here, let’s make the crowd happy.’ But that’s not how you win hockey games. The game plan was — but we didn’t execute it — (to) send a message early, get to the net, get a dirty one, make these guys realize that we’re not here to mess around. We’re here to put the hammer down; we didn’t do that. That’s what happened.”

Turning points

Clarke was involved in one of two video reviews that went against Canada and quickly turned the game. He thought he had scored to give Canada a 2-0 lead, but the Czechs challenged for offside and were rewarded.

“Definitely demoralizing,” said Clarke. “We thought we were up 2-0, our building was rocking. That’s unfortunate, but that’s hockey. You can’t let it deflate you. We just took the foot off the gas and we felt bad for ourselves. You can’t do that, and they capitalized.”

The Czechs scored twice in 35 seconds to take a 2-1 lead into the second period. Then Canadian Zach Dean was ejected in the second period for an illegal hit to the head of Ales Cech — who left the game — and the Czechs scored again on the ensuing five-minute power play.

“We played too much as individuals at times,” said Canadian coach Dennis Williams. “Too many guys were not really playing connected, or playing fast. We were trying to beat three or four guys at a time. When we fell behind, we started pressing and that’s when the individual play came out.”

Goalie question

The difference was goaltending. Tomas Suchanek provided it for the Czechs, stopping 36 of 38 shots. Benjamin Gaudreau did not, pulled after the fifth Czech goal halfway through the second period after facing 17 shots. At least three of those goals were stoppable. David Moravec, Jaroslav Chmelar and Matous Mensik all beat Gaudreau with long shots on the short side.

“We needed it,” Williams said of sending in Thomas Milic to replace Gaudreau. “We needed a lift or a bounce. And when you get to that time, it’s that or a timeout. I just thought that was the right time to do it, and obviously Milic went into a great job for us.”

But it shouldn’t be all on the undrafted Gaudreau, whose status as Canada’s top goalie is now in question.

His teammates failed in defensive assignments: Bedard failed to get into a shooting lane on Moravec’s goal; Fantilli and Logan Stankoven got their wires crossed on a goal by Svozil.

“Lack of communication there,” said Williams. “I don’t know if it was nerves or what it was, but there just wasn’t a lot of chatter, and that can be cleaned up very quickly if guys just talk.”