Monday, September 19, 2016

Morning World Cup Player Notes (Sep 19)



Has there been any sort of cliche left unused about how good this 23 & under team representing North America is?  I kind of doubt it.  Plus, it's too early to start going down the list, so let's just say that they were awfully impressive last night, taking on Finland to start the tournament.

I think we can all agree that Finland was supposed to be a lot better on Sunday night, in a 4-1 loss to the kids, but coming out flat will happen in a lot of cases and the Finns are not the only ones guilty of that after the first couple nights.

Johnny Gaudreau, Colton Parayko and Matt Murray were your most notable players in the fourth game of the tournament, each coming away with 2 points each in the pool.  Gaudreau scored the winner on an amazing deflection, Parayko dished out a couple of assists, while Murray made 24 saves for the win.

J.T. Miller and Jacob Trouba were the two skater scratches for North America last night, Miller being one of a number of picks for Scott.  Connor Hellebuyck was the third goalie for the kids, but he wasn't taken at all.  On the Finnish side, Teuvo Teravainen and Jyrki Jokipakka were the two skater scratches, Teravainen blongs to Neil and Jokipakka is another one of Scott's picks.  Mikko Koskinen, as expected, was the third goalie.

ImplicationsThe scoring in this one was likely to pump up Scott's numbers and they did, as he jumped up to 3rd place, thanks to having both Gaudreau and Parayko on his side.  Dale still picked up a point from Auston Matthews to help pad his lead, now at 3 points, over both Marcie and Scott.

The kids will be right back at it and if they continue to put the puck in the net, this could be a quick pool for Scott to win.

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