Canada cruises to 6-0 win over Czechs in World Cup opener

Team Canada took care of business as expected in game one last night.well maybe even more powerfully than expected. The Canadiens star made 26 saves for the shutout. It was at that event that Team Canada coach Brent Sutter made a decision to partner Bergeron with Crosby, a kid who was more than two years younger.

Hours before taking on Canada at the Air Canada Centre, Czech Republic forward Jakub Voracek scoffed at the notion that his underdog team was taking on an unbeatable juggernaut.

The Penguins captain then set up Brent Burns, whose shot was deflected by Brad Marchand for the second goal of the period, a hard slapshot that hit Neuvirth in the mask.

The Czechs couldn’t maintain their early pace and started to fade after the midway point of the first period. Crosby ended up with a goal and two assists, a typical night for him at the ACC, but the Toronto crowd, for a change, loved it.

Blues fans may also be holding their breaths after Alex Pietrangelo blocked a shot (accidentally) with his hand, but he returned to score a goal, so probably he is not going to miss like half the season because of it. Congratulations to the St. Louis Blues for not having one of their better players get hurt in the World Cup. It is the team all others will measure themselves by.

“He was just really sharp and like you’ve seen so many times before, he makes those timely saves”, Crosby said of the 2015 Vezina Trophy victor. “I’m sure other teams aren’t going to pay attention to that”.

The gold medal they won at that tournament in Grand Forks, S.D., kicked off an impressive run of accomplishments, one in which they combined to win championships at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi while representing Canada.

“We’re focused on what we have to do”. They’ve done it, typically, by checking their egos at the door.

Then, in the nightcap, we get the insane unorthodox creativity of North America versus the structured always consistent Finland.

As a hockey reporter who attends a ton of games during the NHL season I am no stranger to the Canadian national anthem. There’s a lot of character in that room.

As a player, Crosby was (and is) like that still – a believer in lifetime learning, someone who thinks he can become incrementally better, even if he is mostly acknowledged by his peers as the best player in the world.

Team USA really needed a win on Saturday not only because of what it would mean when it comes to advancing in the tournament, but also to help silence the critics of the roster. Neither one of us likes to wait for things to happen.

But Marchand, who also contributed three points in the win over the Czechs, has a history with Crosby that, in a circular way, goes back further than Bergeron’s.

Looking quick, while relentlessly pursuing the puck, Canada upped the lead to 2-0 with less than three minutes left in the first.

Canada, being the host, should have the home-advantage. “He likes to play with guys with speed that turn over and guys with hockey sense”. In fact, Canada has won just about every incarnation of the World Cup, including its predecessor the Canada Cup, except the 1996 World Cup.

“Yeah, sometimes we’ll start speaking French instead of English out there”, Bergeron said with a chuckle. “It’s in our blood”. “(Especially) at the start until we settled in and got playing”. But we don’t worry about what people expect, or what people think. We come to the tournament with that mindset. “It’s about us, and our expectations”.