North America D Ekblad returning to Florida

Russian Federation bounced back from their opening defeat to Sweden by downing Team North America 4-3 in their second group B encounter of the the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. “It’s just we have a little bit less experience”.

The game got flipped on its head over a five-plus minute span midway through the second period.

Murray was on the wrong end of a young team’s young mistakes. “If we dont, we feel good about the group that we have.”.

Matthews scored the game’s opening goal – his first in Toronto – on a terrific feed from Connor McDavid.

Team USA would have been better with players such as North America’s Johnny Gaudreau, a South Jersey native. Evgeny Kuznetsov snuck by Morgan Rielly and scored a narrow angle goal. North America controlled the game early, but a 4 goal 2nd period was just enough to give Russian Federation the win.

Tuukka Rask got to watch as Pekka Rinne looked old and bad against Team North America. A penalty by Dmitry Orlov with 40 seconds left combined with an empty net gave North America a 6 v 4 advantage.

The game changed when Russian Federation picked up the physical play and started creating turnovers. We know they’re going to play fast, they’re going to try to play one-on-one. The star defenseman then missed last night’s preliminary round game against Team Russia and is expected to be reevaluated by a doctor sometime today.

Watching former No. 1 overall draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers, McDavid, embracing fellow No. 1 overall draft pick Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs after assisting on Matthews goal against Russian Federation was a refreshing site for hockey and a great showcase of things to come for the NHL. Both teams are still in contentions to advance to the knockout round. Murray faced 19 shots on the night. We didn’t get that quick enough. If so, Team North America could be without arguably their best defenceman for the rest of the tournament.

Matthews opened the scoring with a tap-in at 5:14 of the first period, a goal announcement that Leaf Nation hopes to be hearing for many years to come. Matthews turned 19 on Saturday. “He wouldn’t have been picked first overall if he couldn’t do this”.

“It’s always exciting to score, contribute”.

“It was definitely a goal for myself”, Matthews said of making the World Cup team.

“Historically, and we are about to celebrate our 100th anniversary, we have been and still are the most worldwide of the North American sports leagues”, said Bettman, speaking at the Hockey Sense Summit looking at social equality. Team North America never lost pace however, and looked as good as they have been. Vladimir Tarasenko ripped the puck through a Datsyuk screen for the goal.

Riley pulled one back at 17:54, firing a shot through traffic after a blocked shot came back to him.

Defenceman Aaron Ekblad, who led all Team North America skaters with 23:53 ice time Sunday, sat out Monday’s game with an upper body injury. Jacob Trouba replaced him, but Ekblad’s absence created a void of extra minutes that defensemen had to fill. “We needed the win to stay alive”.

“As per usual, I’m not going to comment on that”, general manager Peter Chiarelli told Canada-based Sportsnet after Monday’s loss.

With the tournament potentially on the line with a loss, McLellan says he will shorten the bench against Sweden if it has to be done again.

Durant was good on 20 of 29 passes for 174 yards and had one pass intercepted while tailback Curtis Steele, playing for the first time in seven games, rushed 13 times for 87 yards.