Canada lost to the US in a fashion that has become disturbingly familiar for Flames fans this year - out-shoot, out-chance, lose anyways. Lots of fingers are pointing at Brodeur this morning (and fair enough, he wasn't good), but Flames fans will tell you that even excellent goaltending won't always deliver the "W" at the end.
Us basement-dwelling bloggers who point to the effect of chance on outcomes in the short term (ie; it's significant) have been somewhat vindicated over the last 2 Canada games. The good guys have doubled up on both the shots and scoring chances (at least) and come away with a narrow S/O win and a loss. And that's just the way it goes sometimes folks, now matter how good you are, how good your coaching is or how much "leadership and character" you have. It's what makes hockey interesting and infuriating.
Brodeur struggled last night, sure, but at least two of the American's point shots hit things on their way into the net. They could have easily bounced off a pad or stick and gone wide. At the other end of the ice, the opposite happened for most of the evening. The bounces are capricious. They are unmoved by debates on national character.
Some other observations:
- I long ago abandoned the concept of "chemistry" in hockey. Usually it's just shorthand for "scoring". It describes little more than that and it's predicted by almost nothing. You get chemistry in all of two ways - with the percentages or with good players playing with each other. The former can overcome the latter. As such, I'm not going to tie myself into knots over who should be playing with whom on the basis of "chemistry". Put the guys who are playing well on the ice and the rest will sort itself out.
- Including Pronger and Neidermayer on this team is looking like a mistake. They've both clearly lost a step. I don't know if swapping them out for, say, Bouwmeester and Green would make the team that much better, but there's almost no chance it would hurt them either.
