Canada vs different competition

Something else for Canadian fans to think about, after the WJCs....

Canada only played one good team in the whole tournament (whatever happened to the days when you'd play four or five good teams?), as well as a bunch of games against teams of considerably weaker calibre. As a result, a number of Canadian players are sporting rather gaudy stat lines that they got from running up the score on weak opponents.

But who played well when it counted against the strong teams - basically only the games against the USA? Check it out....

		LAT/SUI/SLO							USA
Name	Pos	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-		GP	G	A	PTS	PIM	+/-
Adam, Luke	F	4	3	2	5	6	+5		2	1	2	3	2	+4
Bourque, Gabriel	F	4	3	6	9	4	+7		2	0	0	0	0	-2
Caron, Jordan	F	4	0	2	2	4	+5		2	0	2	2	2	+3
Cormier, Patrice	F	4	2	3	5	4	+4		2	0	0	0	0	-1
Cowen, Jared	D	4	0	1	1	2	+5		2	0	0	0	0	-1
deHaan, Calvin	D	2	0	1	1	0	+5		2	0	0	0	0	-1
Della-Rovere, Stefan	F	4	2	3	5	6	+7		2	1	0	1	2	+2
Eberle, Jordan	F	4	4	5	9	2	+4		2	4	0	4	2	-1
Ellis, Ryan	D	4	1	6	7	2	+5		2	0	1	1	0	-3
Hall, Taylor	F	4	5	4	9	0	+4		2	1	2	3	0	-1
Hamonic, Travis	D	4	1	2	3	0	+8		1	0	0	0	0	+1
Henrique, Adam	F	4	1	0	1	2	+2		2	0	0	0	0	0
Kadri, Nazem	F	4	3	3	6	14	+4		2	0	2	2	0	-3
Kozun, Brandon	F	4	2	4	6	0	+7		2	0	0	0	0	-1
McMillan, Brandon	F	4	4	3	7	0	+4		2	0	1	1	0	+2
Nemisz, Greg	F	4	0	0	0	0	+1		2	1	0	1	0	-1
Pietrangelo, Alex	D	4	2	8	10	2	+9		2	1	1	2	12	0
Scandella, Marco	D	4	1	1	2	2	+5		2	0	1	1	0	+2
Schenn, Brayden	F	4	2	4	6	4	+7		2	0	2	2	0	+1
Teubert, Colten	D	4	0	1	1	0	+5		2	0	0	0	0	0

	LAT/SUI/SLO							USA
Name	GP	Min	SV%	GAA	W	L		GP	Min	SV%	GAA	W	L
Allen, Jake	3	180	.978	0.33	3	0		2	111.4	.839	4.85	0	0
Jones, Martin	1	60	.926	2.00	1	0		1	18.1	.889	3.31	0	1

You can see some players padded their stats against the patsies and did little against the tough American team, while some other players picked up their game when it counted. Obviously this is only stats-based and that's not always a good way to tell how well somebody played, but it's something to look at anyway.

Most glaring example is probably Gabriel Bourque, who racked up 9 points in 4 games against the weaklings but was a big fat zero and a -2 against the USA. For that matter, his linemates Brandon Kozun and Patrice Cormier weren't any better.

Others who fared a lot less well when the games were tough - Ellis, Pietrangelo, Kadri, Allen.

On the flip side, Luke Adam stands out as a player who did better against the tougher competition than against the weaklings. So did Caron, Eberle, McMillan, and Scandella.