In Red Wings Land
Red Wings’ Jimmy Howard, Dylan Larkin lead U.S. over Sweden | MLive.com
Larkin had a pair of assists and Howard made 39 saves. DeKeyser didn’t make any grievous errors, so it’s good to see him back to at least being quiet on the blue line.
From a coaching perspective, you could look at the six power plays Team USA gifted the Swedes, but this is a squad whose troubles with international reffing predate Blashill, and this game wasn’t called very well. Still, the too-many-men penalty is never a good one to take. From a systems’ perspective, Blashill played a low-collapse counter-attack style on the bigger ice against the Swedes and it paid off. Team USA has enough speed to pull this off, but the Swedish team was better-balanced. Waiting on mistakes worked out pretty well.
Around the NHL
Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and how Oilers stage two-man show | Puck Daddy
People are already making the Gretzky-Messier comparison with the two Oilers’ kids, but their head coach has a more-fun comparison with the two, as he says they remind him of a superior duo who could easy be separated and put back together without issue as the need called for it.
And McLellan should know… he used to be an assistant coach for those two players as well.
