World Hockey Championships: Canada Falls Short of Gold and More

Team Canada's loss at the World Championships and a Blue Jacket update.

by John Arvai (Senior Writer)

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May 19, 2008

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Although they had a two goal lead going into the third period, Team Canada couldn't close the final game of the World Championships.

For a country that is disappointed with anything but gold, this loss was certainly no less deflating.

"We really sat back in the second half (of the game)," said Rick Nash. "You have a two-goal lead in the gold medal game going into the third period - we had to play better."

"Nobody on this team came here to win silver," said goaltender Cam Ward. "There will be other tournaments, there will be more to come. We've got to keep our head up high.We have an excellent program."

Nash didn't have a great final outing. His penalty in overtime will unfortunately be how most people remember his performance in this tournament. Despite his infraction, he played very well.

Nash tallied six goals and seven assists for 13 points in nine games. He ranked third in the tournament behind Dany Heatley and Ryan Getzlaf.

Jason Chimera didn't exactly light it up, but he played a key role on the 4th line and collected a couple of helpers and finished a +3 in nine games.

Pascal Leclaire went 4-0 with a 92.52 save percentage and a 2.00 goals against average and collected a shutout.

His roughest game was the semi-final contest against Sweden where he gave up four goals and many juicy rebounds. Overall, he had a very solid tournament.

There is a nice one on one with Rick Nash on TSN.ca.

So what's next for Ken Hitchcock and the Columbus Blue Jackets? The players will no doubt take some much needed rest and coach Hitchcock will certainly take a day or two to catch his breath. Hitch will then head back to Columbus to get to work on next season.

On the docket will surely be a complete breakdown of last season. Potential trades and unrestricted free agents will certainly be discussed as well.

I'm sure he will also check in to make sure his players are sticking to their assigned off-season conditioning programs.

Hitchcock will have a series of long talks with Columbus GM Scott Howson about the direction of the team.

Hitchcock will certainly examine Columbus' top prospects too.

It is certainly a key off-season. It may be a make or break it one for the franchise.

The grunt of the work will happen over the next few weeks when the spotlight shines the darkest.

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins for making the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is going to sound like sour grapes, but damn them. A team that was a Cup contender when the Jackets entered the league went to be the worst team in the league for a four to five year stretch to almost being relocated.

Now they have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc Andre Fleury, Ryan Whitney, Jordan Staal as their last five of six round draft picks and a new arena on the way.

Meanwhile the Jackets continue to toil in mediocrity.

The Jackets have sucked but just didn't suck enough to get the no brainer draft picks and sure as hell didn't have luck on their side during the Crosby-stakes or any draft lottery for that matter.

Instead, we've got Rostislav Klesla, Pascal Leclaire, Rick Nash, Nikolai Zherdev, Alex Picard, Gilbert Brule, Derick Brassard and Jakub Voracek.

There is only one legitimate superstar out of the bunch.

Leclaire is finally showing that franchise potential. Klesla will be no more than a top 4 defensemen. Nash is the only legit superstar who desperately needs some help. Zherdev is an enigma. Brule and Picard have bust written all over them. Brassard and Voracek look promising but we've heard that before.

Again, sour grapes.

There are a lot of "what ifs" in that group. What if we took Vanek or Phaneuf over Zherdev? What if we took Kopitar instead of Brule?

The Picard year was horrible for everyone outside of top 2 but damn what if we could have finished one spot better and won the lottery like Washington did and the rights to draft Alexander Ovechkin?

I could play this "what if" game all day but it doesn't do us any good now. Doug MacLean dug a real deep hole of shit for this franchise and we can only hope Howson/Hitch can dig it out. The problem is what if they don't?

-LTL