Calgary Flames at World Championship: May 4th recap
By Ramina Shlah
The Calgary Flames had three members play on the first day of the 2018 World Championship. Let’s check out how each one did.
On the first day of the World Championship, the Calgary Flames had three of their four members in action. The newest addition to the team, bench boss Bill Peters, who’s the head coach of Team Canada, went against Johnny Gaudreau and Team USA. Mikael Backlund, captain of Team Sweden battled it out against Team Belarus. Let’s check out how each one did.
Canada vs USA
Bill Peters’ squad had a 2-0 lead by the 12:22 mark of the first period. The second goal came from a bit of a hiccup from Johnny Gaudreau in his own zone which led to the Canada goal. USA scored a couple more times since, and Gaudreau gave USA their first lead of the game in the second period when he scored USA’s third goal.
Calgary Flames
Despite outshooting the Americans 39-22, USA won in a shootout. Gaudreau was one of the shooters in the shootout, but couldn’t score. A similar story to Peters’ coaching day with the Carolina Hurricanes, he couldn’t get quality goaltending even when his team outperformed their opponents.
Gaudreau finished the game with one goal and one shot.
Sweden vs Belarus
I sort of feel bad for Belarus. It seems like every year, they just get destroyed. Sweden took this game 5-0. Mikael Backlund is centring the top line between Lias Andersson and Gustav Nyquist. While he didn’t get any points, he was on the ice for Sweden’s second goal of the night and was somewhat acting of a screen in front of the goalkeeper. He finished the game with two shots, 16:22 minutes of ice-time, and going 10/17 in his faceoffs.
Next: Flames at Worlds: Schedules, what to watch for
It was a fun opening day of the World Championship, even though Canada couldn’t pull through in the shootout. Maybe Peters will give Darcy Kuemper the night off tomorrow…