It was a historically bad loss for Canada at the World Juniors on Saturday, as they were handily dispatched by Russia in a 6-0 loss.
While Canada lost young star Alexis Lafrenière to injury in the second period, it’s also clear that they have plenty to figure out independent of that, and the team held a post-game meeting with coaches and players after the game to straighten things out.
The team’s compete level seemed to be the main topic of discussion.
Interestingly, Canadian coach Dale Hunter pushed back on the notion that the team’s issues were as simple as compete level, suggesting that the team’s defensive principles were lacking against Russia.
We’ll see if the meeting gets Canada back on the right track in the next one out, when they play Germany on Monday. They had looked better in their previous game against the United States, although now, they’ll have to deal with the additional hurdle of getting right without Lafrenière available.
