With the United States being bounced from the World Championships following a 2-0 loss to Finland, head coach Jeff Blashill was “bitterly disappointed.” Blashill and the United States had won six consecutive games before bowing out of the quarterfinals. Finland played a tight defensive game, bottling up the American attack and sending the US team home in jarring fashion.
To Detroit Red Wings fans, it may not seem like the most shocking of results. Red Wings blog Winging It In Motown released their season grade for Blashill and it wasn’t exactly glowing. Blashill received failing grades in game management and player deployment which lowered his marks to an overall of an F, but more interesting is the caveat at the end, indicating that Blashill’s coaching at the Worlds shows a coach capable of “handling young teams,” which seems to put some of the onus back on general manager Ken Holland’s team building. Regardless, the heat has to be on Blashill as he enters year three in Detroit.
- The Ottawa Citizen’s Don Brennan believes that the lack of support at Senators’ games are a myth. Citing attendance figures, Brennan points to only the first game of its second round series against New York where fans didn’t fill the arena. The other six playoff games saw capacity crowds, and Brennan writes that it’s the listing of 19,209, which used to be the sellout figure for Canadian Tire Center, prior to renovations. While he admits that the figure for the aforementioned game was 16,744, the average attendance has been 18,522, which is just 50 seats short of the new sellout figure of 18,572. Several players Brennan spoke with spoke of how loud the building has been, calling it the “loudest” they’ve heard it.