The Official 2010 WJC Thread

Desjardins might be the worst coach to ever coach our junior team. What a pathetic coaching job he did. Underused his players, overused others that shouldn't have been (Patrice Cormier I'm looking right at you) and stayed with a goaltender that was clearly shaky from the first shot of the game.

This tournament set Cowen's development back more than anything else. Pathetic.

Dash wrote:Good point about Cowen. Has me worried he will be a bust, but it is pretty bad to bench a player like that. He should have been played and more importantly, used in the right manner. If his speed was a weakness, put him with a faster partner.

I hope this has not ruined him completely.

Nah, don't worry about this tourney for Cowen, he wasn't used right, he was mishandled BADLY, he'll be 100% fine. Get him back to Spokane and get him on the ice for 25 minutes a night while he leads the BEST defense in the league.

Get him as far away as possible from Wilie and Team Canada right now. He was playing well for Spokane before this, he'll be a rock for them now. He'll be even more intent on leading them after this debacle IMO. And his leg still needs 8 months of rehab IMO - and playing with Spokane and working hard off the ice - then working like a madman in the summer should bring him up to speed.

PKC wrote:Desjardins might be the worst coach to ever coach our junior team. What a pathetic coaching job he did. Underused his players, overused others that shouldn't have been (Patrice Cormier I'm looking right at you) and stayed with a goaltender that was clearly shaky from the first shot of the game.

This tournament set Cowen's development back more than anything else. Pathetic.

De Haan, I'm looking at you as well. Diddling frustrating. All I wanted was Canada to win the Gold, then I wanted to get Cowen the Diddle away from that poison. Now he can't even recall this even with even the smallest fondest memory because of Desjardins.

asq2 wrote:Again, I think you overstate the importance of the WJHC (TSN does too). Alex Pietrangelo one year ago was universally denigrated as a bust at 18 after his performance. Now at 19 in a U-20 tournament everyone's done a complete 180.

Cowen's in a similar situation at worst. But he was also mishandled (the whole team was poorly coached, though, so that's not my biggest complaint about Desjardins), plus it's only about a year after Cowen's injury which should take 18 months to rehab, plus that injury made him lose a lot of development time making him untechnically one of the youngest players on the team.

Anyway, I think DeHaan was worse last night.

I should have just quoted you, because this is what I believe as well.

asq2 wrote:

Dash wrote:Good point about Cowen. Has me worried he will be a bust, but it is pretty bad to bench a player like that. He should have been played and more importantly, used in the right manner. If his speed was a weakness, put him with a faster partner.

I hope this has not ruined him completely.

Again, I think you overstate the importance of the WJHC (TSN does too). Alex Pietrangelo one year ago was universally denigrated as a bust at 18 after his performance. Now at 19 in a U-20 tournament everyone's done a complete 180.

Cowen's in a similar situation at worst. But he was also mishandled (the whole team was poorly coached, though, so that's not my biggest complaint about Desjardins), plus it's only about a year after Cowen's injury which should take 18 months to rehab, plus that injury made him lose a lot of development time making him untechnically one of the youngest players on the team.

Anyway, I think DeHaan was worse last night.

I was just saying I was worried. Who wouldn't be? I want him to be a success. I want him to be our next Chara type player. I hope he and Karlsson and Wiercioch become the three best NHL defenders. I really do think the coaching was not a good move. A good coach will make his players better. What he did to Cowen was bad coaching. At least Cowen can hopefully take some positive that he was not responsible for the loss

Not to mention Karlsson owned the tourney last year and Hedman was average at best - and it's Karlsson who's struggling to adapt. This tourney means very little. I'll put the stock in Cowen's years in Spokane.

SpezDispenser wrote:Not to mention Karlsson owned the tourney last year and Hedman was average at best - and it's Karlsson who's struggling to adapt. This tourney means very little. I'll put the stock in Cowen's years in Spokane.

I'll put the stock in his perfomance at camp and during exhibition play. Then in his NHL play. Right now he's just a prospect.

I'm not overstating the importance of the WJC, I know that many players come out as heroes and turn out to be busts, but I do know that it increases a players stock and value. Hodgson's value soared after last year's WJC and Vancouver probably could have got a nice return for him, now his career is in question.

Dash wrote:I'm not overstating the importance of the WJC, I know that many players come out as heroes and turn out to be busts, but I do know that it increases a players stock and value. Hodgson's value soared after last year's WJC and Vancouver probably could have got a nice return for him, now his career is in question.

Maybe a good WJC increases a player's value, but how is that important unless you're trading Cowen? Or are we concerned about our perception around the league rather than how good our team actually is/will be?

I don't really understand the Hodgson comment either. Are you suggesting that Vancouver should have dealt him earlier, forseeing his injury?

Anyway, look at MAF. Responsible for probably the single biggest "goat" play in WJHC history and now he's a 25-year-old Cup Champion with back-to-back Finals appearances and a spot on Team Canada.

Yeah, I know anything can happen, nothing is guaranteed. I never said Allen was going to be a failure either, whose final game in the WJC was similar to MAF. And there have been guys that were invisible in the WJC that went on to be stars, guys that didn't play in the WJC that went on to be stars, guys that were stars of the WJC that failed and guys that were stars in the WJ's and stars in the NHL - there's no way to tell.

No, Vancouver should not have traded Cody, all I said was his value was high after he was the leading point scorer for Canada. They could have traded him as his value would be higher than it is now obviously.

Cowen will probably rebound from the WJ's and go on to be a great player and I really hope he does. Why wouldn't I want that? His injury probably kept him from going top 5 in the draft, and right now, all I would say is what I've been saying all along, that his value is low to other teams, that is all. And Eberle's is high to other teams (and Edmonton).

Dash wrote:I really do think the coaching was not a good move. A good coach will make his players better. What he did to Cowen was bad coaching.

When one or two D get caught a few times out of position, it's probably on the players themselves. When all D get caught doing it all game long, it's the system and therefore bad coaching.

Did anyone else see that Pietrangelo was sent down to the OHL? Christ...not even the AHL. All the way back down to junior. When is he going to get the permanent call up?

PKC wrote:Did anyone else see that Pietrangelo was sent down to the OHL? Christ...not even the AHL. All the way back down to junior. When is he going to get the permanent call up?

He's not eligible to play in the AHL this year until his CHL team is eliminated.

RobbyJ wrote:

PKC wrote:Did anyone else see that Pietrangelo was sent down to the OHL? Christ...not even the AHL. All the way back down to junior. When is he going to get the permanent call up?

He's not eligible to play in the AHL this year until his CHL team is eliminated.

Why isn't he playing for the big club then? It's not like they have a winning combination they can't mess with right now. And it's not like he'd be any worse than say Carlo Colaiacovo or Roman Polak...doesn't make sense.

And so it begins:

http://tsn.ca/chl/story/?id=304949

Trade happened a few days ago though, nothing related to last night's game, if that's what you're implying.

The article says he was traded today. What's your source?

PKC wrote:The article says he was traded today. What's your source?

He was officially traded today...the agreement was in place as far back as Christmas. Source: TSN.