Canada was shocked Friday night by Latvia, losing 3-2 in a shootout in round-robin play of the 2025 World Juniors. The night started off dreadful for Canada following the injury of one of their best players and potential 2025 No. 1 pick Matthew Schaefer early in the first period. But following that, Canada’s offense was ordinary. They still got plenty of scoring chances and puck possession, but based on the caliber of talent they have on paper they weren’t as dangerous as you would have expected. The following stood out as the three biggest causes of concern for Canada as they get set to turn the page and regroup to face Germany on Sunday and ultimately Team USA on New Year’s Eve.
Lack of punch from the blue line
Schaefer was generating most of Canada’s offense from their defense group, with his rushes and playmaking. Once he went down, there wasn’t a ton of creative plays coming from their defenders who kept making a lot of basic, predictable plays. If Schaefer can’t return, does Canada add Sawyer Mynio, a mobile steady two-way defenseman who technically made the team but hasn’t been officially added to the tournament yet? Or do they audible and bring in a highly skilled, defensively flawed player like Zayne Parekh to run their struggling power play?
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Who’s the go-to player?
Through the first two games of the round-robin, Canada has lacked an identity of a player, or line, they can clearly lean on to create a scoring chance. There’s a true lack of dynamic traits in this lineup. But there’s still plenty of skill and elite junior players among this group and guys who project to score a lot in the NHL. In the pre-tournament, it seemed the trio of Calum Ritchie in between Easton Cowan and Bradly Nadeau could fill that role, but they’ve been ordinary in the first two games even if Ritchie scored a huge goal late in the third versus Latvia. When Canada elected to leave a lot of skill at home, such as 2024 No. 3 pick and selection camp standout Beckett Sennecke, in favor of a more compete-driven lineup it left them open to criticism if they didn’t score. Which brings us to …
Lack of compete level
For a team that’s identity was to be a detailed, hardworking, team full of pace, it hasn’t felt that way in the early going. Canada still has a lot of those elements, but this hasn’t been a team running over opponents, or getting a ton of scoring chances with hard net drives or dirty area second opportunities. The Latvian hockey culture is built around compete, but Canada should have been overpowering them, and it felt like they were getting outworked in both this game and at times versus Finland, too. There was too much play on the perimeter and a lack of intensity at times in their play.
What’s next?
With all that being said, this is still a great junior roster who could easily beat Team USA, and roll on to win a gold medal. But this massive, historic upset begs major questions about this team composition and potential changes that could come.
Required reading
• Inside the rise of Team Canada’s Tanner Molendyk: ‘He’s the most beautiful skater I’ve ever seen’
(Photo: Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press via AP)
