Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
Winnipeg Jets’ forward Mark Scheifele’s World Championship tournament came to an end today with a 3-2 loss to Finland in the quarter final. The Canadians held a 2-1 lead going into the third period on a goal by Scheifele.
A giveaway early in the third led to the tying goal for Finland and a second mistake late in the third led to the go ahead and eventual game winning goal for Finland.
Scheifele was named player of the game and got better and better as the tournament wore on and he was rewarded with a lot of ice time according to assistant coach Paul Maurice. He helped the Canadians win 6straight after the opening game shootout loss to France.
Scheifele hadn’t played for a little over 6 weeks after his season ending injury with the Jets. According to Maurice he felt Scheifele worked hard in rehab and was the reason he could come out in this tournament and become one of the team’s top forwards by the end of the tournament.
It was a bitter pill to swallow after out playing Finland the entire game to end up on the losing end of the score. The shots were 38-26 Canada.
A key to the loss for Canada was the play of Pekka Rinne especially on the penalty kill when Finland killed 5 for 5 powerplays by Canada.
It’s the fifth straight year the Canadians have been bounced from the tournament in the quarter final. They went with a real young team and their hope was to gel as the tournament went on and that was th case as Canada played their best game of the tournament in this contest but as always is the case, goaltending was a huge factor.
It looks like Scheifele should be ready to go for training camp and from listening to Maurice on the radio he’s excited to get a healthy Scheifele for the start of next season. There aren’t any question marks as to whether Scheifele will be on the team or not or if he needs seasoning. He’s a bona fide NHL’er and from what I’ve seen, this kid works hard and wants to be the best.