Canada eliminated from Spengler Cup after third straight loss

Team Canada officially bowed out of the Spengler Cup today with a tournament eliminating loss to Swedish club Örebro HK.

The Canadian squad dropped a 3-1 decision today, their third loss in a row in yet another example of sloppy, uninspiring play. Canada ends their tournament without a single victory and now returns home to sort out what went wrong. The team's roster was never really impressive, leading many people to blame GM Shane Doan for putting together a shoddy roster. The fact of the matter is that it's always difficult to get quality players to represent Canada at the Spengler Cup, but this version of the team obviously came up short compared to past versions. I mean... no wins for Canada at a major international tournament? When was the last time that happened?

Head coach Travis Green shares some of the blame for this failure, as well. As someone who watched Green closely during his time with the Vancouver Canucks, I'm not surprised that he wasn't able to adapt his coaching style over the course of this tournament. Green isn't the the most flexible coach and it was clear that Canada needed to switch up their strategy early on in tournament play, which isn't Green's strength. Green is very much and old school, defense first, hard forechecking style coach who had Canada play a workman's style of hockey, while he arguably had the most skilled group in the entire tournament.

Any way you look at things and wherever you want to lay the blame, it's clear that Team Canada simply failed in all aspects at the Spengler Cup this year. To come home without a win is something that's pretty foreign to Team Canada and this result should force Hockey Canada to take a closer look at how they approach this tournament. Maybe putting your faith in former fringe NHLers to beat up on some European players isn't the best strategy? Personally, I'd love to see more younger players and prospects play in the tournament, but I can understand the hesitancy from NHL teams to release their players for the tournament. Still... something's got to give.