The Team Europe Underdog Story features a dramatic David vs Goliath match (Live Blog Feed)

I haven't tried doing something, like this, but I'll try.
It comes down to this. The second final stretch. Team Europe, the underdog story of the tournament, taking on sedish powerhouses like the Sedins, Karlsson and King Henrik. If they take out Sweden, they'll face the devil in red themselves, team Canada.
Join me for a live blog feed, I guess that's what it's called, on this dramatic semi final game.

Update: 9:25 The game begins at 10 AM Pacific and 1 PM Eastern

Update 9:30 This blog feed is my gift for 1000 pageviews. Anyway, the pregame is beginning.

Lundqvist, Karlsson, Kopitar and Chara, this is going to be a good matchup!By the way, I am using the cbc feed of the match.

9:33 Ron McLean is here. Just talking about random stuff right now.

They're flashbacking to the pre-tournament game. It's going to be a rematch of the preseason.

The firepower on team Europe is insane. Hossa has near 500 goals.

Draisaitl has 5 goals in the tournament.

110-16-14. That's the Tre Kronos record. I might've slaughtered that name. Kopitar is being interviewed.

9:38 showcasing Filip Forsberg's highlights of the tournament. He's the youngest player of Sweden, at 22 years and 1 month.

9:40 analyzing the Sweden - North America game. Karlsson is being interviewed. They're asking him about Halak. He says he's having a good tournament.

Daniel Alfredsson has become a Canadian Citizen. That's amazing. By the way, the time is in Pacific time.

Almost 9:45 and the interview with Daniel Alfredsson has been going on for a while.

1.95 GAA and .953 save percentage for Lundqvist, as well as a shutout. 

10:03 the game will begin soon.

Team Europe will clearly be the underdog. Henrik Sedin and Kopitar exchanging banners!

The Tre Kronos has their national anthem played.

The game begins. Jaroslav Halak is 2-1 1.98 GAA. Lundqvist .953 save percentage. Game begins! Halak makes a save.

Halak makes a save against Landeskog. Still scoreless.

Team Europe is much better then Team Sweden, according to a comparison.

Seidenberg is penalized.Sweden's first PP.

Power Play is over. Sweden is 0 for 1. First commercial break of the game.

Update: Ralph Kruger is certainly the most interesting man in hockey. As the chairman of the Southampton FC.

Shots are four each after icing.

WTF? Was I the only one who saw a Pizza 73 ad on the boards switch to Samsung? Advertisement changing boards? Now it's changed to Honda civic!

I'm going offline until the end of the first period, this ad switching boards is hurting my head.

The Shots on Goal are ten to five in favor of Sweden.

                                                                  

More on Team Europe by SportsNet

https://youtu.be/SJpMTZdS0Yw

Team Europe's Underdog story

Ladies and gentlemen boys and girls, we may have an underdog story here.
After losing their first 2 games to a loaded north America team, all Europe's done is win win win. They upset the americans on saturday, and pulled off another on a solid Czech Republic team.
But get this. Of all the 8 teams competing, Europe may have THE WORST roster out of them all.
To get a firm understanding, let's take a look at every team's roster, with Europe being the last to be compared.
The first team is Team Canada. Just like Europe, after losing their first game of the tournament ( a preliminary match versus usa), they've won all of the rest. They just came off a rout of the Czech Republicans on Saturday, and they're waiting to take out USA tomorrow. However, on wednseday, they'll have what could possibly the guarantee of Europe's Underdog story, as they'll face off against the team in teal
Canada's roster is LOADED. Best goalie of the tournament, best offence, best defence.
#1 seed for sure.
Next up is Team Czech. They were pretty good during the prelims. After getting squeezed out by Russia, they took their next two games. But now, they're 0-2 and could be seeing the end of the road for them soon. Their roster is pretty stacked. Noticeably their captains. Plekaneck, Hemsky and Voracek, as well as Ondrej Palatine and some other small names on the offence. Their defence isn't that good, besides Andrej Sustr, and it could be the worse of the tournament.
Their goalies are stacked as well. 2 solid nhl starters and 1 backup goalie that's pretty good in neuvirth, who could be considered a starter at some point soon.
Unfortunately, besides that, the Czechs are the 7th seed of the tournament.
Taking a look at finland, they've had a pretty bad prelim, taking the first game, then losing the next 2. They'll play seen tomorrow, and we're routed by the north americans yesterday.
Their roster is mixed. Laine and barkov lead the way, as well as Joonas donskoi, but afterwards, things aren't too good in forward, besides maybe korpikoski and teravainen. Their captains are pretty old, koivu, jokinen and flippula. Their defence is half good half bad. Maatta, Ristolainen, and Vatanen, then the rest are ahl players.
In net, they have bloody Tuukka Rask and Pekka Rinne, Finland might have the most solid Netminders of the tournament.
5th or 6th seed.
Now the young guns, team north america.
They have so many good players, it would take me a good paragraph to name all of them. Just search up their roster, it's pretty stacked.
Defence, they're riding off of ghost bear and jones, with ekblad out of the tournament, a very recent news.
In net they've got stanley cup champion and best goalie of the tournament, Matt murray, starting with John gibson. Connor hellebuyck is in tow as the #3 goalie.
NA squeezes past finland for the 4th seed.
Mother Russia has some good players. Ovechkin, Datsyuk(surprisingly) and Malkin as well as young guns in tarasenko and panarin.
Their defence is, sorry to say it, but it's mediocre.
Their goalies are all nhl starters, as vasilevskiy could be a starter if bishop wasn't in tampa.
Russia is either 2nd or 3rd seed.
Now Sweden. They're okay, I guess, the Sedins are old, but they're still playing well, Loui Eriksson pairs off with them. There are some young guns as well. The forward is impressive. On the D, Karlsson and Hedman, as well as Ekman-Larsson. They've got the best defence in the tournament.
They may have the worst goalies in net though, besides europe. Enroth pretty much got roasted during the prelims lundqvist is running out of water in his fountain of youth, and Markstrom is pretty good, actually.
Tied for 5th or 6th with finland.
The americans have so many good forwards! Kane, Kesler  oshie, pacioretty, the list goes on and on. Their defence is highlighted by big buff, the johnson twins, mcdonagh, and suter. In net they've got, I'm not kidding here, 3 starters. Not just starters, all-star starters.
Damn. US might be 2nd or 3rd seed, tied with russia.
So there you go. Europe has the worst roster out if them all. Besides Kopitar and Chara, their roster is a barren wasteland, especially without Freddie Andersen in net. Halak has gotten the job done so farm but their goalies really scare me. We have a Greiss, who's reached his prime for too early, grubauer, who'll struggle to get into his prime with Holtby in front of him on the depth chart. Really, there might be some small name in there, but afterwards, if you look at it, the evidence is there. Team Europe is the compelling underdog. And they might win it all.

My plan for the 2016-17 season! Plus: Thoughts on USA vs Team Europe

I'm excited for the World Cup of Hockey, as most fans are. But what I'm really looking forward to is the 2016-17 National Hockey League Centennial Season. 100 years ago, the NHL was established! I feel blessed that I could watch this special season.
So, as for my plans for the season, I will have coverage of all 82 Vancouver Canucks games. Every Saturday, around 3:00 PM Pacific Time (6 PM Eastern) I will post a weekly review and thoughts on that week of Canucks hockey. Note that any afternoon games must be completed before the blog post is posted, or else that game will be delayed for the following week's post.
For an example, I'll use the team USA Vs. Team Europe game.
Boxscore Stats:
The final score was 3-0 Team Europe. Shots were 35-17 in favor of the Americans. Both teams were 0/4 on the Power Play.
Goalie Stats:
The starting goalies of the game were Jonathan Quick (Member of the LA Kings) and Jaroslav Halak (Member of the NY Islanders).
The winning goalie was Halak, the first star of the game, making 35 saves on the same number of shots. Quick took the loss with a disappointing .824  save percentage.
Scoring Summary:
First Period of Play:
1-0 Team Europe
Marian Gaborik (1)
Assisted by Frans Nielsen (1) and Mats Zuccarello (1)
Scored 04:19 in Period
Second Period of Play:
2-0 Team Europe
Leon Draisaitl (1)
Assisted by Nino Niederreiter (1) and Tobias Reider (1)
Scored 4:02 in Period
3-0 Team Europe
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (1)
Assisted by the danish beast, Jannik Hansen (1) and Christian Erhoff (1)
Scored 18:3w2 in Period
Third Period of Play:
N/A
My Thoughts:
Team USA's Defence was excellent, keeping the Europeans down to a mere 17 shots. Their powerful offence really let the rubber fly, taking 35 shots on Halak. But despite that, what stood out was a solid European squad, with the offence lighting up Quick, evidently a top 10 goalie in the NHL. Quick could've played much better, as he looked more like a Major Junior goalie out there then someone who led his NHL team to 2 Stanley Cups. Halak really gave the elite American forwards a bad time, and he was the GOAT of the game.
GOAT and goat
I'm not sure if I'll do this everytime, but hey, why not? The goats of the game are, ironically, the masked men themselves. Halak deserved all credit on stopping what could be a top 3 roster in this tournament, leaving them scoreless. He is the GOAT. Quick, on the other hand, disappointed the americans, leaving them with a bad taste in their mouth to start out the tournament. He was the goat.

Team Europe takes the first game of the world cup, 3-0 against the Americans.