Team Canada will face off tonight at 8 p.m. against Team Europe in a bid to seal a World Cup victory.
The first game of the best-of-three series set an interesting stage for Canada in this game, as Canada looked disorganized - which is uncharacteristic of a team coached by Mike Babcock.
"We're going to be better tomorrow for sure," said Babcock, who was obviously unhappy with his team's effort.
Although Canada was able to ride the success of their top line consisting of Brad Marchand, Sidney Crosby, and Patrice Bergeron to a 3-1 win, other players know they have to step it up.
"We had spurts where we let them outplay us," admitted Drew Doughty. Steven Stamkos also acknowledged that the team didn't have a great night, saying "it wasn't one of our best," but added "at this time of the tournament, a win's a win."
Babcock refused to say yesterday if he was going to make any changes to the roster, but Pierre LeBrun says there are no changes:
Same lineup for Team Canada tonight in case anyone was wondering
— Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) September 29, 2016
Canada has not lost a best-on-best tournament game since the opening round of the 2010 Olympics.
My take
I'll be pretty surprised if Canada doesn't win this game. They're clearly the better team, winning the last game despite looking totally out of sync. Mike Babcock and a group of this players with Team Canada's talent aren't going to be that way a second consecutive night. It should only go worse for Europe. My guess is Canada comes out guns-a-blazing.