Canada has allowed just three goals in five games so far. Can we expect a third shutout in the gold-medal game against Sweden? That depends on to what extent its defensive success was by the team's very design, how much was the offensive weakness of its opponents and how much was just a hot streak.
Analytics are useful to help answer this question. First to determine just how good this team has been defensively, and then to take a closer look at how the team was built and how it is coached. By and large, all of Canada's players are already well-accustomed to lining up against the world's best players, are among the best possession-oriented skaters in the world today and are coached by the best defensive minds in the NHL today.
Finally, I used analytics to take a closer look at the offensive capabilities of Canada's two main opponents thus far, Finland and the USA, and compared that to the tournament's other teams, most notably Sweden.
In the end, all of this work has come to reinforce just how legitimate the Canadian defence truly is, and how much of a challenge it will be for the Swedes to generate&nbs ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Rob Vollman
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