Germany-Canada: The Preview

Tonight Hockey Canada will hold its breath as Canada enters the knockout rounds of the Winter Olympic hockey tournament, coming off a tough loss to arch rivals the USA. And its certainly going to have to be a solid win for the Canadians, as they will have fans to please after the disappointment. Brodeur will be out of goal in favour of Vancouver Canuck's goalie Roberto Luongo. And quite frankly Canada is looking for a new dawn in it's Men's Hockey play so far in Vancouver. Brodeur played a poor game against the Americans, taking bad risks at crucial points in the game. While many of the American goals got in the net because of lucky bounces, most of those bounces would not have happened if Brodeur had been better positionally. But Canada is looking to but that result behind them, and have switched its lineup going into this game. Keeping with the Shark's line but adding Staal to the Crosby-Iggy line and dropping Nash to the Duck's line with Corey Perry and Ryan Gezlaf. But Perry and Gezlaf have been noted for poor play so far this tournament. Particularly Perry who missed a chance against the Swiss that could have won Canada the game. He also played poor on the last American goal in the 5-3 loss on Sunday. The addition of Nash to the line? Poor genius. Canada will need a better distributed offense and Heatley-Marleau-Thorton have been the bulk of the Canadian goals at this point in the tournament. And entering into the game against the Germans Canada is looking to get some other players rolling. But lets not get ahead of ourselves, Germany could still beat us and are a very solid team, not unlike the Swiss. But one comparable difference between the Germans and the Swiss is that longtime German goalie Olaf Kolzig is not in net meaning German doesn't have a NHL goalie, the way Switzerland had Hillier. But almost everyone in the media is looking ahead to what could be one of the best hockey games in the history of the sport in the Olympic Games. It could feature Crosby against Oveckin. The Kid against The Great. And two of the NHL's top players head to head in a battle in which the loser will be sent home. It will amount to a lot of drama. But if Canada thinks ahead the Germans could easily burn them, leaving us to only wish we had been able to see the game against Russia. So as Hockey Canada prepares for a new dawn, the must be sure to not look ahead to the future and focus on the present. This game will be for confidence, if this one goes into Overtime like the one against the Swiss it would lose Canada a lot of respect and confidence going into a game against one of hockey most dynamic forces, something that i don't think they can recover from.