Team Canada fans call for benching after mistake that may cost them in tournament

In today’s game against France, Team Canada needs to run up the score to increase their goal differential relative to the United States. The scores in today’s game may end up deciding the seeding for the bracket round, so every goal counts.

Just after Canada scored their first goal of the game in the first period, France got one right back off a brutal broken play involving Parayko.

After a poorly controlled rebound by Binnington, Parayko was caught facing the wrong way which allowed France to score an easy rebound goal.

That wasn’t Parayko’s only misplay early on against France either. On multiple o-zone plays, Parayko made errant passes that got away from Canada’s forwards which killed their control in the offensive zone. In a game where every goal matters, these kinds of mistakes can’t happen.

Fans have been less than impressed with Parayko’s play so far, and are now calling for him to be sat at least temporarily. Especially in a game where Canada needs offence, playing their defensive specialist so much against a low-ranked opponent doesn’t make sense.

Not only that, Parayko’s defensive mistake and struggles moving the puck in the offensive zone is highlighting the error Team Canada made by selecting him over Evan Bouchard.

The Oilers defenceman always raises his game at critical times and eliminates his defensive errors. Not only that, he’s an elite puck mover that would be much better suited to passing to Canada’s high skill forwards. Canada at times has struggled to move the puck effectively from the back end, but that wouldn’t be an issue with Bouchard.

Hopefully in the rest of today’s game Canada can run up the score, and make this mistake irrelevant in the grand scheme of the tournament. But already, it looks like there’s some regret in picking Parayko.

Also read on Edmonton Hockey Daily :
Team Canada has incentive to beat France 10-0 in last Olympic preliminary game