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***Sburbine*** · 10-08-2021, 05:38 PM

To make use of this 20% bonus, I wanted to take a look at my player Jay O’Neil performance in his first ever taste of international hockey. So far there have been seven preseason games that I can take a look at, these games are pretty low stakes but it’s still an interesting window into what Jay looks like not only on international ice but with a team other than Newfoundland. Team North America is generally considered the team with the lower TPE players who haven’t been playing long enough to be one of the more established WJC teams so we’re not expected to win a lot of games. Two years ago team NA had one win and last year they had four, any improvement on that would be stellar and will hopefully have a chance at going .500 this year but we’ll see once the round robin starts. This also makes it so we can see for the first time what Jay is like on what is expected to be a bad team instead of last year’s champions. We do have last year’s tournament winner, the British Isles in our group but other than that we can hopefully compete against Team Finland, Team Worlds, and Team Young Guns to at least get a playoff berth.

Game 1 - (3-1 win over Team Finland)

Team NA started off strong with this match-up against Team Finland with a surprising game 1 win. Team NA was heavily out-shot 40-19 and was carried by insane goaltending from Osada Tamura with a 0.975 save percentage. On top of that Brady Bertrand’s 2 goals helped push team NA over the top to get the win. As for Jay O’Neil, he had a fantastic game, an incredible start to his international hockey career. With an incredible 90 game rating due to his perfect 100 defensive game rating, Jay held this team on his back and really shutdown the Finnish offense whenever he was on the ice. With a whole four minutes of short handed time, he was definitely feeling the exhaustion after this game but it was all worth it for the win. As for the rest of his statline, he ended up with an assist, +1, three blocked shots, and two hits, certainly a game to call home about.

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Game 2 - (2-1 lose to Team Worlds)

This was a close game for Team NA and their first loss of the WJC preseason, Team World ended up outshooting Team NA 36 to 26, a much better difference than the previous game against Team Finland. Team World was leading by one until Alex Mackenzie was able to score the lone Team NA goal halfway through the period but unfortunately, Team World answered almost immediately just two minute later for the game winning goal. Hugh Jass had a great game in net for Team NA but the offense wasn’t enough to get the win. For Jay O’Neil, he had another great game with a 75 game rating and 98 defensive game rating. He wasn’t on the ice for either of Team World’s goals and was a top notch shutdown defenseman whenever he was playing. He didn’t get any points this game but ended up with a blacked shot, a hit and played a full 32 shifts with a 21:46 time on ice.
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Game 3 - (7-4 lose to Team Finland)

Team Finland got some revenge in their rematch from game one with a high-scoring 7-4 victory over team NA. This game was a lot closer than the final score let on though, the game was actually tied 4-4 until Team Finland scored 3 goals in the last three minutes of the third period. The shot disparity was even worse than game one at 47-20 in favor of Team Finland. Goals and assists were pretty well distributed around Team NA with fellow Newfoundland Berserker Pope Coswi getting two goals. As for Jay O’Neil, he had another pretty good game with a 69 game rating and a 79 defensive game rating. He ended up with 1 assist and +2 even with the -3 goal differential in the game and 3 blocked shots. He’s been playing well so far even if there is only one win to show for it so far.

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Game 4 - (5-4 shootout lose to Team British Isles)

This was a heartbreaking loss for Team NA, to get so close to defeating the favorites and defending champions but falling just short. The shot difference was pretty immense like the other games so far at 51-23 in favor of Team British Isles. Amazingly, Team NA was ahead 1-0 going into the third before everything switched and Team British Isles scored 4 straight goals then everything switched again and Team NA scored three straight goals to send it to OT. Team NA didn’t have a very good performance in the shootout and Team British Isles only took two rounds to win the game. As for Jay O’Neil, he had a great game with a 77 game rating and a 95 defensive game rating and getting the first international goal of his career, starting the comeback to send the game into OT. He also ended +2 with 2 blocked shots and three hits, doing what he can to contribute to the team.

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Game 5 (6-2 loss to Team World)

This was a rough game for Team NA, getting destroyed by Team World 6-2 with a massive difference in shots with 50 to 19 in favor of Team World. There were almost no positives with this bad loss, Pope Coswi had the best game on Team NA with one goal and one assist. Team World scored 3 goals in the first period and it was all over from there with only two goals to answer from Team NA. Jay O’Neil had by far the worst game of his short international game so far with a 54 game rating and a 58 defensive game rating. The rest of his stat line looks pretty ugly too by going -3 and 2 penalty minutes, there is definitely a lot to learn and improve from this game. Things seemed to cascade out of control too quickly to do well in this game and there was no chance to get a nice defensive hold of things.

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Game 6 (5-3 loss to Team Canada)

This was another tough one for Team NA, after being able to tie it at 3 - 3 in the third period, Team Canada ended up scoring two straight goals to get the win. The shot differential was 41 - 20 in favor of Team Canada , a very similar line to the previous games. My fellow Newfoundland Berserker Merlin Metzler had a great game with a 99 defensive game ranking but our offense couldn’t get going good enough to win. This is one of the games looked at so far that could have gone either way right until the end. As for Jay O’Neil, he had an excellent game, a rebound from the last game against Team World. He ended up as the second star of the game with a 78 game rating and a 89 defensive game rating. As for his stat line, he ended up with 2 assists, +1, 1 blocked shot, and two hits. He was a big part in keeping the game close but wasn’t enough to get the win.

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Game 7 (6-1 loss to Team UCORCAL)

The last game of the preseason was Team NA’s ugliest loss of them all, they were outshot 46 to 8 that resulted in a 6 - 1 loss to Team UCORCAL, one of the favorites in this tournament. One of the only bright spots for Team NA was once again fellow Newfoundland Berserker Merlin Metzler with a 99 defensive game rating, he was really doing everything he could to keep this game within reach but the team couldn’t generate any offense to actually score. As for Jay O’Neil, he had a fine game with a 62 game rating and a 78 defensive game rating. He did go -1 in this game but that’s still not too bad in a 6 - 1 loss, he also ended up with two blocked shots and 2 hits.

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After starting the preseason hot with a 3 - 1 win over Team Finland, Team North America ended up going 1 - 5 - 1 in the preseason. A lot of the games were closer than the final score let on but they were getting consistently outshot every game. Jay O’Neil himself played mostly well, getting a lot of defensive pressure and even getting some points along the way. The one upside is that Team NA has yet to face the team considered one of the worst worth Team Young Guns and have a good chance of getting wins in the round robin with those match-ups. They will also face Team Finland a number of times. Hopefully things go better so they can improve again on the previous year’s record and potentially make the playoffs.

***By-Tor*** · 10-08-2021, 05:52 PM

We will prevail when it counts

Credit to enigmatic, Merica, and tweedledunn for sigs

***Sburbine*** · 10-08-2021, 05:59 PM

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