Canada still waiting for a challenge at the World Cup of Hockey

TORONTO – Two games into the World Cup of Hockey, and we’ve yet to see Canada seriously pushed. Or play their best hockey, as they kept insisting after comprehensively beating the United States and in the process embarrassing the Americans’ hockey setup on Tuesday night.

Perhaps it was always going to be this way for Canada, with the last two Olympic gold medals in their drawers at home and the Air Canada Centre ice in Toronto the only spot for this occasional non-Olympic “best-on-best” renewal. The manner in which they've gone about their business has only underlined that.

Canada vs. U.S. was supposed to be one of this tournament’s touchstone rivalries. Instead, the 4-2 dispatch of the visitors was tepid stuff, spectacular only in terms of how ineffectual and even inane the USA’s “gritty” approach in team-building ahead of this renewal turned out, and how divergent a path the teams have been on since their epic overtime gold-medal game in Vancouver six years ago.

Put it on top of a 6-0 opener against the Czechs, and it’s hard to find holes in this Canadian lineup, starting with Sidney Crosby's lead line and on back to Carey Price in goal.

“We can grind it out with anybody and we can skill it out with anybody,” said Matt Duchene. That’s fourth-liner Matt Duchene, and on Tuesday, two-goal man Matt Duchene. They weren’t at all pretty but as any coach tells his kids from about minor atom age on up, they all count.

It’s Mike Babcock’s job to keep this thing on course, and of course he was all about that afterward. “There were times I didn’t think we were even close to being as good as we’re capable of being,” Babcock sniffed, graciously failing to note that this not-best was quite enough to dispose of the Americans, granted a quick 1-0 lead not even five minutes in when Ryan McDonagh bulled the puck behind Price.

It took Canada 89 seconds to answer with Duchene, and just 14 seconds more to surmount the one challenge they’ve faced so far when a rebound glanced in off Corey Perry’s paraphernalia. Canada never trailed from there.

“We have that ability to wear teams down,” offered John Tavares, an all-star centre and captain of his team in the NHL but on this side, happy to be a third-line winger whose deking of Matt Niskanen out of his jockstrap to set up the final goal was equally illustrative of the gulf in quality.

“We self-inflicted quite a bit,” said John Tortorella, offering up all kinds of nasty, one might say gritty imagery there. The last bit of self-harm, one hopes, will be when he falls on his sword.

That’d be the script, anyway, at the real World Cup, the one where 22 guys run around in shorts chasing a ball and occasionally fall down in real or feigned distress. Morgan Rielly, the North America defenceman on leave from his day job with the Maple Leafs, put soccer's event as the aspirational model for this ongoing World Cup of Hockey the other day. Maybe someday, he said, this could grow up to be the same kind of thing.

Playing along, Canada next faces Europe Wednesday night - each team unbeaten, no one able to catch them and only a rather meaningless group placing at stake. At a real World Cup, Babcock and his opposite Ralph Krueger wouldn’t even have to duck around the corner and behind the water pipes to make the kind of pragmatic deal that helps make global soccer’s showcase event such an infuriating spectacle.

It won’t happen here. But it sure would be of a piece at a tournament that has only really soared when Rielly and his fellow young ‘uns on Team North America have been on the ice. Just about everyone at the Air Canada Centre cheering for the home team Tuesday night or watching at home was concurrently hoping that the kids in the cool shirts will get their shot at Canada, an eventuality that may not even come to pass if Sweden spoils the party in their group finale against Team North America on Wednesday afternoon.

Let’s hope. “Grit” has proved to be a forlorn match for Canada. Fresh young legs, quick puck derring-do and an utter lack of fear would certainly beat what the overmatched Czechs and Americans threw at them in the tournament’s first two games.

We’ll have to wait on that, along with Canada in a real all-or-nothing game where they’re pushed. It might come as soon as this weekend. Or maybe it doesn't have to come at all.