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Team Europe's memorable World Cup run has 'heartbreaking' end

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TORONTO – They gathered in Quebec City in early September as 23 players representing eight countries from 21 different NHL clubs. They leave Toronto as a team that surprised everyone in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

Team Europe’s World Cup dreams fell apart in a span of 129 seconds late in the third period of Game 2 of the final against Canada. An Anze Kopitar penalty led to a Patrice Bergeron power-play goal, igniting a very, very red Air Canada Centre crowd. Ralph Krueger’s squad still had a chance with a late power-play opportunity, but their hopes for a dramatic finish in their favor was dashed when Jonathan Toews found a streaking Brad Marchand for the eventual shorthanded winner.

“Heartbreaking. It’s a very, very tough loss,” said Team Europe defenseman Mark Streit. “It’s tough to find the right words right now.”

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Mats Zuccarello said before Game 2 that they needed to play a “perfect game” in order to force a do-or-die Game 3. Team Europe gave Canada trouble all night, and even managed to grab a first-period lead, one it would hold until Bergeron’s tying goal.

Canada had only trailed for 2:41 the entire tournament; and behind Jaroslav Halak, Team Europe threatened to ensure there would be more hockey Saturday night.

“I thought we played a really good game again,” said Team Europe captain Anze Kopitar. “I thought we had some good chances to take the two-goal lead but we just couldn’t do it and the last few minutes, it just happened the way it happened. Obviously very disappointing, but I still think we left everything on the table. I’m really proud of this team because everybody pretty much thought we’d be the laughing joke of this tournament. The way we came together and played and made it to the final, I think we gave Canada a pretty good run for it. Unfortunately we just came up a little bit short.”

No one knew what to make of this Team Europe squad before the tournament. In a group with Canada, the U.S. and the Czech Republic, it was hard to fathom this team of thrown together hockey players from eight nations gelling quickly and advancing to the semifinals. Their first two pre-tournament games against the U-23 Team North America side didn’t provide any inspiration for that thought following losses of 4-0 and 7-4.

Embarrassing as they were, those losses, coupled with the six days before their first group game with the Americans, provided beneficial time for chemistry to develop.

“It [was] really tough to know what the expectations were. I didn’t know what to expect when we came together,” said defenseman Dennis Seidenberg. “We obviously had good names, and guys that came had a lot of hurdles to get to where they are and a lot of them won. We did have character on that team, but what was going to actually happen in the tournament was tough to know.”

The journey was a long, unexpected one, but one that the Team Europe players, even in this moment of pain, can appreciate. There was a sense of pride in that dressing room representing those eight countries against the world.

“We’ve talked about this all along. We were the Team Europe, but in some way we were representing our countries. We had our flags on our shoulder,” Kopitar said. “I think everybody was really excited to be here, and [while] you’re not playing for your home country … you’re playing for a bigger picture, which is very exciting too, just to be on this team and make the team. We were very invested in it, as I’m sure you guys saw too. We had a lot of fun. It was a special group and it’s one thing that I am for certain this is going to stay with us for a long, long time.”

No matter your thoughts on this incarnation of the World Cup of Hockey, Team Europe’s players cared and wanted to win. The experience wasn’t going to be a two-week vacation as Streit noted afterward, and coming up short in the final will stick with them for some time.

“This is gonna hurt for a while because we’re all hockey players,” Streit said, “we all wanna win hockey games. Losing like that, that hurts a lot.”

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The World Cup experience did a lot for the members Team Europe. Dennis Seidenberg’s play helped earn him a one-year deal with the New York Islanders, and we’ll what happens with unrestricted free agent Christian Ehrhoff in the coming days.

But the biggest winner is head coach Ralph Krueger, the hockey man turned soccer executive.

Following his dismissal from the Edmonton Oilers after the lockout-shortened 2013 NHL season, he was appointed chairman of Southampton F.C. of the English Premier League.

Now after nearly guiding Team Europe to a hockey upset, his name will now be out there when the first head coach gets fired in the NHL this season. There’s already speculation that the Las Vegas expansion franchise should hire him when they join the league for the 2017-18 season. Krueger said after Game 2 that he’s committed to Southampton “now and in the near future,” but as a hockey lifer, you’d have to think if the right opportunity came along he’d be back behind a bench very quickly.

Krueger isn’t just a hockey coach or a soccer executive. He’s also an author, having written a motivational book in 2002. The tactics he laid out in those pages were certainly used over the last month in inspiring his thrown-together Team Europe squad.

Maybe another book comes out of this experience for Krueger, despite the final chapter coming out not exactly the way he wanted it to finish.

“It deserves a special story, just on the honesty of the game of hockey,” Krueger said. “I think that Team Europe proved tonight that if a group commits to playing connected and working for each other, with and without the puck, they can play against teams that are much more on paper skilled or have a higher value with them.

“[With] the whole story and the journey we took, the adversity we had and how we grew out of it and the permanent challenges we went through here in the tournament and we were able to overcome,” he said, “maybe this pain at the end makes it a better ending.”

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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!