well, being a better team than 2014 didn't take a big effort, actually...
I don't remember anything worse than that experience in the last 25 years of Italian Hockey history...
the 3 losses in the last minute or so of the games, instead, in my opinion are more related with the lack of experience of the majority of the current players of our team, rather than a lack of stamina...
meanwhile the lack of scoring efficiency has a lot to do with the technical and physical skills of our players...it's clear that we lack at least 2 or 3 big, heavy snipers in front of the cage that can translate the great build up work of people like Scandella, Diego and Simon Kostner, Anton Bernard, Morini into goals...in all of our games, I've watched way too much circling around the net without anyone in front of the opposing netminder ready to touch the puck into the net...if we can't find someone with those skills, I don't see how we can improve this part of our game (moreover, the only player more or less like this we have on our roster - Joachim Ramoser - was out because of an injury...we haven't even been lucky)...
finally, the Egger episode...
I didn't even mentioned it yesterday because it was clear that it was only an unlucky accident due to the really shameful ice conditions...
in my opinion the only one to blame is the ice master of the Lanxess Arena...
I hope however that this experience has been useful to our guys and that they can rapidly improve and get back in the Top Class Worlds as soon as possible...
but you know, without a competitive National Tournament is very difficult to develop a decent number of very good players...only those lucky ones who can get a place in the best European and/or North American teams have a chance to grow up quickly and became real globally recognized top players...
and we don't have anything even close to a serious National Championship, so we are always in danger to get short with our National Team roster and find very few players good enough for this kind of Hockey...
p.s. today's afternoon games have been great (especially the big rivalry battle between RUS and USA)...a very entertaining show (way better than last night's NHL game between Pittsburgh and Ottawa, which came out a bit disappointing, if compared with the previous NHL playoffs nights)...