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O’REILLY PLAYED MAJOR ROLE FOR CANADA ON AND OFF THE ICE
- Updated: May 25, 2016
Ryan O’Reilly lined up at center ice to take one last faceoff in Moscow, Russia on Sunday. He and Team Canada had just extended their lead to 2-0 over Finland with an empty-net goal in the Gold Medal Game, and only one second remained on the clock. This last draw was merely a formality.
Once that second ticked off the clock, O’Reilly, for the second year in a row, was a gold medalist at the IIHF World Championship.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” O’Reilly said on Tuesday. “To win two years in a row is pretty special and it’s different because we had almost a completely different group of guys. I think there were three of us that were there the previous year. But it’s a great tournament, it was really tough.”
Indeed, O’Reilly was one of three players – along with Edmonton’s Taylor Hall and former Colorado Avalanche teammate Matt Duchene – to return from the 2015 team. For O’Reilly, it was the fourth go-around at the World Championship.
It’s amazing how quickly things can turn. In a matter of a year, O’Reilly went from feeling like he was one of “the young guys” to being a veteran on a roster loaded with young superstars. He was named an alternate captain prior to the tournament, the same role he serves for the Buffalo Sabres.
“I think every year you have to just kind of grow yourself,” he said. “This year in Buffalo, I definitely found and started to grow as a leader more vocally and doing certain other things. It was kind of good having that experience and going into this situation knowing it was going to be like that.”
The young guys this time around included some of the top young talent in the world, both on Team Canada and across the tournament’s rosters. For Canada, O’Reilly played with Calder Trophy finalist Connor McDavid. His opponents included Auston Matthews of the U.S. and Patrik Laine of Finland, who are rated No. 1 and 2 respectively as the top European-based skaters in the 2016 NHL Draft by Central …
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