Eakins wants Oilers to emulate Toews

The Edmonton Sun relays how Oilers coach Dallas Eakins was like pretty much everyone else in Canada, getting up early to catch Sunday's gold medal game between Canada and Sweden.

The bench boss was effusive in his praise of the captain of the Chicago Blackhawks.

“I continue to be just enamoured with Jonathan Toews,” Eakins said. “That kid is a winner, he’s a leader and such a responsible player. He just knows how to win and to play and has such great habits.

“You want the guys on your own team to play the game like that. It looks like his parents have just done an unbelievable job of raising that young man. He’s well spoken and to the point and I like that he’s all business all the time. At least that’s what it looks like from far away.”

Eakins on Team Canada's buy-in:

“The collection of players is awesome, but the biggest thing for me is how that collection of players, with such firepower as a group, said to themselves that they’re going to win by playing a great defensive game,” Eakins said. “I don’t mean just Canada’s defence, but their forwards, too. This is how you win, and especially those last two games, those were clinics on how to play hockey.

“It goes to show you, you don’t need to have to score five to six goals a night to win. If you play the game right, you have good habits and you have the mindset if the other team doesn’t score, we have a pretty good chance to win and good things are going to happen. That was a great job by the players and all their coaches. That was a clinic the last two games.”

Source: Derek Van Diest, Edmonton Sun