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Last night's game finished 3-2 for the USA and it was the weirdest game I've seen so far.
The game itself was pretty boring, but it was made interesting mostly by the strange coaching decisions of each of the coaches.
The USA made the decision to start Quick over Schneider, with no apparent regard for the guy who is widely considered to be one of the two or three best goalies in the world.
The Fins made a similarly shaky play by electing to go with Rinne over Rask. The advanced goaltending statistics show the Rinne is among the worst starting goalies in the NHL currently, but the coaches seem to trust him.
Despite making choices that are somewhat strange, it must be said that both goalies that did play played well. That being said, both the Fins and the Americans are in tough to do anything in this tournament and should not be turning their back on any possible advantage.
(This is currently the #1 Song in Finland)
Another strange thing was the Americans opting to use Byfuglien on the wing. Why you'd take one of the better defenseman in the world and turn him into a 3rd line winger, especially when you're defense is already very, very weak, is beyond me. Torterella thought it was a good idea, so that's what happened. To my eye, this didn't have an impact on the game.
Overall, the Fins were probably the better team, with the USA capitalizing on a really nice play and a couple mistakes to get out to an early 3-0 lead.
From there, it's hard to evaluate the game because teams down 3-0 tend to dominate the play as the other team sits back. To an extent, this is what happened. The USA was fairly undisciplined though and the Finish power play was pretty fun to watch.
Overall, I think the best part of the game was getting to see Patrik Laine, and he looked dangerous in the offensive end -scoring a goal and hitting a post. Curiously, despite it being fairly obvious that he's the Fin's most dangerous offensive threat, he didn't see the ice with the goalie pulled at the end of the game.
It seems North American teams are not the only ones reluctant to just hand prime ice time over to a kid, even if he clearly deserves it. The Fins best chance at this tournament is to pair Laine and Barkov and turn them loose while hoping Rask can shut the door.
Based off of last night's game, this seems unlikely.
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