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4 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Kill Team USA Over The WCH

September 21, 2016, 12:23 AM ET [149 Comments]
Eklund
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I have covered this sport for 12 years now, and I can never remember a more negative reaction to Team USA. The fans are outraged and the blame is pretty much universally accepted to be placed square on how this team was constructed. The Coaches and the Players they Chose.

Whenever a team collapses you can always point to a myriad of reasons. When a system collapses you need those reasons to be combined with a perfect storm. That’s what you had with Team USA.

Let's talk about what it took to create this particular perfect storm:

#1. You focus your game plan on the team you really aren’t likely to beat instead of focusing on what it would take to defeat the teams you SHOULD beat.

In 2010 Team USA lost to Canada in the gold medal game in OT. In 2014 they lost to Canada in the semi-finals by one goal as well. When you look at those results you could be tricked into thinking that Canada is within your range. Until you look at THIS team Canada and realize they are actually much BETTER than the Canada team which took home back to back golds. The players are in their prime. And when you look at this Team USA its clear that this team isn’t as strong as they were in 2014, and that team wasn’t as strong as they were in 2010.

If I am this Team USA and I am trying to gear up for this Team Canada I put forth my plan in one sentence: “Let’s invite Jonathan Quick and hope we get some breaks.”

Ok so onto Team Europe and the Czechs. Our bracket isn’t about a battle for #1 its about a battle for the second spot and a trip to play the first seed from the other bracket in the semis…You know that both Team Europe and Team Czech are going to be counter attack teams. Neither has the skill level to go toe to toe with teams like Canada, Russia or Sweden…So they will sit back and wait. They will 1995 NJ Devils you to death. The only way you beat that system is with a ton of speed and skill.

In: Phil Kessel, Nick Bonino, Tyler Johnson, Bobby Ryan, and Keith Yandle.
Out: Derek Stepan, Kyle Palmeri, David Backes, Justin Abdelkador, and Jack Johnson.

#2. Tortorella has issues that don’t play well in this kind of situation.

This may be unfair to say, but in a short tournament like this…full of players who all will go back to being the stars of their team in a few weeks...you will catch more flies with honey as they say.

Fair or not, right from the start Torts became a distraction, and then it got worse. Way worse. Torts became an excuse. The way to motivate stars like these is to appeal to their sense of pride in person and country. To make them feel responsible if things go wrong. Even before the puck dropped in Toronto these players knew that if they failed EVERYONE would blame Tortorella and they would not be held accountable. It may not sound like a lot, but it's enough to start you on your way to losing that edge you need to play with to be a success.

#3. Besides the scorers you chose to leave behind, seven more of your most talented and exciting players: Auston Matthews, Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Eichel, Brandon Saad, Dylan Larkin, Seth Jones and Shayne Ghostibehere weren’t available to you.

Going into the last Olympics Team USA was optimistically considered on par with Sweden, Russia and Finland. For this tournament they had to give up their young talents while those other three didn’t have to…

Imagine Russia without: Kucherov, Kuznetsov, or Namestnikov
Imagine Sweden without: Forsberg, Landeskog, or Lindholm
Could Finland had competed at all without: Aho, Donskoi, Granlund, Laine, Teravainen, Maatta, or Ristolainen.

Ready for a crazy thought?
When you look at the players left behind or on Team North America you can argue that you could take an entirely different group of American born hockey players and possibly defeat the 2016 World Cup’s version of Team USA. That’s insane.

#4. Canada is just THAT amazing.

It's always easy to sit back and find stuff you did wrong and reasons why you didn’t win it all. We writers always do that more often because they tell us how you readers are far more passionate when you are angry at your team than when you are praising the other team.

But make no mistake about Canada is THAT good. They are so much better than Team USA right now that they could have given Team USA Crosby and Carey Price and still beaten Team USA.

So to not acknowledge Team Canada as a HUGE component to this perfect storm is just foolish.

Where do we go from here?

As bad as it feels right now Team USA, and believe me I just spent a lot of time around the players and coaches…it feels REALLY bad… USA Hockey doesn’t have to feel sorry for itself and sit back and expect to get trounced in every tournament over the next several decades. In fact, the future is brighter than it has ever been. Name the last time USA could boast players of Matthews, Eichel and Larkin’s abilities waiting in the wings. Mike Sullivan is a hell of a coach as we all just saw in Pittsburgh… Team USA will be fine…

Of course, Team Canada also has McDavid and Ekblad coming soon…among others.

Soooooooo....


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