Eklund: Here is Why You REALLY Shouldn't Kill Team USA Over this Tournament.

Go Canada Go!!!

Getting mad at them over losing to Canada is silly. Losing to Team Europe is a different story.

With that said, if the 2002 Olympics had a short round robin like this, Canada wouldn't have gotten past the round robin themselves. Usually you want your last game to be your best game, but short tournaments don't allow that to happen.

I have Team USA SOME slack

LOL I knew Eklund would say this is the best Canadian team ever (it isn't) when they beat his beloved Americans. Canada is missing many of their top players.

Canada continued to dominate the inferior Americans and it's great to see. Canada is the best. Remember when the USA thought they had a chance? Now their tournament is over!!

Eklund: Here is Why You REALLY Shouldn't Kill Team USA Over this Tournament.
- Eklund

Team USA's downfall was that they had too many poisonous Skittles on the roster.

- homiedclown

This is (frank)ing beautiful. Kessel is absolutely savage

I have Team USA SOME slack
- MasWE

I have questioned the teams USA brings to the olympics for the last few games

nothing changed


skill wins these short tourneys and team USA always seems to be short in that department, while worthy players are home with their pets instead of skating

Torts is a goof. I'm not going to say the team iced their best options but a better coach who isn't one step away from his last chance in the NHL. I'm going to blame torts for sitting buff game one and the bad decisions just continued. Bottom line is im blaming the coach for not motivating his team. Oh, and GO CANADA!!! What a great game to be a Canadian hockey fan today!!

Torterella is a legit crazy person, but he's also a pretty decent hockey coach. I think you nailed it with #3. The Americans were hooped when they couldn't bring their best young players.

Torterella is a legit crazy person, but he's also a pretty decent hockey coach. I think you nailed it with #3. The Americans were hooped when they couldn't bring their best young players.

Torts is one of the worst coaches in the NHL, his teams get worse when he shows up and do better when he's gone. He will most likely be fired by the all star break and (hopefully) never land an NHL coaching job again.

I liked this article better when it was why we SHOULD kill them.

Lousy roster choices, a coach that doesn't understand how to coach tournament hockey, and forgetting that there's a trophy at the end are not a good set of circumstances to have. This team was doomed from the start. Heck, the way they've been going, I expect them to go 0-3 (the US is notorious for not showing up for bronze medal games, forget meaningless pool games), and that they would lose a game against every team in this tournament except for maaaaaybe Finland.

That said, all of the "OMG HOW DO WE FIX TEAM USA" freakouts are stupid. How do you fix Team USA? You wait 3 years. Once the US can use their players from the U24 team, it's going to be a whole new ball (puck?) game.

I agree on the points that the US has a bright future ahead. Some great young stars up and coming.

But, at the same time people probably should get ripped into for this performance. And most of that blame should be at the top with the guys who picked the roster. People said right from the start that this wasn't a good idea. That the US went out of their way to avoid picking skill. And yeah that's how that worked out.

It never made much sense anyways to focus so much on toughness to try and topple Canada. Yeah, Canada brought a ton of skilled guys, but it's not like Canada brought a small team here.

In the end...you live and learn. The issue was the roster selection. Not having the young stars has some merit...until you realize the guys in charge wouldn't have taken all those young stars anyways. That's not the team they wanted to make.

USA Hockey will be fine. They do an excellent job developing great young, technically proficient players. I believe they do have a problem with leadership at the highest level. Burke and Torterella belong in the 1970`s. The style of play they promoted was not conducive to the style of play USA Hockey promotes at the youth and Junior levels.

The result is you have guys like saying the USA are more `gritty`than Canada. At the end of the day, the goal is to score more goals than the other Team. Something the USA does well, up until the Senior level

Eklund: Here is Why You REALLY Shouldn't Kill Team USA Over this Tournament.
- Eklund

Torts is an over rated loud mouth. The argument that USA was hurt by not having its young guns is rediculous...imagine if Canada had theirs? The beating USA took would have been much worse..

Torts is an over rated loud mouth. The argument that USA was hurt by not having its young guns is rediculous...imagine if Canada had theirs? The beating USA took would have been much worse..
- bazookajo

yup

Torts is an over rated loud mouth. The argument that USA was hurt by not having its young guns is rediculous...imagine if Canada had theirs? The beating USA took would have been much worse..

Aside From McDavid, do any of these young guys even make team Canada? A Canada B team could easily be #2 in this tournament and would definitely be competitive against everyone aside from Canada A

Reason #5: Americans will never again have to bear the management team and coach that put together this dumpster fire of a roster.

Killing people seems a little extreme. It's just hockey.

Wait wait wait..

People actually care about this tournament? Get this crap over with and get to training camp already. I couldn't care less about who wins or loses, just about everyone staying healthy for the regular season (that's not been the case by the way)

Holding players out of the Olympics, but having a full blown tournament literally right before the regular season is stupid and I will always think it's stupid

Everyone knew as soon as torts was picked, this team would lose. Not just lose but be embarrassed. He is an out dated coach, a piece of crap as a person, and nobody respects him. I hope team USA learns from this and decides to be progressive in their next team, not regressive.

I wouldn't worry too much USA fans. Yes, it must suck to be out of the tourney, but in 40 years of watching hockey I can honestly say that the depth available to the US is now second only to Canada. And the gap is narrowing. Even in 1996 you didn't have near as much talent sitting at home.

This tourney is like the Hockey's extended version of the Pro Bowl....who cares? Let's get to camp and get the season started!!!!

I don't think the American players deserve any grief for losing.
They shortened their summer, did their best and it wasn't good enough. No shame in that.
Lots of good players coming so keep the faith my American friends.

Team US was poorly constructed. I'm not certain all those kids playing for NA would make team US & even if a few did what impact they would have had or opportunity bthey would have been given, the players they left behind are far more significant.

This just goes to show me that Lou has lost it that he is still living in the past. He left NJ a total mess & although the GM of Toronto now that team is run by committee. Shanahan, Lamoriello, Dubas, Hunter, Pridham, Fletcher, Mitchell & Holland, with Shanahan having the final say on all. Even Babcock has input to player personal decisions. Lamoriello is there more to mentor Hunter & Dubas as opposed to being the primary decision maker like in NJ.