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It took all of one game at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, a lifeless 3-0 loss to Team Europe last Saturday, for every single one of the fears and concerns in regards to Team USA to become a reality.
The idea that the USA didn’t have enough skill on their roster to compete in anything more than a low-scoring, grind-it-out game? That seemed pretty obvious as Frans Nielsen danced around the Americans all game long. The idea that head coach John Tortorella was not the right guy to lead this group? Sounds about right, especially when Tortorella continues to single out the few skill players he has on that roster (it’s almost impossible to mishandle Dustin Byfuglien’s skillset as quickly as Tortorella has), or when he decides that the solution to their issues is putting checking-line winger Justin Abdelkader up a few lines on the opposite wing of superstar scorer Patrick Kane.
Couple it all with another Team Europe win and the Americans, with roster shuffling aplenty, are in a virtual must-win in just their second game of the tournament. Against Canada. Because of course.
It should not have come to this. Not this soon, anyhow.
The roster construct of this Team USA has always been weird. Team USA general manager Dean Lombardi opted to bring in guys like Abdelkader, Brandon Dubinsky, and Jack Johnson over names like Kyle Okposo, Phil Kessel (though you later learned that Kessel was nursing an injury of sorts), Tyler Johnson, and defensemen like Kevin Shattenkirk and Keith Yandle. And in a short tournament, it’s better to have skill than character. Ideally, you’d like a medley of both, but it’s probably no secret that skill often trumps character in short tournaments. The crucial element of time comes back to it all, too. When we often talk about teams with notably high character or ‘good locker room guys’, we talk about that one defining moment that brought them all together. It’s tough to find that in such a short span without essentially ‘forcing’ the narrative and thus becoming disingenuous in your approach.
But when you laud a team for its character, and you build a team with the idea of exposing frustration in the opponent, you expect it to show up. I mean, you sort of have to have it show up if you’re serious about competing. But not since the team’s opening game of the tournament -- a pre-tournament exhibition against Canada, a 4-2 win behind a dynamic display in the crease from Jon Quick -- have the Americans looked like a team that instills fear in the opposition with their pace.
You could make the case that last Saturday’s debacle against Team Europe didn’t even have a pace from the USA standpoint, for that matter. It left the Americans scrambling for any desperation offense they could find, and a feeble and futile attempt to turn muckers into goal-scorers with 20 minutes left.
In essence, if you pick grit over skill, and grit decides to take the day off, you’re kinda screwed.
And screwed the USA will be -- at least until November’s election, anyways (ba-dum-tiss) -- if they lose tonight’s game to Canada. With Europe at 2-0, and Canada entering play 1-0 by way of their 6-0 crushing of the Czech Republic in their first game of the tournament, a USA loss would drop the team to 0-2 and thus eliminate them from the World Cup of Hockey just two games into the tournament.
"We've got a blue-collar team that works hard and has to stick to that to have success against them,… David Backes said of the group’s challenge. “If we get in a track meet, it favors them. If we get into a grind game and use our size and physicality, we might be able to tilt the scales in our direction."
When the first game between the two was close and meant nothing, the USA won with that approach. But when the setting shifted towards Canada, where tonight’s game is, it was Canada that turned the game into a track meet and rushed the Americans out of the building with strong offensive poise. Team USA knows a similar fate awaits them if the latter plays out tonight at the Air Canada Centre.
In their must-win situation, Tortorella has taken two out of his own of the lineup, as Columbus Blue Jacket mainstays Dubinsky and Jack Johnson will serve as the healthy scratches along with Marblehead, Mass., native and New Jersey Devils goaltender Cory Schneider, while Byfuglien and forward Kyle Palmieri draw back into the lineup for the Americans. Tortorella will immediately throw the two into key roles, it would appear, too, as Palmieri practiced with the first power-play unit while Byfuglien and his booming shot manned the point on the second unit.
“If it comes to 100% skill, they win. 100% grit, we win,… USA forward TJ Oshie said.
But with the USA already on death’s door of the first World Cup in 12 years, a little skill wouldn’t kill.
It's just a shame they left it at home.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can also be read in the New England Hockey Journal magazine. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.