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The pre-tournament friendlies are over, and Team USA is ready for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
In three teams, a back-to-back home-and-home against Team Canada, and then a Tuesday night affair with Team Finland at the Verizon Center in D.C., it was easy to find the ups and downs within the Americans’ game, no matter the end result. First came the physical, survival-type win against Canada last Friday night, but then Canada returned the favor with an in-your-face -- in both physicality and goals -- defeat of the USA on Saturday night in Ottawa. Their third game, a 3-2 win over Pekka Rinne and Finland, epitomized the ups and downs you’ll see in such a short tournament.
So here are three things we know about Team USA and what’s ahead for the group.
I: Jonathan Quick is their guy
Team USA has the best goaltender depth of this entire tournament.
They have three bonafide, perennial Vezina contenders in Ben Bishop, Cory Schneider, and two-time Stanley Cup winning netminder Jonathan Quick. But of the three, Quick has emerged as thee guy between the pipes for the Red, White, and Blue.
In the hunt for the starting gig, Quick came through with two wins in two starts, with 62 stops on 65 total shots against (a .954 save percentage). Quick’s best work undoubtedly came in his 40-minute, 32-of-33 performance against Canada last Friday. Bishop, a fellow 2016 Vezina Trophy finalist and teammate, came through with 22 stops on 24 shots against in two appearances, both in situations where you’d consider him ‘ice cold’, and both against a vaunted Canada lineup. And the 30-year-old Schneider yielded four goals on 24 shots against Canada, his lone appearance of the tournament.
At the same time, I’m not sure there ever was much of a competition. Quick was given two full starts, Bishop made two relief appearances (both against Team Canada), and Schneider was by all means thrown to the wolves of the second leg of a back-to-back in Canada’s barn. (Sounds fun.)
In a way, that was probably to be expected.
Quick was the guy for Team USA during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, and was on the roster as the club’s third goaltender during the 2010 games in Vancouver. And though Sochi didn’t go as planned for the Americans, Quick was solid, with three wins and a .923 save percentage in five games.
II: Team USA has puckmoving depth to push pace the other way
Part one...
One of the things that really jumped out as a negative for Team USA was the lack of a real puckmoving defenseman on their backend, especially with Dustin Byfuglien seemingly moved into the forward mix. They have bodies, sure, but the group did not have a true, three-zone pace-pushing threat on their blueline like Sweden (Victor Hedman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Erik Karlsson), Canada (Drew Doughty, Alex Pietrangelo), or Team North America’s Aaron Ekblad.
But two players have emerged as those guys for Team USA: Washington Capitals defensemen John Carlson and Matt Niskanen. Both Carlson and Niskanen have shown promise when it comes to keeping plays alive in the attacking zone, and their quick-thinking has often led to second and third chance opportunities for the group. With the focus of the opposition on containing names like Ryan McDonagh and Ryan Suter, this Caps duo has found ways to make ‘em pay.
Part two...
On that note, Byfuglien was moved into the mix as a forward for Team USA in their final exhibition. He didn’t seem like he was a fan of the move, especially after a team-low 10:32 on the team’s fourth line. Byfuglien has been just okay in this tournament, and the Americans need more. There’s a lot of players -- mostly those picked for their skill with the exception of Patrick Kane and Joe Pavelski, to be honest -- that you could say that about, though, so it’d be unfair to make an example of Byfuglien.
But if Team USA are to make any serious run, it’s going to be with Buff’s booming shot playing a factor. Something USA will have to put out there on the backend, and for more than 10 minutes.
III: Group has proven themselves capable of winning close battles
It hasn’t been pretty, but through three games, this group has been battle-tested and succeeded.
First came their absolute gut-it-out third period against Canada in which they held the Canadians at bay in spite of a gigantic shot advantage throughout the night, especially on into the third, against their group. Then when Finland made it close on Tuesday night, just one goal down with just 4:33 to go, including a Suter delay of game penalty with two minutes left in the game, the USA found a way to keep the opposition off the scoreboard for that equalizer once again. They’ll need that.
There’s simply no way the USA are going to find themselves on the positive side of blowouts in this tournament, so the ability to find ways to escape these games with wins is all that will matter. It’s something USA general manager Dean Lombardi certainly had in mind when he built this team in the first place (resiliency, tenacity, etc.), and something that’s proven to be their most endearing quality.
In Group A with Canada, Czech Republic, and Team Europe, the US will begin their round-robin slate of games with a Saturday, Sept. 17 tilt against Team Europe at 3:30 p.m.
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.