The U.S. went into the first World Cup game in 12 years as the favorite against a European team made up of players from Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, France and Slovenia.
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Now team United States of America will likely have to beat Canada on Tuesday and the Czech Republic on Thursday to qualify for the semifinals.
These two teams couldn’t be coming out of two different situations.
“This is not a marathon as coaches always talk about in the National Hockey League season, this is a sprint and we’ve put ourselves in a spot now where we are chasing the tournament”, said USA coach John Tortorella, whose team resume play on Tuesday against Canada. Their only bet after a loss to Canada would be for the host team to go 3-0 while the U.S., Europe and the Czech Republic all go 1-2 in the round-robin, and then it comes down to a tiebreaker for second place. There will be no chance for the Americans to advance to the semifinals.
“There are times to make plays and guys didn’t have the confidence to make that play”, said US winger Max Pacioretty, who was demoted to the fourth line in practice.
“I thought that was his best play of the night which is pretty insane because he made so many great plays”, said Matt Duchene said on Sunday afternoon. It’s going to be a blast.
“Just because we’re younger doesn’t mean that we’re not as good or something like that”, McDavid said.
“We’ve practiced enough. We’ve talked enough”.
Justin Abdelkader a forward for Detroit played 11:52 of the game and ended minus-1 for the United States, while Ryan Kesler was minus-1 in his 15:36 played. Not that this historic chance for American hockey should be weighing on the veteran players, considering the weight this game carries specifically for this tournament.
As most of you know by now, the Tampa Bay Lightning have quite a few players (and coaches) mixed up in this particular matchup. “We’re just focused on one game”.
“It was nice to get the first one and build off that but I thought we played hard and we worked”.
Tortorella defended his decision to sit Byfuglien and Palmieri, saying this was what the coaching staff believed was the best lineup. “Canada game”, Tortorella said. “I’ve been through a couple”.
“We need our best players to be our best players and the other guys fill in and do some of the other stuff that goes along with our foundation players”, Tortorella said. Team Europe, led by Kings captain Anze Kopitar, is a new entry and has no tradition.
Ryan McDonagh a defenseman for the USA made a bad passed that set Team Europe up with a 2 on 1 rush that ended in a goal. USA Hockey officials did not make Kane available to the media Monday.
“This is not a marathon, as coaches always talk about in National Hockey League seasons”, Tortorella said. If they’re going to get back in the tournament, Jakub Voracek and Tomas Plekanec are going to have to get going offensively. “Look, I’m not wasting much time. if guys aren’t doing things, it will be a short bench”. And that didn’t merely translate to an end-to-end game, though they certainly took the puck up the ice with noticeable alacrity-it showed up in the way they pounced on loose pucks, and darted through the Finnish coverage. It’s a very unsafe spot, but we are here.
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Heavy favourites heading into the tournament, Canada took care of its first preliminary-round opponent as required. “I think we know the magnitude of the game just because of who we’re playing – the rivalry and all that”. “The result that happened from the first game is that it’s also for our lives now”.
