The cohesion Team Europe showed in their decisive victory over Sweden was once again on display, and the supposed greater speed of Team USA was in no way evident as they struggled to get their game going; the passion demonstrated against Canada all but forgotten. For the EPIC first day of battle, the United States of America will take on Europe on September 17 at 3:30pm ET.
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The only World Cup of Hockey entry without an anthem or real identity settled on “Seven Nation Army” for a goal song, an apt track for a roster playing under eight flags. The U.S. seemed flatfooted throughout much of the opening 40 minutes, caught a step and a thought behind.
Tortorella and general manager Dean Lombardi have been awfully heavy on the military angle, using the real sacrifices real people make fighting for the USA overseas, as well as the US title in the 1996 World Cup, as inspiration. They need to beat host Team Canada on Tuesday night or else their semifinal aspirations are nearly cooked.
“Not the way you want to start the tournament but at the same time we can’t lose confidence”, said USA forward Patrick Kane. “We’re chasing the tournament”.
“We’ve got to figure what we can do better and how we want to play”, Kane said. It’s a very unsafe spot but we are here.
As James van Riemsdyk put it, and some of this teammates concurred: Certainly Tuesday is a must-win now..
Ralph Krueger is happy, but not satisfied.
“We were probably a little underestimated a little bit coming into this”, said former Sabres defenseman Christian Ehrhoff, who drew an assist on Pierre-Eduoard Bellemare’s mid-air deflection with 1:28 left in the second period. “We’ve had some good preparation and I think just the general feeling is just excitement”.
The turning point for Kruegers team as a whole came during a couple of lopsided losses versus the enthusiastic under-23 Team North American in two exhibitions.
“We’re ready to look America in the eyes”, he said. If you’re a loser, you don’t have character, you collapse and if you’re loaded with character like we are, you come together. “We tried to stay together even through adversity there but we just couldn’t create”. It clarified what we needed to do..
The Europeans had most of the luck in the second period and they did, finally, extend their lead, but it wasn’t without incident.
Leon Draisaitl, a product of Germany, topped out on a hat trick on wednesday, and quickly ended up the highest scoring player on Team Europe.
And now, one game in, it’s getting late early for the United States. According to Rule 78.5 (i) “Apparent goals shall be disallowed when the puck has been directed, batted or thrown into the net by an attacking player other than with a stick”. “That’s unacceptable for me”. How much pressure do the Americans face ahead of their game against Canada?
Carey Price, back from injury and playing in his first meaningful game since last November, made 27 saves for the shutout while Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Toews, and Alex Pietrangelo had the other Canadian goals. Off went Team Europe on a 2-on-0 break.
“I think anytime I go on the ice I try to work hard and try to be at my best, but I think you know the circumstances in most of these events – it’s one game, it’s not a playoff series”, Crosby said.
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“We weren’t good enough by any means”.
