WASHINGTON, D.C. – Jonathan Quick will be Team USA’s No. 1 starting goaltender for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, coach John Tortorella announced Tuesday night.
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Quick led Team USA to a 3-2 win over Team Finland in the preseason finale Tuesday night at Verizon Center.
Quick’s.954 save percentage in exhibition games and his dominant performance at the Sochi Olympics made the decision easy for Tortorella, even if Bishop and Schneider have been more consistent in the National Hockey League lately.
Tortorella changed things up with his forward group.
But if Team USA are to make any serious run, it’s going to be with Buff’s booming shot playing a factor. It’s something United States of America 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.
The new jumble spread the scoring out a bit. Also, James van Riemsdyk moved up to the second line from the fourth line, Justin Abdelkader went to the fourth line and then there was some mixing and matching throughout the game. Ryan Kesler and T.J. Oshie both scored goals while playing alongside Pacioretty, giving the USA three threatening scoring lines instead of just two. “You want to get in all those different situations so that comfort level goes up in all those little areas”.
“I thought they played their best game of the exhibition”, Tortorella said. There is also plenty of youth on the roster with Laine – the No. 2 pick in this year’s National Hockey League draft – along with Mikael Granlund, Aleksander Barkov and defencemen Olli Maatta and Sami Vatanen. “I hope it doesn’t start doing that Saturday, but for this type of game, I thought we did some good things and lived through that”. Suter paired with Carlson and Minnesotans Matt Niskanen and Erik Johnson in three games. Jack Johnson is one of only three left-shot defensemen on the roster. “It’s not like the playoffs when you’ve been playing for six or seven months, so it’ll be fun”.
It’s a position that might intimidate some teams at a major worldwide hockey tournament, but this collection of Finnish players doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. Pacioretty helped set up Kesler’s goal 3:37 into the second and gave Tortorella more of what he wanted out of him after a public admonishment. Both players had similar numbers last season in the National Hockey League. Look for him to be a major factor for the Americans in a substantial role. And the 30-year-old Schneider yielded four goals on 24 shots against Canada, his lone appearance of the tournament. Quick was actually square to Laine as he took the shot and it didn’t matter.
First came their absolute gut-it-out third period against Canada in which they held the Canadians at bay in spite of a big shot advantage throughout the night, especially on into the third, against their group.
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Aside from the goal, Laine was a continual threat. Despite his youth, the Jets’ No. 2 overall pick is going to be one of Finland’s most important players at the World Cup.
