What We Learned: Silver lining as U.S. embarrasses itself at World Cup

This tournament might end up being good for USA Hockey.

Wait, hold on. Come back.

Hear me out: This is a team that got humiliated by the European mishmash team in the tournament opener, losing 3-0. And maybe if that continues — most would agree they’re going to get smoked by a Canada club that could have beaten the Czechs by 12 if it really wanted to — something finally changes.

They didn’t win what should have been a tap-in of a tournament opener. They didn’t even come close, in point of fact. They dominated possession, sure, but they also trailed for more than 90 percent of the game. All you needed to know about the game was that every time the U.S. conceded, they also took a dumbass penalty within five minutes or so. They never gave themselves a chance to get back into the game they shouldn’t have needed to get back into in the first place.

The problem for the United States, in the end, was that it couldn’t create any scoring chances. Because they couldn’t break the puck out. Because they had a bunch of defensemen whose skills don’t allow them to do that. Because they wanted to be able to play physical. Which they didn’t do on Saturday. Instead, the U.S. conceded more odd-man rushes than it generated, including the 2-on-0 that resulted in the nail-in-the-coffin goal from Leon Draisaitl in the early goings of the second period.

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And by extension, the problem for the United States was really what this team has always been cruising for. Because if you look at everything from the choice of coach, initial roster selection, subsequent roster selection, and lineup decisions, it’s obvious the people in charge of this club have no idea what leads to winning hockey in the NHL in 2016.

It was clear in the run-up to the tournament that the U.S. brought maybe the fifth- or sixth-best roster talent-wise (depending upon your feelings on the Finnish team), to the World Cup. But the European roster, with a bunch of free agents and over-30 former superstars, was clearly inferior. The opener with Team Europe is one of the two games they “should have” won.

Phil Kessel is the guy people talk about this team missing — after all, he led the Olympics in goals and points in 2014 — but Kessel had hand surgery this offseason so he probably wouldn’t have been available in the first place.

But still, look at who the people picking this roster left home. Tyler Johnson: Coming off a mediocre year he still averages 55 points a season over the last two. Kyle Okposo: tied for 25th in the league in scoring over the past three years. Justin Faulk: one of the best mid-20s defensemen alive. And Kevin Shattenkirk: a high-level offensive defenseman who probably would have made the US power play a little better than 1 for 15 in its four games so far.

Look who they brought instead. Justin Abdelkader: turns out if he’s not that good if he isn’t playing with Henrik Zetterberg. Brandon Dubinsky: the coach’s adopted son. Jack Johnson: legitimately one of the worst defensemen in the NHL. And Erik Johnson: merely fine.

And the once you’ve boiled down the roster to 23 guys, look at the lineup decisions: Dustin Byfuglien, plainly one of the best 20 or so defensemen in the league, rostered as a forward for one game and then straight-up scratched for the tournament opener. Kyle Palmieri munching popcorn in favor of someone who isn’t coming off a 30-goal season on the offensive-starved New Jersey Devils. Jonathan Quick, the third-best goalie on the roster, getting the start ahead of the second-best goalie on the roster (Ben Bishop), while the absolute best one (Cory Schneider) is in the press box.

They legitimately just do not get it. Tortorella said after the loss they felt they had their best lineup on the ice despite the fact that this was demonstrably not the case either before or after the game.

That goes back to coaching, and you have to say the USA Hockey braintrust who picked this group cocked that one from the start. All the above complaints about how this team was put together is typified by the selection of John Tortorella as coach. He is probably the second-worst coach in the NHL these days, ahead of only Randy Carlyle, and the negative impact he has on his teams is obvious to anyone with even a cursory understanding of how the game works on a fundamental level. But hey, at least he’s really likable.

And we all know why the U.S. arrived at its various wrong decisions in the first place: Foolish pursuit of being “hard to play against” because the only thing anyone in charge of this club can ever think about is eking out a 2-1 win over Canada. It worked in 1996, they said. What they conveniently left out is that it’s what doomed the club in Sochi. It’s what doomed the club on Saturday afternoon.

This is, I swear to you, a real quote from Dean Lombardi to Craig Custance about how this team was put together: “Using ’96 as a model, it’s no different than putting together an NHL team. … We could have gone another direction philosophically; I just come back to the word ‘identity.’ I thought [identity] was critical if we were going to win this thing.”

One assumes that when Lombardi said, “this thing,” he meant “our game against Canada,” because we all know that a W over Canada in Canada would, in their minds, validate every wrong step they’ve taken since they started this whole mess. Don’t believe me? Here’s Tortorella in real life:

This is an embarrassing position to take, but one that you can understand given who’s behind all of it. That anyone was taking notes from “senior advisor” Brian Burke on how to put together a hockey team circa 2016 tells you everything you need to know about how flawed the USA Hockey thought process is.

The organization already has a tendency toward over-congratulion for past achievements. The amount we still hear about 1980 leads one to wonder whether Lombardi didn’t at least rostering nothing but recently graduated college hockey players. The time we’ve spent talking about 1996 — when Connor McDavid wouldn’t be born for three more months — like it matters even a little bit is confounding. Especially because, if you look at the roster Ron Wilson (historically a really good coach, unlike John Tortorella) had to work with, it’s obvious there just weren’t a lot of Jack Johnsons and Justin Abdelkaders.

Let’s circle back to the idea that this could end up being a really good tournament for the US. Suppose they get pantsed badly enough by Canada and don’t make the semifinals. All that would be required besides another L is for Team Europe to beat the Czech Republic, so already it’s within the realm of possibility.

If this team goes 1-2-0 in the round robin and crashes out before the semis of a tournament the NHL set up to force both the US and Canada into the knockout stage, then maybe that’s the wakeup call everyone needs. Maybe people like Lombardi, Burke, and Paul Holmgren don’t make to get the roster decisions any more. Maybe a coach like John Tortorella gets shelved in favor of someone who has a demonstrably positive impact on his teams (say, where’s Mike Sullivan from?). Maybe Justin Abdelkader and Jack Johnson gets to enjoy a few more weeks of offseason instead of playing fewer than 12 minutes. Maybe Schneider and Byfuglien actually aren’t healthy-scratched.

Maybe they stop hearing about past achievements and focus on the fact that USA Hockey’s performances in best-on-best international tournaments is “two medals with no gold in five tries.” Maybe the brain trust stops concentrating solely on Canada and starts worrying about the fact that they’re allowing everyone else to pass them by as well.

If you’re an American who wants that to happen, I guess you root for Team Europe today and Canada tomorrow. Maybe you even root for the Czechs on Thursday.

USA Hockey at this point needs to take a step back and evaluate how they got to this point. It went for “identity” in Sochi and the World Cup, and got it.

USA Hockey’s identity is currently “out-of-touch losers.” Can’t say they didn’t earn it.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Hey remember last year when we thought “Their scorers will bring the offense” about the Ducks and they didn’t bring it so much that Bruce Boudreau had to completely overhaul their system mid-season and then still won the division? Good thing they brought Bruce Boudreau back and did not fire him at all.

Arizona Coyotes: As long as Mike Smith is their goalie their goalie depth will always be an issue.

Boston Bruins: Hmm. Bruiser, you say? Don Sweeney just felt a great disturbance in the Force.

Buffalo Sabres: Imagine you’re so good at hockey as a country that Ryan O’Reilly is like your 12th-best center?

Calgary Flames: Seems like Matthew Tkachuk is gonna be a player for the Flames. And if history is any indication, maybe it’ll even be this year.

Carolina Hurricanes: Yeah hey anyone know if Justin Faulk is good at breaking the puck out?

Chicago: I don’t know how anyone lists this team as the favorite to win the Cup in good conscience. They don’t even seem like the most likely team to do it in their own division if we’re being honest.

Colorado Avalanche: I’m not really sure it’s fair that you get to send a guy with like 90 NHL games over three seasons under his belt to “rookie camp” but okay sure.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Ah jeez. Do not dress a good player in your exhibition against Columbus.

Dallas Stars: Poor Tyler Seguin. I’d say he can’t catch a break, but, y’know, hairline fracture.

Detroit Red Wings: Chris Osgood is “predicting a better year than people think they’re gonna have.” For me that means they still miss the playoffs but finish with like 92 points instead of 88.

Edmonton Oilers: Man, imagine whaling on a kid for a performance in a rookie camp game like they did to Caleb Jones here?

Florida Panthers: Hmm this seems like a good idea, USA Hockey. Hint hint.

Las Vegas No-Names: Hockey ops is all set. Now it’s time to get down to business.

Los Angeles Kings: Jeff Carter has almost 800 games played? I am so old.

Minnesota Wild: Believe me when I tell you the Wild are probably going to be one of the teams that actually benefits from the expansion draft.

Montreal Canadiens: Since when does “making sense” have anything to do with Montreal trades?

Nashville Predators: What? No. No. No.

New Jersey Devils: Historically, the Devils are surprisingly good in back-to-backs.

New York Islanders: Oh yeah Andrew Ladd is an Islander now. Weird.

New York Rangers: This is the kind of talk that gets someone traded, Mats.

Ottawa Senators: Wow, Matt Bartkowski on a PTO. What a time to be alive.

Philadelphia Flyers: “What are your expectations for Dave Hakstol as a second-year coach?” is actually a very interesting question.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Oh, yeah, “Pens are favorites to win the Cup” makes a lot more sense.

San Jose Sharks: I think you’ll find this isn’t true. He’s the same guy!

St. Louis Blues: Alex Steen could be good to go for the start of the season. That’s helpful for them.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Apparently the Bolts were shopping Jonathan Drouin even before he demanded a trade? Wild.

Toronto Maple Leafs: This Matthews kid might be pretty good!

Vancouver Canucks: Let’s hope this nickname doesn’t catch on.

Washington Capitals: The Caps seem unclear on whether Dmitry Orlov will actually re-sign at all. Yeesh.

Winnipeg Jets: Brett Bobby Hull isn’t going to his Hall of Fame ceremony, presumably because he’s a rotten person and also didn’t play for these Jets in the first place but mainly that he’s awful as a human being.

Play of the Weekend

I honestly still can’t believe this happened.

Gold Star Award

I also can’t believe NHL.com let Amalie Benjamin get this mean in critiquing the U.S. loss. But then again, they really did deserve it.

Minus of the Weekend

Literally, like, the thing with the U.S. only caring about Canada is that it’s totally against the whole “take this one day at a time” thing every player and coach espouses. This was always a possibility.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “scan15” is thinking good.

To Toronto: Evander Kane

To Buffalo: Stephane Robidas (expiring contract), Jared Cowen (expiring contract), Kasperi Kapanen, 3rd round pick.

Signoff

Due to popular demand, we will forego our national anthem.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)