After a thrilling shootout win over Russia and beat downs of Slovakia and Slovenia, the US now finds themselves just three wins away from a gold medal. However, after group play, does the US find themselves in any better position to win gold?
Group A
The US dominated both Slovakia and Slovenia, scoring 12 combined goals and showing what they could do on offense. Paul Stastny had two goals in the opening game against Slovakia and Phil Kessel recorded a hat trick against Slovenia. Even bigger than the offense may be the US defense that only allowed 41 combined shots in the two games combined.
The game people will most remember, however, was the shootout thriller the US played against Russia. After being tied 2-2 after regulation and overtime, new American hero T.J. Oshie scored all four of the US shootout goals and goalie Jonathan Quick came up huge to stop the overpowering Russian offense. While the US won the game and eventually the group, the team’s offense looked stifled by the Russians who controlled the puck for the majority of the third period. The defense, however, came up big again and doesn’t look to be the question mark that everyone thought it would be.
What’s Ahead
The US secured the two seed after winning group A, with Sweden grabbing the one seed and Canada and Finland taking seeds three and four. Russia, going to two shootouts in group play, pushed them down to the five seed and will now need to win just to make it to the quarterfinals. The US will play the winner of the Czech Republic-Slovakia game and will most likely move on to play Canada in the semifinals. Canada won all three of the group games, with Finland being their toughest game, winning 2-1 in overtime. So far, Canada has only gotten two points from star Sidney Crosby who hasn’t been needed so far. With Canada not needing Crosby’s offense, this puts them in a good position to be successful when he does break out of his slump and should set up a huge semifinal match-up between the US and Canada, a rematch of the heartbreaking gold medal game where the US lost in overtime four years ago in Vancouver.
On the other side of the bracket, Sweden is the favorite, but losing Henrik Zetterberg for the rest of the Olympics with a back injury puts the Swedes down another forward. The Swedes are already without Henrik Sedin and Johan Franzen as well. Finland has shown to be a top team, almost beating Canada in group play and the Russians are also a team that will contest for a medal. This side of the bracket is more wide open and while the Swedes are still favored, it really seems like its a three-country race between the Swedes, Fins, and Russians to the gold medal game.
So far, the US has been hitting on cylinders, which should set up for a great semifinal match-up later this week with the winner setting themselves up to be a favorite in the gold medal game. While the Canadians are still a more complete team than US, a win against them would put the US in a good position to win the gold medal game. However, passing Canada is just the first step. The US is still in a great spot to medal and redemption is on the mind of all the US players after falling short just four years ago.
