by Peter Christian
This was supposed to be the Olympics where the U.S. showcased it’s youthful exuberance. It was supposed to be the “changing of the guard” as the United States ushered in an inexperienced but fast and young group of rising stars to the international hockey world. Yet, so far, Team USA has been led to a preliminary round maximum nine points by its veterans.
Prior to last Tuesday’s opening game against Switzerland, the U.S. only had 3 players with previous Olympic experience. It was assumed that players like Chris Drury, Brian Rafalski and Jamie Langenbrunner were on the roster to play the leadership role and help the younger players find their footing in the international game. No one thought, however, that the U.S. would be relying on the “old guys” to do the scoring too (and be successful at that). But, that’s been exactly the case as each of them have found the net at least once. In fact, those three players have combined for half of the United States goals through the three preliminary round games. Brian Rafalski has scored 4 goals (5 points total) through 57 games for the Detroit Red Wings. In just 3 games for Team USA?
A team leading 4 goals!
Rafalski’s scoring spurt isn’t the only surprise out of Team USA’s defense. Fellow defenseman (and fellow former University of Wisconsin Badger) Ryan Suter is second on the team in scoring with 4 points and has played a much bigger role than expected for this Olympic team. Actually, all of the defensemen have exceeded expectations and been something of an anti-Shuster for the American squad. When the rosters were announced back on New Year’s Day, the first question the hockey minds had about Team USA’s roster revolved around their defense and that was before the team’s architect (Team USA GM Brian Burke) had to replace two d-men due to injury (both Paul Martin and Mike Komisarek were forced to pull out of the tournament being replaced by Tim Gleason and Ryan Whitney). Although, to this point, and most importantly after beating Team Canada, the 7 defensemen of the United States have stood tall. Though, they’ve had their share of help.
Behind them they’ve had Ryan Miller, who was at his best Sunday night against Canada turning away 42 of 45 shots against some of the best snipers and garbage men in the game. Miller was another question mark for Team USA prior to the Olympics because he was mired in a bit of a slump over the past month. Through January 15th Miller was 26-8-3 with 5 shutouts. In the month leading up to the Winter Games, Miller was 4-6-4 with zero shutouts and a Goals Against Average of 2.58. No one debated whether Miller had the talent to be the #1 goaltender for the U.S., but some were worried if he would be able to turn his play around against the world’s best with the hopes of an entire country on his shoulders in USA’s chief rival’s homeland.
Miller answered the call against the lesser talented Switzerland and Norway and then emphatically put his downturn behind him Sunday against the Canadians (not to be confused with those Canadiens of Montreal). The East Lansing, MI native and former Michigan State Spartan was at his finest turning away shots and rebounds aplenty as Team Canada lost their first game of the tournament and also lost out at an automatic bye into the quarterfinals.
The U.S. however, do get a bye into the quarterfinals and could very likely end up with the top seed heading into the single elimination portion of the tournament.
That bye means they will have an extra day of rest before facing the winner of the Switzerland-Belarus game on Wednesday. That also means that on the day that will mark the 30 year anniversary of “The Miracle on Ice” the current formation of Team USA can reflect back on what the more historic Team USA accomplished by watching any of the myriad of documentaries made about that game or they could be like my good friend Paul M. Banks and watch Disney’s “Miracle” to really get that nostalgic, patriotic, chillbump feeling about United States hockey
(except that Team USA likely won’t be watching it for the first time nor will they be getting my copy in the mail for that initial viewing…yes, a sports movie that was released in 2004 is now being watched for the first time by the great sports mind PMB in 2010. Make fun of him at will.)