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Team USA explains its World Cup of Hockey flop

TORONTO, ON - SEPTEMBER 20: James Van Riemsdyk #16 of Team USA high fives a fan prior to the game against Team Canada during the World Cup of Hockey 2016 at Air Canada Centre on September 20, 2016 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images)
James Van Riemsdyk #16 of Team USA high fives a fan prior to the game against Team Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images)

TORONTO – The scalpels are out around the hockey world, examining the corpse of Team USA’s World Cup of Hockey team, which lost any chance of advancing to the semifinals with consecutive losses to Europe and Canada.

But what was the diagnosis of the American players?

An inexcusable loss in the first game to the European potpourri. An excusable loss in the second to Canada. And a team-building philosophy that they stand behind, even with the diminishing returns for “blue collar” hockey in this tournament and in the NHL.

“We had a couple beverages as a group last night, and just kind of talked things over,” said center David Backes, who played for the Americans in the 2010 and 2014 Olympics as well. “I think the game against Canada, I think we put in an honest effort. It was a game where we hit a couple posts, they get some bounces and those games are going to happen against good teams. They probably made their luck and we didn’t make enough of our own luck. But I think the thing that still stings is the way we come out against the European team. We don’t give an honest effort necessarily, and we don’t give ourselves a chance to win that game. And we put ourselves behind the 8-ball.”

Team USA winger Patrick Kane put it more succulently, and bluntly: “Just a dud against Team Europe. You can probably chalk that one up as we weren’t ready to play, weren’t ready to start the tournament on time.”

Now, this unpreparedness can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. The first is a lack of motivation. The players lacked it, and John Tortorella, whose greatest asset has always been lighting fires under players, was unable to inspire it.

How does a team, in a three-game preliminary round, come out unprepared for one of them?

Simple: If the second game is against Canada, and thus they overlook the first one.

“I think the equation coming into this was, ‘Hey, let’s beat the European team, let’s beat the Czechs and whatever happens against the Canadians is going to figure out who’s the No. 1 seed and who’s the No. 2 seed,” said Backes. “Maybe we got ahead of ourselves and thought that that was a foregone conclusion. That’s the thing I think everyone in the room’s still shaking their heads about: Not giving ourselves a chance to be sitting here 1-1 today. That’s the thing that’s unpleasant and at the moment, it sucks.”

But when Kane says the players weren’t “ready to start the tournament on time,” there’s another meaning there. The World Cup of Hockey is in September. When Team USA wants to play its heavy, gritty, sandpaper and walloping style, it helps when its players are prepared to play it (or, given that it’s an exhibition tournament, want to play it). And Backes wonders if they were ready to, given that this was essentially their training camp.

“This team was more like the Vancouver [Olympic] team with a few bigger bodies that were chosen over skill. But I don’t think we committed to that style of game, getting pucks in every time not turning pucks over in the neutral zone and tilting the ice. Maybe it’s September and guys aren’t in that mode yet. I don’t know,” said Backes.

Which brings us back to a fundamental point about the construction of Team USA: It was built as a blue-collar alternative to the superior Canadians, in a tournament where that style of play maybe wasn’t the best choice.

The World Cup games have been tough, but not Olympic tough or NHL tough. The small-rink, grinding style that excelled in Vancouver seemed like the obvious template here: Based on the competition, based on the available talent and based on the choice of coach. But essentially, that choice of team construction was made to beat Canada, not win a tournament. The gamble was made that grit and determination was as valuable as skill, and that United States lost the bet.

Was this the best possible team that the Americans could have put together?

“That’s not a question for me to answer. I liked our team. Again I thought we played hard. It’s not a player’s job to speculate who should or shouldn’t be on the team before or after the tournament,” said winger Zach Parise. “I thought we had the assets to do better than we did, definitely.”

Is building a “blue collar” team with the singular goal of competed against Canada the correct approach, now that it’s been proven to be disastrous at the World Cup?

“We weren’t going to out-skill Canada. Truthfully, we’re maybe on par with skill with Europe, but we have the blue-collar mentality that we’ll push farther, but we didn’t go through with it,” said Backes.

“Let’s analyze the games,” said Backes, speaking about the Canadians. “We played them three times. We beat them the first game. They outshot us, but we were able to get the win. Second game, they beat us handily. Last night, if we wanted to go into full analysis of it, it’s a shot off the back board that goes to Duchene and he’s tapping it in. It’s a backhand pass to Quick’s blocker that he deflects off Perry’s chest and it goes into the net. It’s a great move by Tavares, and it’s off our defenseman’s skate and it goes in. It’s a breakout that hit’s a defenseman’s shaft, and deflects to [Duchene] for a mini-breakaway and he scores. We hit four posts in the game.”

If you’re looking for an American player to assess the loss to Canada as lopsided, keep looking. The official line from the players we spoke to is that the Team Europe game was the dud, and the Canada game was a close one, lost on a serious of unfortunate events.

“Was it a crazy lopsided game? I don’t it was a crazy lopsided game,” said Backes. “I think it’s an opportunity where we had a chance to win that game last night, it didn’t happen for us, and we’re doing these interviews now…”

Coach John Tortorella didn’t speak on Wednesday. It’s expected that he will on Thursday, along with GM Dean Lombardi, when team management will get its chance to explain what went wrong.

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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