USA Hockey Should Look to Team North America for Improvement

By Dan Heaning, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 

Just like that, it’s over for Team USA in the first World Cup of Hockey in over a decade.

A roster supposedly built to beat Canada that couldn’t. At the same time, it was a team that was unable beat the European squad, who were run out of the rink twice by the North Americans in the exhibition round.

It’s the first time the United States has gone winless in a senior tournament since the 1982 World Championships, according to Rogers Sportsnet. The red, white and blue finished with one win and a trashed hotel room in the 1998 Nagano Olympics and won only one game in the 2006 Turin Olympics.

One would think those instances were rock bottom for USA Hockey. Nope, this is.

If there’s a lesson that USA Hockey should learn from this latest international embarrassment it’s this: don’t let your best players go somewhere else.

The North American team may not be advancing in the World Cup either, but that’s more of the fault of the tournament’s format than the squad itself. That team was young, fast and oh so fun to watch. While the big names on the team are Canadian like Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Aaron Ekblad most of the roster is made up of Americans.

So if USA Hockey has anything to say about it, it should ensure that either Team North America never returns or exclusively contains Canadians. Or push Wayne Gretzky’s idea of allowing all the players on Team NA to "graduate" to their respective nations.

Yet, in the here and now, the young squad damaged Team USA more than any team it played against in the World Cup. Thanks to Team North America, USA Hockey couldn’t pick any of its players under 23 years old. So instead of the likes of Jack Eichel, Johnny Gaudreau, Brandon Saad, Auston Matthews, Dylan Larkin, Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller at forward, general manager Dean Lombardi, assistant general manager Paul Holmgren and senior adviser Brian Burke selected players such as Brandon Dubinsky and Justin Abdelkader along with aging veterans like David Backes.

On the backend, instead of having kids like Shayne Gostisbehere, Seth Jones and Jacob Trouba complementing the likes of Ryan McDonagh and Ryan Suter, the upper brass had to re-enlist Jack Johnson and bring in blueliners like Matt Niskanen and Dustin Byfuglien who were both in and out of the American lineup.

The roster lacked skill as USA Hockey great Brett Hull noted during ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup:

"There’s definitely too much crashing and banging and not enough skill," Hull said. "There’s a fine line. There’s a good mixture you can have. But, to me, there’s a lot of great players left off the roster."

Those "great players" Hull is referring to include snubbed forwards like Phil Kessel and Tyler Johnson. Kessel missing the tournament is a big point of contention among Team USA fans. However, Kessel’s presence would have made little to no difference because the entire team failed from the front office to the coaches to the players.

Not only did the American upper brass pick a roster built around size, but they selected John Tortorella as their head coach. That would have made sense half a decade ago when Tortorella’s New York Rangers were often at the top of the Eastern Conference standings. However, Tortorella has had a nasty habit of turning everything he touches into garbage since leaving the Big Apple.

Even still, this combination should have worked to a point. Team USA was designed to play the obsolete style Tortorella loves to ruin contenders with which includes focusing only on defense, blocking shots, throwing a lot of hits and keeping the score as low as humanly possible.

However, it seemed like the players lack any sort of emotion after their first exhibition game against Canada. It looked as though they thought they could just throw their sticks on the ice and advance.

"The equation coming in is, say, 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 one seed and who’s the two seed," Backes said. "Maybe we got ahead of ourselves and thought that was a foregone conclusion."

While it’s unlikely that NHL players will head to the Olympics in South Korea come 2018, if they do USA Hockey should pick as many kids from the North American squad as they can. Just take a look at this potential lineup.

Auston Matthews-Jack Eichel-Patrick Kane
Johnny Gaudreau-Joe Pavelski-Dylan Larkin
Max Pacioretty-Tyler Johnson-T.J. Oshie
Brandon Saad-Ryan Kesler-Vincent Trocheck

Ryan McDonagh-John Carlson
Ryan Suter-Shayne Gostisbehere
Jack Johnson-Seth Jones

There’s speed everywhere but enough of a veteran presence to prevent some of the meltdowns Team North America suffered during the tournament. That’s a lineup could beat almost everyone.

You give a roster like that to someone like former Philadelphia Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette and that’s a guarantee of some high-flying action.

This rendition of Team USA wasn’t built to play hockey the way it’s supposed to. It was designed to serve an artificial purpose that it couldn’t possibly fulfill.

Meanwhile, Team North America proved how much speed can kill at such a high level of competition. If not for Matt Murray’s thumb injury against Russia, the young stars would likely be squaring off against Canada in the semifinals.

So whether it’s the 2018 Olympics or whenever the next World Cup is, it’s time for USA Hockey to get with the times and build a young team that’s built around speed and skill.

Not only does this give the US the best chance to win, but it can make hockey appealing to a much wider audience. It can grow the sport in this country by showcasing just how much fun the game can be. They play that style and jerseys would fly off the shelves. Though, Flyers fans wouldn’t need much of an excuse to get their hands on a Gostisbehere Team USA jersey.

If the NHL wants to bring back Team North America, and they’d be crazy not to, USA Hockey needs to fight tooth and nail to make sure it can keep its young players who would still be eligible to play for the under-23 squad like Matthews.

Canada can afford to send its young guns to another team. The Canadians are loaded with superstars who are amazingly cohesive as a unit. The United States can’t spare a single drop of talent.

Otherwise, the country gets another international disaster and the memories of the 1980 gold medal and the 1996 World Cup championship fade a little more in the nation’s collective subconscious.