TORONTO – “In a tournament like this, we don’t have time. You gotta hit the ground running. There’s no brake. You have to be going 100 miles an hour, dialed in right away.” — Dean Lombardi, Team USA GM, Sept. 5
The suddenness of it all is what threw them.
Team USA knew it had to hit the ground 100 miles and runnin’ in this compact World Cup of Hockey. They sure as heck did so in Columbus during the first pre-tournament game but floundered out of the blocks when the games meant something in Toronto.
More critical than Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to Canada, whom the Americans would’ve been in tough to defeat regardless of personnel (and that includes Phil Kessel and Johnny Gaudreau, who’s been a wizard this week for Team North America), it was Saturday’s surprise shutout to the eight-nation European entry that ultimately did them in.
“Just a dud against Team Europe,” Patrick Kane said. “You can probably chalk that one up as we weren’t ready to play, weren’t ready to start the tournament on time.”
Coach John Tortorella said Thursday that his players were prepared for Europe, which is on to the semi-finals this weekend.
“We had 20 scoring chances; they had nine. We gave them freebies in that game—that’s what screwed us. Give them some credit,” Tortorella said. “We knew that game was of utmost importance because it put us in the shit we’re in right now.”
That first game still bothers USA’s general manager, Dean Lombardi.
“I’ve been on a team that’s been down 3-0 in a Stanley Cup series, and that’s the proverbial 8-ball,” Lombardi said, referencing his Kings’ first-round comeback over the San Jose Sharks in 2014. “This felt like a boulder. It was just really strange. Like, how can this happen so quickly, where your back is against the wall after one poor game?
“That’s a game we should have won.”
Defeating Team Canada—a roster as deep as the Mariana Trench—is a different beast, however, and one that sapped all the Americans’ focus since the day the tournament was conceived.
“The reality is, you are going up against a team that has seven No. 1 centres, five Norris Trophy candidates on the back, a goaltender that can probably match what, to me, is the greatest goaltender in the world with Jonathan Quick,” Lombardi said during a 20-minute dissection Thursday.
“If you want to go head-to-head and play a skill game, your odds of winning that game when you look at those matchups is not very good.”
Tortorella was even more blunt.
“I’ll be honest: We’re not as deep as Canada skill-wise. Not sure USA hockey will like me saying that, but it’s the truth. It’s a situation where I still think, in our mind, we could not just skill our way through Canada,” Tortorella said.
So the U.S. brain trust focused on something else. The No. 1 criteria when selecting this roster was this: Do they want it?
“Give me 22 guys who care. That is where it starts. From there you build competitiveness, culture and everything else,” an emotional Lombardi said.
“There were guys with tears in their eyes the other night, and they were real. I will always remember that. Some of the texts I got from players yesterday, I will treasure them the rest of my life. That is good stuff. Those are things you don’ t forget, even in failure. That part we got down. I told them I wish I had this group for a longer period of time, because I know we could have built that culture. But it didn’t happen.”
When USA’s training camp opened in Columbus two weeks ago, we asked Lombardi why Kessel—the posterboy for the skill vs. heart debate—was not selected to the team, especially given the former Maple Leaf’s chemistry with James van Riemsdyk. The duo combined for 15 points in six games in Sochi.
Lombardi’s response made it clear Kessel’s absence was neither about his wrist shot nor his hand surgery.
“When we went through this team last August, we looked at the matchups and it became more and more critical that, No. 1, they’re a team. We didn’t have time for egos or guys not accepting roles,” Lombardi told us at the time.
The GM addressed Kessel’s absence again Thursday.
“Part of that will be in my book down the road, but let me say this: If you’re talking about Justin Abdelkader, Blake Wheeler, Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Kesler, David Backes, I’ll take those guys any day. Any day,” he said.
“You’re going to have to play against those guys in a little while, but that’s basically the tradeoff. Those guys have big-time heart, and when I talk about caring, they’d be the nucleus of the caring and they compete and they can play for me any day.”
Ultimately, the inability to find clicking lines and create quality scoring chances, while simultaneously surrendering a slew of odd-man rushes, were these guys’ undoing.
Watching them closely for 17 days now—an intense stretch under an intense coach that ended with red eyes—it would be silly to question how desperately the Americans wanted to perform better here.
“You know I have a lot of respect for Dean Lombardi, Paul Holmgren, Brian Burke,” Ryan Suter said. “They put so much effort into this, and they care so much. I feel terrible that we let them down.”
The weight of this disappointment still weighs hard on Lombardi, and will for a while.
“The real appraisal is looking at yourself in the mirror. I came up with four or five things where, if I had a chance again, would I have done it differently?” he said. “I beat myself up more than anyone can possibly.”
Ironically, the concentration on Canada distracted Team USA from the real reason it’s out: Team Europe, captained by Lombardi’s own Anze Kopitar.
“Even the connotation was ‘Europe,’ so it wasn’t a real team. It was kind of like, it’s not the same as when you’re going up against this is what these tournaments are all about, and that’s the nationalism factor,” Lombardi said. “Even the name, you kind of just said, ‘Ah, let’s get through this and get to these guys.’ And that’s a frickin’ good team.
“Internally we should’ve done a better job to win that battle to get to the war.”
