World Junior Roundup: Evaluating Team USA's pre-tournament game; News & notes from WJC
Pre-tournament game cancelled; Canada, Russia combine for 10 goals
The 2022 World Junior Championship is ever closer now that we’ve gone through a day of pre-tournament games. It wasn’t without hiccups and concerns, but we’re hopeful that the tournament is going to continue.
Before I get into the analysis, I wanted to inform my subscribers that I made the difficult decision to cancel my travel plans to attend the World Junior Championship and will instead cover the tournament remotely.
There were a lot of factors that went into the decision, but primarily the unpredictability of COVID-19 with the new omicron variant as well as the well-documented shortage of tests available in Canada were a big part of that. I wasn’t worried about getting into Canada, but getting out and the risk of a positive test leaving me to quarantine in a hotel for a few weeks didn’t feel like it was worth the risk.
I felt the best path forward was to stay home. I am still credentialed for post-game media availabilities and will be covering every game off of a monitor, providing the same level of coverage as I have on the road. I covered this event from afar last year and have had a lot of experience covering the WJC from home from years past, so I hope you’ll still enjoy the coverage and insight.
I just wanted to be clear to my subscribers as you all knew I was about to head up to Canada to cover this live. My travel plans may have changed, but my coverage plans have not. So let’s start with today.
Team USA 3 - Finland 4 (OT) — Pre-tournament game evals
First off, here is the lineup that USA started the game with. There was a lot of mixing and matching, however, so you can take these lines with a grain of salt.
Game Summary:
The middle wasn’t so bad, but the U.S. had an ugly start and an ugly finish to their one and only pre-tournament game ahead of the World Juniors.
Finland was all over them early, holding the U.S. without a shot for the first 8-plus minutes of the first period, while taking a 1-0 lead off of sloppy defensive zone play. Near the end of regulation, after the U.S. had built a 3-1 advantage, Red Savage (DET) was whistled for a high hit on Joakim Kemell and was subsequently tossed from the game for elbowing. He was given a major penalty and Finland scored three unanswered goals over the end of regulation and overtime to come away with a 4-3 win.
It was a hard lesson for the team to learn, but one that they’ll be glad to have learned when the games don’t count.
“That game was ours,” said Matty Beniers. “We learned a good lesson today about taking penalties and that can kill you and kick you out of the tournament, it’s good to have it now and learn from it.”
The U.S. got goals from Tanner Dickinson (STL), Brett Berard (NYR) and Dominic James over the course of the game. Drew Commesso (CHI) made 12 saves on 13 shots over the first two periods, while Dylan Silverstein (2022) stopped five of eight shots in the third period. The Americans out-shot Finland 33-21.
You don’t want to read too much into a pre-tournament game, especially one played at noon in a mostly-empty stadium, but the U.S. looked terrible through the first 10 minutes. They were hesitant, slow and nearly got skated out of the building as Finland poured shots on net. The good news is that they built back their game more and more.
“Our start was really slow,” said head coach Nate Leaman. “We struggled to get our feet moving. We were up at 6:30 a.m. to get here today. You hope that’s part of it. I didn’t like our start. We definitely got to come out of the gates better than that. The positive was Drew held us in there. The next 40 minutes we played good hockey.”
Team USA really did recover. They were given a gift turnover that Dickinson buried to get them tied up and escape the first period even. Then they started getting more chances and more looks in the second period. The third period, the U.S. came out guns blazing and for the first 17 minutes of the last frame, they were outright dominant.
Berard scored nine seconds into the third period on an incredible pass from Beniers and they controlled play from there. When James scored on a rebound created by Chaz Lucius (WPG) midway through the third, it seemed like the Americans would be able to get out of there with a win despite the sluggish start.
With just 2:55 remaining in the game, Savage got his arms up and got Kemell in the head. He was given a five and a game and could face suspension.
“We started to play to our identity and up until the penalty. The penalty is a tough lesson to learn, but we’d rather learn it now,” said Leaman.
Finland’s power play was dialed in to close out the game. They also pulled the goaltender for the extra attacker. Joel Määttä scored on a rebound with 1:45 to play, then Ville Ottavainen (SEA) scored from a sharp angle, beating Silverstein five-hole just 49 seconds later. Then Roni Hirvonen (TOR) scored 57 seconds into overtime on an absolute bullet shot that beat Silverstein clean.
That’s how quickly a game can flip on you at the World Juniors.
“I didn’t address Red directly, but Red knows. He got a little over-aggressive in that moment,” said Leaman about his message to both Savage and the team after the game. “We also talked about that we did a lot of good things. I talked about a penalty like that can hurt you in this tournament. We have to be a lot smarter and a lot better.”
Stray thoughts:
Puck management was an issue over the course of the game. Team USA’s puck-movement in their own zone, especially early was poor. This was something Leaman addressed during the post-game media availability, too, noting that the team played its best hockey overall when they were managing the puck better. This defensive group is probably better than it showed today when it comes to moving pucks up ice.
The power play went 0-for-2 and actually they ended up taking a penalty during a major power play that shortened that opportunity. There were some decent looks, but that’s something that will have to get a little better as time goes on. Players that saw time on the power play: Jake Sanderson, Brett Berard, Mackie Samoskevich, Matty Beniers and Matthew Coronato all got looks on the top unit. The second group often included Jack Peart, Scott Morrow, Carter Mazur, Logan Cooley and Matthew Knies.
The PK gave up those three goals at the end of the game after doing a good job prior to that. Players that got significant PK time included Sanderson and Ian Moore with Matthew Coronato and Matty Beniers, Tanner Dickinson was with Dominic James, Brock Faber and either Jack Peart or Wyatt Kaiser, and Red Savage played alongside Landon Slaggert, Luke Hughes and Tyler Kleven. There’s still some sorting to be done, but I thought Dickinson and James were solid among the forwards.
One thing Finland did really well against the U.S. that completely neutralized the Americans at the beginning of the game was stretching the ice out. They looked quicker and that can’t happen at this event. The U.S. has enough guys with the speed to be able to put more pressure on, but I thought Finland just played so poised with the puck and didn’t force much. They wouldn’t play into the way Team USA wanted them to play. That made the U.S. chase the game far more than I thought they would, even at this early stage.
The idea that this team may struggle to score is still prevalent. They’re still trying to find their right mixes of players and that could be an ongoing challenge. They have skill throughout the lineup, but there’s such a large drop off in skill from last year’s team to this year that they’re going to have to get everyone involved in the offense somehow. As Brett Berard noted, “we’ll get better offensively. We have a lot of guys that can score the dirty goals as well as some pretty goals.” The lack of that one true sniper or elite playmaker showed a little bit in this game, I thought. But if they can find a way to score by committee, they may have more success.
The defensive group should be a strength of this team. It got better over the course of the game, but there just wasn’t a lot of cohesion there. I also thought a few of the players were too slow to make decisions and at times too slow to loose pucks, which created problems for them in other ways. All of that comes back to what Leaman said about managing the puck better.
Lastly, how great are Team USA’s uniforms for this WJC? The team will be wearing the 1960 “throwbacks” that are now just going to be the primary uniforms, both blue and white. It’s the best uniform the U.S. has ever had and they’ve really never needed to change it. Glad to see USAH lean into this one.
Ty Smilanic injured
In an unfortunate play where Ty Smilanic (FLA) was tangled up with a Finnish player off a neutral-zone faceoff, he landed awkwardly on his right leg and almost crawled to the bench. According to head coach Nate Leaman in the postgame, Smilanic will “definitely” miss the beginning of the tournament. How long he’ll be out remains a mystery, but that’s a valuable depth forward lost.
While he was healthy, Smilanic had a couple of different instances where his speed made a difference. He can pressure opposing defenders and can score, too. If he’s out for an extended period, that will be a hole the U.S. has to figure out how best to plug.
Player insights
Drew Commesso (CHI): Team USA’s goalie was very sharp through two periods. He made several big-time saves and was battling through traffic when there were breakdowns. The only goal he allowed was on a goal-mouth scramble where he made two or three consecutive saves before the rebound was put in by Kasper Simontaival (LAK). Leaman confirmed that Commesso will be Team USA’s No. 1 goalie and he will start against Slovakia.
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