Team USA headed into the quarterfinals as the only undefeated team in the tournament. In typical fashion with this year’s team, they breezed through the Latvians with ease, 7-2, and still remain unbeaten.
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Twelve players found the scoresheet, including five with multiple points. But it will get much tougher from here on out…
Quick Start
As mentioned pregame by the NHL Network crew, it can sometimes be difficult for a team that is as heavily favored as the Americans were since it could play mind games. Oftentimes, teams that are multi-goal favorites can put too much pressure on themselves and mentally check out because of their clear talent advantage.
The key to defeating that is to jump out to a quick lead, which is exactly what the Americans did. Just 91 seconds into it, Drew Fortescue (NYR) sniped one past Deivs Rolovs to give them a 1-0 lead and set the precedent for the whole game.
Ten minutes later, Gabe Perreault (NYR) scored to push the lead to two. Dans Locmelis (BOS) cut the US lead in half a little later, but that adversity was short-lived.
How short-lived, you may ask? Thirteen seconds was what it took for Danny Nelson (NYI) to answer right back and make it 3-1. That was just the first of five unanswered goals for the Americans, who continued to bring it on every shift.
For their standards, Latvia played a pretty solid game. But the US was simply leaps and bounds more talented, and the scoreboard reflected it.
It’s certainly important that the US played a structured and disciplined game, which could have easily been shied away from given the inferiority of their opponent.
Boston College Line Thrives
As we saw with Canada’s quarterfinal exit, just because a group is talented doesn’t mean that they can mesh well together.
That’s why it’s so crucial that Ryan Leonard (WSH), Will Smith (SJS) and Gabe Perreault (NYR) have been kept together as a line for two years now – one at the US Development Program and one at Boston College (BC).
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At BC, they’ve combined for 66 points in only 17 games. All three linemates were first-round selections at the 2023 NHL Draft, and they’ve certainly played like it.
They combined for six points in this matchup and have notched 16 total in five tournament games. Perreault scored twice, and Smith added one of his own. To top it off, they’ve all been above-average…
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