{"id":476406,"date":"2026-02-13T02:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T02:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476406\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T02:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T02:41:09","slug":"nelson-scores-twice-united-states-pulls-away-from-latvia-in-olympic-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/476406\/","title":{"rendered":"Nelson scores twice, United States pulls away from Latvia in Olympic opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was too much for the Latvians on this night, even after they escaped the first period tied 1-1, in part because of two disallowed goals for the Americans, each of which involved Nelson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took complete control over us at the end of the second,\u201d Latvia goalie Elvis Merzlikins<\/a> said. \u201cThat\u2019s us. We are a small, tiny country. Those are big hockey players there. We all saw the tic-tac-toes and everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renars Krastenbergs scored for Latvia (0-0-1-0). Merzlikins allowed four goals on 32 shots through two periods before being replaced by Arturs Silovs<\/a>, who made five saves.<\/p>\n

The Americans outscored the Latvians 3-0 in the second, outshooting them 17-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey start cycling you and wearing you down, but our goalie played well and gave us a chance,\u201d Latvia captain Kaspars Daugavins said.<\/p>\n

The ability to put the frustration of the first period in the rearview mirror shows growth in the American game, the U.S. players said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust keep going,\u201d defenseman Zach Werenski<\/a> said. \u201cI love how \u2018Nelly\u2019 responded to those challenges. One he was a little [offside] and the other one it\u2019s his goal that got called back (for goaltender interference). He just stuck with it, scores a few big goals for us. We created enough offense that we knew at some point that they were going to count, so just keep playing our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson scored the game-winning goal at 10:38 of the second period when he put the U.S. ahead 2-1. Jack Hughes found him at the right hash marks with a pass on the cycle, and Nelson went forehand-to-backhand to draw Merzlikins out of position before tucking the puck in at the right post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was too much for the Latvians on this night, even after they escaped the first period tied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-476406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}