{"id":476277,"date":"2026-02-15T10:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476277\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T10:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:02:09","slug":"stutzle-germany-finding-positives-after-stunning-loss-to-latvia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476277\/","title":{"rendered":"Stutzle, Germany finding positives after stunning loss to Latvia"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Germany gives the U.S. even half as many grade A scoring chances as Latvia had, including a 5-on-3 power play for 1:20 (Latvia scored on it, by the way), it will be in way bigger trouble than it was Saturday.<\/p>\n

Latvia is a small country used to being underdogs in international competitions.<\/p>\n

The United States is huge and has a roster filled with NHL superstars.<\/p>\n

“The Americans are an extremely tough opponent, unbelievably well-balanced and skilled team skating-wise,” Germany coach Harold Kreis said. “We’ve got to get rested by then, play within our structure, play patient, good puck management.”<\/p>\n

And Germany is getting an American team still trying to round into form, with obvious parts of the game that need refining.<\/p>\n

It was tougher for the United States against Denmark than anyone saw coming. It was down 2-1 after the first period, and ahead by one entering the third because a goal against at 19:57 of the second sliced the lead in half.<\/p>\n

But the U.S. still won 6-3 and outshot Denmark 47-21 despite not being thrilled with how it played for the full 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to play with us, to keep our pace the whole game,” U.S. defenseman Quinn Hughes<\/a> said after the win against Denmark. “They kept our pace in the first, but let’s see if they can keep our pace in the second and third. If we do what we need to do, we should be in a good spot.”<\/p>\n

For context, Germany beat Denmark 3-1 on Thursday despite getting outshot 38-26.<\/p>\n

For further context, Germany lost to Latvia, a team the U.S. defeated 5-1 on Thursday. It would have been 7-1 if not for two goals taken off the board because of successful coach’s challenges; one each for offside and goalie interference.<\/p>\n

“They have a good team, we know that,” Stutzle said. “They’re going to play fast. We’ve got to find a way to compete against them and play our game, and be good defensively.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Germany gives the U.S. even half as many grade A scoring chances as Latvia had, including a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-476277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}