With two of its best players out injured and a 17-year old goaltender making his World Junior Championship debut, the United States lost 6-3 to Sweden on Wednesday night at Grand Casino Arena.<\/p>\n
A loud, announced crowd of 18,618 saw the Americans finish second in Group A pool play at 3-1, while Sweden won the group at 4-0.<\/p>\n
The U.S. plays either Finland or Czechia, whichever winds up as Group B\u2019s third-place team, in a 5 p.m. quarterfinal Friday at Grand Casino Arena. A loss would eliminate the hosts, who have won the last two WJC titles. The Americans beat the Swedes for the 2024 WJC crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never fun to lose when you have that many people supporting you,\u201d said USA winger and Woodbury product Will Zellers, who scored his fifth goal of the tournament. \u201cI feel we shot ourselves in the foot at times with some unlucky turnovers against a team that\u2019s going to produce with little to no space.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis changes our mindset a little bit because it\u2019s do or die now. We have to flush it and learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After older goaltenders Nick Kempf and Caleb Heil split time during previous games, Team USA coach Bob Motzko on Wednesday turned to Brady Knowling, a Boston University commit and projected NHL first-round draft pick, who was added to the American roster two weeks ago. The Chicago resident stopped 23 shots and didn\u2019t shine, but his teammates also played spotty defense and committed too many turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d made the decision to get him in at some point and tonight was the night,\u201d Motzko said. \u201cWe don\u2019t fault him for the mistakes we made against a team with an enormous amount of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minnesota-Duluth forward Max Plante and Boston University defenseman Cole Hutson were out hurt; the latter, considered by some as the tournament\u2019s best rearguard, for a second consecutive game. Both are WJC veterans and, while Motzko said Plante isn\u2019t likely to return soon, he said a Hutson appearance in the quarterfinals looks likely.<\/p>\n
Team USA had several prime scoring chances during the opening 12 minutes but surrendered the first period\u2019s lone goal on an unfortunate deflection. Casper Juustovaara\u2019s attempted cross-crease pass towards an open Milton Gastrin at the right post instead deflected off the skate of American defenseman Logan Hensler and past Knowling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come on us right from the beginning and a couple of our players have never been in this kind of building and with this kind of crowd,\u201d said Swedish coach Magnus Havelid, whose team returned three players from last year\u2019s competition. \u201cWe were lucky when we got the first goal, and it gave us confidence and we grew to have a very good second period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweden pushed its lead to 3-0 during the second period\u2019s first six minutes. Eddie Genborg beat Knowling from the bottom of the left circle on a power play set up by a goaltender interference call on Ryker Lee. Three minutes later, an onrushing Lucas Pettersson ripped a shot from the right circle and inside the far post.<\/p>\n
The U.S. brought the building alive with a man-advantage tally of its own three minutes later. Defenseman Chase Reid, whose WJC performance thus far could boost him near the top of the 2026 NHL draft, skated in through the right circle to put home a rebound after Swedish goaltender Love Harenstam made a stellar save while on the seat of his pants.<\/p>\n
The potential American comeback gained steam when Harenstam was whistled for diving after a collision with Zellers atop his crease. Instead, a glaring U.S. giveaway at its offensive blue line led to another Swedish rush, a shorthanded goal for Pettersson and a 4-1 lead with seven minutes remaining in the second.<\/p>\n
The Swedes went up 5-1 with another power-play strike before the U.S pulled within 5-2 with five minutes remaining in the middle stanza. Zellers put in the rebound of a Brodie Ziemer shot off a wide left rush.<\/p>\n
Kempf relieved Knowling for the third.<\/p>\n
Team USA\u2019s L.J. Mooney soon passed off the left wall to Teddy Stiga in the low slot, from where he deflected in the feed to make the score 5-3 early in the third.<\/p>\n
Anger swirled through the arena when American defenseman Luke Osburn was penalized for delay of game after chipping the puck over the glass in his own zone. Osburn was clearly boarded by an unpenalized Genborg a split second later, and when A.J. Spellacy was soon after sent off for a high hit that Pettersson seemed to embellish, the crowd booed lustily.<\/p>\n
By the time NHL prospect Ivar Stenberg popped in a rebound that Kempf dropped in the crease during Sweden\u2019s 5-on-3 power play, resignation had set in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to dump pucks in and see the other team\u2019s (back) numbers,\u201d Zellers said when asked what aspect of the U.S. game most needs to be stressed. \u201cGetting them behind their defense, and finishing our hits and wearing them down. But we have to back check and make sure they don\u2019t get those odd-man rushes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ramps up our intensity, knowing it\u2019s do or die now. The last thing we want is not to win the gold. That\u2019s our only goal. This loss motivates us a little more and it\u2019s fuel to our fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motzko said earlier in the tournament that he wasn\u2019t insistent his team win its group so much as it enter the knockout round playing its best. The Americans don\u2019t appear to have quite reached that goal but a bigger one looms ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fumbled the ball and they ran it in the end zone,\u201d Motzko said. \u201cBut our play, especially at the start of the game was how we want to play. We have to (forget), because now the tournament truly starts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briefly<\/p>\n
Sweden has won two gold medals, 12 silver and seven bronze since the World Juniors officially debuted in 1977. The U.S. clocks in at 7-2-7\u2026 The tournament\u2019s last-place team is relegated to the world junior \u201cB\u201d pool for next year\u2019s tournament, while Norway, winner of that level this year, has earned promotion to the \u201cA\u201d pool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With two of its best players out injured and a 17-year old goaltender making his World Junior Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2662,3,99,21,19,22,20,25,24,182812],"class_list":["post-381101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-college-sports","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-juniors-hockey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}