{"id":465260,"date":"2026-02-13T01:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/465260\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T01:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:24:08","slug":"usa-hockey-opens-2026-winter-olympics-by-rolling-over-latvia-5-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/465260\/","title":{"rendered":"USA hockey opens 2026 Winter Olympics by rolling over Latvia 5-1"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 The U.S. goal song \u2014 \u201cFree Bird\u201d by Lynyrd Skynyrd \u2014 blared seven times during over arena speakers on Thursday night. Twice, the celebration was only short-lived.<\/p>\n

Bouncing back from having a pair of goals wiped out by coach\u2019s challenges, the U.S. opened the Olympics by rolling past Latvia 5-1 on Thursday night in a dominant showcase of some of the country\u2019s best NHL players<\/a>. Brock Nelson scored twice, four players had two assists apiece and there was production up and down the lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in the depth we have,\u201d winger Jake Guentzel said. \u201cThere\u2019s good players on every line. That\u2019s just where American hockey is right now.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"UnitedUnited States’ Auston Matthews, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring his sides fifth goal during a preliminary round match of men’s ice hockey between Latvia and the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)(Carolyn Kaster | AP)<\/p>\n

After a weird first period with a couple of video reviews and a tying goal by Latvia, the Americans found their groove and for long stretches barely let their opponents have the puck. The U.S. outshot Latvia 38-18 and needed starter Connor Hellebuyck to make only 17 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like we controlled the play,\u201d center Jack Eichel said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to get better every game in this tournament, every period in this tournament. That\u2019s our goal, and it\u2019s a good start for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elvis Merzlikins was under siege at the other end, and after Nelson\u2019s second goal he sat in the crease with his head bowed in his lap. An odd-man rush became a version of the Harlem Globetrotters on ice with pass after pass: Jack Hughes to brother Quinn<\/a> to Matthew Tkachuk, back to Jack and then to Nelson to tap into a half-open net with 11.1 seconds left in the second period.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s much to do,\u201d Merzlikins said. \u201cIf that guy wouldn\u2019t score, probably the other guy would score because I felt completely two open guys, and it\u2019s hard to save something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady Tkachuk scored the first U.S. goal of the tournament less than six minutes in, and Tage Thompson roofed a nifty backhander on the power play, making coach Mike Sullivan look smart for putting the 6-foot-6 winger on the loaded top unit<\/a>. Four goals on 32 shots was enough to chase Merzlikins, who was pulled to start the third for Arturs Silovs.<\/p>\n

Captain Auston Matthews welcomed Silovs to the Olympics with a power-play goal, assisted on by Eichel and Quinn Hughes. Each of them had two assists, along with Matthew Tkachuk and Jack Hughes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think the depth that we have, it showed,\u201d Brady Tkachuk said. \u201cI thought everybody played a great game tonight. You just see the buy-in. You see the buy-in of every line playing the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. plays Denmark<\/a> on Saturday night before wrapping up the preliminary round 24 hours later against Germany.<\/p>\n

Canada looks like the favorite, beating Czechia<\/p>\n

Macklin Celebrini scored Canada\u2019s first goal in the return of the NHL to the Olympics<\/a> and Jordan Binnington stopped all 26 shots he faced in a 5-0 defeat of Czechia that showed the tournament favorite is already a well-oiled machine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur intentions were really good with the way we played,\u201d captain Sidney Crosby said. \u201cI thought we were physical. We were moving our feet. The execution, sometimes that comes with time. But even other times we did some good things and executed well. Just a matter of building off of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrini, his country\u2019s youngest player at 19, deflected a shot by Cale Makar past Lukas Dostal with 5.7 seconds left in the first, putting an exclamation point on a terrific, back-and-forth period. After Mitch Marner\u2019s saucer pass to Mark Stone for his goal and Bo Horvat\u2019s on a breakaway later in the second, Czechia never stood a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re playing in the Olympics for the first time, it never gets old, and everybody\u2019s got their jitters,\u201d coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cYou know what I liked? I thought we got better as that game went on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The handful of times Binnington got tested, he was there to make the save. Before Celebrini scored, Binnington kept it 0-0 by making a left-pad stop on Michal Kempny and reaching out to smother David Kampf\u2019s rebound attempt.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the ice, Dostal played well but was helpless to slow down much of the onslaught. There was nothing he could do on the Crosby-to-Connor McDavid-to-Nathan MacKinnon tic-tac-toe power-play goal in the third period.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo of the best players ever to play passing it to me is cool,\u201d MacKinnon said. \u201cI didn\u2019t do much for that one. Just blessed to be on the back side. Anyone would have put that in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same trio combined for almost the same goal<\/a> in the opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago. Canada won that Olympic appetizer by beating the U.S. in overtime.<\/p>\n

McDavid finished with three assists, including one on Nick Suzuki\u2019s goal that made it 5-0.<\/p>\n

Timo Meier scores twice as Switzerland shuts out France<\/p>\n

Timo Meier of the New Jersey Devils scored twice in the third period, 39-year-old national team goaltender Leonardo Genoni stopped all 27 shots he faced and Switzerland shut out France 4-0.<\/p>\n

Damien Riat scored 55 seconds in, J.J. Moser of the Tampa Bay Lightning made it a two-goal lead three minutes in and there wasn\u2019t much to worry about the rest of the way, outshooting Switzerland 43-27.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps you a lot if you score two in the first, whatever it was, five minutes,\u201d Moser said. \u201cIt just gives you a little bit more comfort, more confidence also for the rest of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goals by Meier put the game out of reach after he and his teammates tilted the ice toward Keller. Meier called it \u201ca mature performance there how we put the game away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philipp Grubauer shines as Germany beats Denmark<\/p>\n

Philipp Grubauer stopped 37 of the 38 shots he faced and Tim St\u00fctzle scored two goals as Germany beat Denmark 3-1 at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena across town.<\/p>\n

Leon Draisaitl scored just 23 seconds into his Olympic debut.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 The U.S. goal song \u2014 \u201cFree Bird\u201d by Lynyrd Skynyrd \u2014 blared seven times during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,74615,3,216619,21,19,22,20,25,24,40235,216618,216617,216620],"class_list":["post-465260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-latvia","tag-news","tag-olympics-scores","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-usa-hockey","tag-usa-hockey-olympics","tag-usa-hockey-scores","tag-usa-latvia-scores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465260","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=465260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}