MILAN \u2014 It\u2019s the kind of goal you\u2019ll see on repeat for a long, long time on blooper reels, but Jeremy Swayman owned it, laughed about it and, most importantly, forgot about it.<\/p>\n
When you know you\u2019re more than likely getting your one and only start in the Olympics, giving up a goal from beyond center ice is less than ideal.<\/p>\n
But in the end, Swayman kept battling away and allowed enough of a cushion for the United States to rally for a 6-3 victory over Denmark on Saturday night in a group-stage game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a flash screen, and it was just the perfect height right between the stands and board level, and I truly lost it,\u201d Swayman said of defenseman Nicholas B. Jensen\u2019s go-ahead goal from next to the Denmark bench in the first period. \u201cDefinitely one I want back, but at the same time, especially at this level, you\u2019ve got to stay even-keeled. It\u2019s one shot at a time, and no matter how they go in, you\u2019ve got to step up and stop the next one.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo just really proud of this group for supporting me and getting the job done tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Boldy, Brady Tkachuk, Jack Eichel, Noah Hanifin, Jake Guentzel and Jack Hughes scored for the United States and Swayman made 18 saves.<\/p>\n
But Swayman, maybe lulled to sleep in the second period with the play largely spent in Denmark\u2019s end, also gave up a bad goal with 2.6 seconds left in the period to turn the game into a one-goal nailbiter entering the third before Guentzel and Hughes took care of business.<\/p>\n
The U.S. got much-needed insurance goals, first, from its goal-scoring co-leader from the 4 Nations, Guentzel, when Auston Matthews scooped up a loose puck in the slot and teed up Guentzel for a one-timer, and then Hughes, after he sped around a defender and banked a puck off the skate of goaltender Frederik Dichow, who replaced Mads Sogaard a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnreal. Super fun,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cJust to score with a USA jersey on is a treat. Nice to get on the board.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. coach Mike Sullivan hasn\u2019t really provided a specific reason why Swayman has overtaken Jake Oettinger as the No. 2 other than that he\u2019s had a good year in Boston. The American brass could have also determined that Swayman earned the role by leading the United States to its first World Championship gold medal last spring by going 7-0 with a 1.69 goals-against average and .921 save percentage.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Swayman probably saw the net for the final time absent something unforeseen. And the Americans believe they\u2019ll continue to get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re an unfinished product,\u201d Eichel said.<\/p>\n
The United States plays its final preliminary game Sunday night against Germany, which was upset by Latvia on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a good team. So are we,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to compete against them. We know that they have some gamebreakers on that side. We have a lot of respect for how good they are, and it will be a competitive game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swayman\u2019s swing and miss<\/p>\n
When Swayman was beaten cleanly by a 95-foot wrist shot from Jensen to put the U.S. down 2-1 in the first period, it was hard not to wonder if a goalie change was in order. But Sullivan, somewhat inexplicably, had Connor Hellebuyck dressed as the backup, not Oettinger. And Hellebuyck is expected to start Sunday against Germany. So even if Swayman was visibly nervous in net in his Olympic debut, he wasn\u2019t getting yanked.<\/p>\n
It was a shocking goal, met with a gasp by the heavily pro-American crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine times out of 10 \u2014 or 99 times out of 100 \u2014 he\u2019s going to have that,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cIt\u2019s a crazy play. I don\u2019t know, I lost the puck up in the lights a few times tonight as well. The setting is a little bit different. We don\u2019t fault him. He\u2019s part of our group. He made some huge saves for us at key times of the game. Funky bounce \u2014 you just move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olympic hockey fans of a certain vintage couldn\u2019t help but think of Sweden\u2019s Tommy Salo, who gave up perhaps the worst goal in the history of the Games during Belarus\u2019 monumental upset in Salt Lake City in 2002. With 2:24 left in a tied quarterfinal, Salo was stunned by a slap shot from the neutral zone from defenseman Vladimir Kopat. Salo leapt to block the rising shot \u2014 which was almost certainly going over the net, not in it \u2014 and the puck deflected off the goaltender\u2019s helmet and into the net, giving Belarus a 4-3 victory that knocked Sweden out of the tournament.<\/p>\n
The goal that Swayman gave up wasn\u2019t nearly as significant \u2014 it came in the first period of a group-stage game, not the third period of an elimination game \u2014 but it might have been worse from a pure goaltending standpoint. Jensen\u2019s shot was from farther away, more than 90 feet, from just inside the red line, and Swayman didn\u2019t even get a piece of it. The puck may have hit Boldy\u2019s shin, but that was at center ice, and Swayman didn\u2019t seem to see it at all \u2014 he had his glove raised as the puck sailed by on the other side.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst I wanted to dump it, and then I was like, \u2018OK, I might as well just put it toward the net,\u2019\u201d Jensen said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see with the bleachers, but no, I got lucky. And I appreciate he gave me that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both NBC and CBC broadcast crews wondered if the dark Olympic banner over the boards may have caused him to lose the puck.<\/p>\n
Swayman was making no excuses.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m colorblind, so it doesn\u2019t matter to me,\u201d Swayman said, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s something all of us always have to face, and we play in different arenas every night in the NHL, so this is just one, another one, and it\u2019s a challenge that we have to embrace.\u201d<\/p>\n
The color of the boards couldn\u2019t be blamed for the goal he allowed at the end of the second period. After the Americans stormed back from a 2-1 deficit with three goals in an eight-minute span, Swayman gave up another bad goal on a slap shot from the blue line by Phillip Bruggisser. The goal cut the lead to 4-3 in a period Denmark had only four shots.<\/p>\n
But Matthews, who had a tough time in his Olympic debut against Latvia, capped a strong game by setting up Guentzel for a needed goal in the third.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt better tonight,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cI thought I had the puck a lot, made some good plays. I think the chemistry\u2019s growing with our line. I think we\u2019ve had some good chances, had some good shifts. Just want to continue to put that together for a full 60 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Differential diagnosis<\/p>\n
The Finns came into their game against Italy on Saturday afternoon knowing that every goal counted, and they piled them up, winning 11-0. It wasn\u2019t very nice, but it was important. For Finland, goal differential could have been the difference between a bye to the quarterfinal and a do-or-die qualification game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was probably the only game I didn\u2019t feel bad just because (of) the goal differential, I knew how much that matters for second place, to get the bye to the quarterfinals,\u201d Mikko Rantanen said. \u201cSo today I didn\u2019t feel bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. didn\u2019t play with nearly the same aggression. Denmark might not be as weak as Italy, but it\u2019s not exactly a superpower, either. This was a squandered opportunity for the U.S. to pad its stats.<\/p>\n
The big picture here is that the U.S. is fighting Canada for the tournament\u2019s top seed, assuming the U.S. beats Germany on Sunday in regulation and Canada does the same against France. That would leave both the U.S. and Canada with perfect records and 9 points in the standings, and the tiebreak would come down to goal differential. Canada is at plus-9 through two games, while the U.S. is now at plus-7. So the Americans will have to beat Germany by three more goals than Canada beats France by, to take the top seed.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s at stake is that the second seed is likely to face powerhouse Sweden in the quarterfinals, while the top seed would most likely face either Switzerland or the Czech Republic, also known as Czechia.<\/p>\n
Asked if he understands how the whole goal differential thing works, Guentzel said, \u201cA little bit, but not too much. I know some things happened today, but we don\u2019t know exactly what\u2019s going on, so I think we\u2019ll look into it (now).\u201d<\/p>\n
Eichel has another strong game<\/p>\n
One game after a couple of assists against Latvia, Eichel continued his strong play with a goal and an assist.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk\u2019s second goal of the tournament \u2014 the tying goal in the second \u2014 came off an Eichel faceoff win, then Eichel scored a go-ahead goal off Matthew Tkachuk\u2019s solid play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always shines brightest in the biggest stages,\u201d said Hanifin, Eichel\u2019s close friend and Vegas teammate.<\/p>\n
Eichel between the Tkachuk brothers has been the United States\u2019 most consistent line two games into the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cJack\u2019s 200-foot game is incredible,\u201d U.S. general manager Bill Guerin said. \u201cEver since he went to Vegas, he just really matured, and he kind of transformed into this \u2014 he\u2019s always been able to produce, that\u2019s not the issue \u2014 but he\u2019s become an elite two-way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sticking to sports<\/p>\n
Despite the backdrop of President Donald Trump\u2019s saber-rattling about taking Greenland from Denmark, there was no sign of frustration or anti-American sentiment from the Danish partisans. Other than one Greenland flag that was briefly displayed by a fan during warmups, the game went off without any political fanfare.<\/p>\n
At the 4 Nations Face-Off last February, Canadian fans booed the U.S. national anthem in Montreal amid Trump\u2019s talk of making Canada \u201cthe 51st state.\u201d The political moment became a central part of why the 4 Nations Face-Off drew so much attention, with hockey making its way into national news and politics programming.<\/p>\n
Interestingly enough, they don\u2019t play the anthems before Olympic games the way the NHL does. Only the gold medal winner gets its anthem played at the end of the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 It\u2019s the kind of goal you\u2019ll see on repeat for a long, long time on blooper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1785,210521,3,385,1082,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-471298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471298","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=471298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}