Team USA needs major leadership shakeup after embarrassing showing at World Cup
The World Cup of Hockey was always going to be quick by international tournament standards, but for Team USA it happened to be even quicker than most anticipated.
On Tuesday night, the Americans needed a victory over Canada to keep their hopes of advancing past the preliminary round alive. The desperation was palpable, and an early goal from USA's T.J. Oshie provided a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the Americans could will themselves to a win over powerhouse Canada and add another chapter to the great North American rivalry.
That glimmer lasted all of one minute and thirty seconds, as Canada immediately responded with two goals in 14 seconds. From there, it was all but over. Team USA wilted and ultimately lost 4-2, and their tournament was over even before playing the third and final prelim game.
Heading into the World Cup, which was revitalized by the NHL this year after a 12-year absence, the level of commitment from players involved was somewhat unknown. Several NHLers dropped out due to minor injuries and concerns that their participation would jeopardize their status for the upcoming start of the NHL season. The World Cup doesn't exactly have the prestige and the glory of the Olympics -- and it never will -- so guys weren't willing to make that gamble.
But it became evident as soon as the participating players took the ice that the tournament is for real. The talent is there and so is the compete level. The American roster, widely considered to be one of the better teams in the field, took the tournament seriously and wanted to win; they just got flat-out beat. Even worse that that, they got embarrassed.
How did that happen? To put it simply: Bad decisions.
Nearly all of Team USA's failures in this tournament can be traced back to bad decisions, ones that started in September of last year when John Tortorella was named head coach. While Tortorella may be a very loud and proud American -- as evidenced by his demand that none of his players protest the national anthem -- he's also the type of coach that's heading further and further towards extinction in hockey these days. The drill sergeant that values grit and a blue-collar style of play over analytics and that fancy thing you call skill. He's the kind of coach that refuses to abandon his old school approach to a game that is continuously evolving, and the kind of coach that gets fired from three NHL jobs in 10 years
Tortorella’s hiring meant that the roster, constructed by GM Dean Lombardi, would be built to suit his style of play. That led to a number of highly skilled players, including one of the country’s best pure goal-scorers in Phil Kessel, being snubbed in favor of players that possessed more "grit," "heart," and whatever other buzzwords you want to hit on the dartboard. The goal for that roster was to play physical, defensive-minded game that would hopefully suppress more skilled teams -- specifically the insanely talented Team Canada -- that they were afraid they couldn't run and gun with.
The brain trust chose grit over skill, and in the end they got neither.
There was hope to be had after the exhibition circuit that saw them split a home-and-home with Canada, but Team USA's flaws aggressively revealed themselves in the first two games that actually mattered. Not only was Tortorella's philosophy outdated, but his coaching stunk as well.
Combine some curious lineup decisions, including scratching Dustin Byfuglien in the opener against Europe, with gaffes behind the bench, including a wasted challenge that cost USA's its timeout early in the first period against Canada, and you have plenty of ammunition to criticize the coaching staff in a very small sample size of two games.
But the bad decisions extended to on the ice as well. A majority of the USA's players looked to be pressing and overwhelmed from the very start. For a group that was assembled to bring a punch-you-in-the-mouth approach, the team that they beat up on most was themselves.
Turnovers and lost battles gave both Europe and Canada too many opportunities to capitalize on, and, more often than not, they did just that. Goaltender Jonathan Quick was hung out to dry quite a bit, but there also wasn't a moment where he looked capable of being a game-changer for a team that so desperately needed one. He finished with a combined .862 save percentage over the two games and, for a team that was so deep at goaltending (with Ben Bishop and a scratched Cory Schneider behind him), that's just unacceptable.
Also unacceptable was the whopping one-goal-per-game average that this team brought to the tournament. After being shutout against a European team that featured geriatric blue-liners such as Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg (who has yet to find a job in the NHL since being cut by the Boston Bruins, by the way), the USA managed to score exactly one goal that really mattered. (The other came in garbage time against Canada.)
Without a bevy of elite scorers to spread across the ice, it was easy for opponents to key in on America's most dangerous weapons -- like Patrick Kane -- and stifle them. Even so, ample opportunities were blown thanks to misfired shots and ill-advised passes that effectively killed scoring chances. The team wasn't talented or aggressive enough in its opponents' zone and the result was atrocious.
It'll be somewhat intriguing to see how the group comes out and plays on Thursday in their final game against an also-eliminated Czech Republic team. Will the embarrassment of the previous two games further exacerbate their woes, or will it make the Americans desperate enough to prove they're not actually as bad as they've looked?
The truth is, though, it won't matter at all. No result in that finale can undo what's already been proven about this team: that there's a leadership failure at just about every level -- from management, to coaching, to the men in uniform. It's going to be nearly impossible for American hockey fans to feel good about the future of their international team if major changes aren't made, and it has to start from the top down.
