USA To Fight To Stay In The WJC

NHL.com USA vs. Canada



NHL.com USA vs. Czech Republic

Well when the WJC started who would of thought the US would be fighting to stay in the top class? Instead of competing for a medal the USA will be fighting to not be relegated to the Division 1 group. On Friday the USA took on the Czech Republic which was a cross roads game in more then one way. A win could propelled the USA to 2nd place but a loss would end all hopes of going to the elimination round. Like the Finland game Team USA had a ton of chances... in fact I'd like to say in Power Play time total the USA had more then a full period of it. This includes a 5 in major, double minor and many other Power Plays in between. The fact that the USA could only score on 2 of these clearly gave the Czechs a ton of hope to stay in the game and that's just what happened. It didn't take much to score on the USA and once the Czechs were able to score a late 3rd period goal to take the lead they never looked back. What was ridiculous when all was said and done though was the fact goalie Petr Mrazek wasn't named star of the game for the Czech Republic. Turning aside 52 shots... with 21 of them coming in the 3rd period was ridiculous.

The following day the USA played against Canada... a game that didn't live up to the hype it usually had. With the USA already finished this was simply a controlled scrimmage with Canada taking a 3-2 win. The USA made a run in the third period, but that was about it.

With that said the USA will fight to come back next year. Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET the US will take on Latvia and play again on Wed. at 5 pm. In this small group of 4 the USA must at least finish 1st or 2nd.