Sweden Spoils USA New Year’s Eve Party
St. Paul, Minn. — The United States was able to outscore their mistakes against Germany during their opening game of the World Junior Championships, but they couldn’t do the same against Sweden on New Year’s Eve resulting in a 6-3 loss in front of 18,618 at Grand Casino Arena.
The good news for the Americans is that they will get a chance to amend their mistakes in the quarterfinals and coach Bob Motzko indicated there is a ‘pretty good chance’ that Cole Hutson will be back in their lineup after missing the last two games after getting hit in the back of the neck against Switzerland.
“This was our first loss, and we’ve liked everything about this group,” said Motzko. “We like how tight they are, and we’re going to have to really rely on that. This is a crazy tournament, you have to park it quick, get on to the next game, get momentum back and that’s quite simply, what we have to do. We have to park this one, get it out of our system, and we’ve got to get back to what we’ve been doing.”
The United States got goals from Chase Reid, Will Zellers and Teddy Stiga in the game and Gophers Brodie Ziemer and LJ Mooney both tallied assists, but discipline issues taking penalties and turnovers were costly. Sweden scored three power play goals and also added one short handed.
“After we started so hot, it kind of fell apart at moments,” said Ziemer. “Just undisciplined again tonight, maybe a couple soft ones, but still you can’t really have that excuse. It just wasn’t a full 60 from us. I liked our game at times again, like I did the other day, and then we kind of took our foot off the gas, and teams like that are gonna capitalize on it.”
Sweden scored the first three goals of the game and ended up chasing USA starting goaltender Brady Knowling after two periods where he made 23 saves on 28 shots. Nick Kempf played the final period and made 14 saves on 15 shots. Goaltending was a question mark for the Americans coming into the tournament and after some shaky performances by Knowling tonight and Caleb Heil earlier in the tournament, it looks like Kempf will be taking the net in medal play. Motzko didn’t name a starter for the next game, but he said the ‘for sure’ have enough information to make a decision going forward.
The United States power play gave up a short handed goal tonight, but they did get two goals on the advantage against Sweden with Reid putting a rebound opportunity in the net and Stiga tipping a Mooney pass into the goal. The Americans power play had struggled in the previous games, but might have found some momentum tonight.
“I think just getting a little more comfortable with each other throughout the tournament has been good,” said Mooney. “It’s good to see that clicking, and hopefully we get a couple more.”
The USA will be waiting to see how Pool B finishes play before finding out their opponent between Czechia and Finland in medal play, but the game will be held Friday at 5 PM on January 2 at Grand Casino Arena. Either match-up will probably put the host nation in underdog status for the elimination game.
“I remember last year, same situation… we lost to Finland and ended up having a little just players meeting,” said Ziemer. “You kind of just talk over it. You reflect a little bit, and then you kind of move on. It’s such a short tournament, we got a game in two days now and it’s a big one, right? Win or go home. So you just flush it now.”