USA Gets 2-1 Win Over Swiss, Waits to Find Out Status on Hutson
St. Paul, Minn. — The United States had a scary moment during their preliminary round game with Switzerland Saturday night as Cole Hutson took a puck to the back of his neck midway through the second period. It was a moment that quieted the 13,984 at Grand Casino Arena during the host team’s 2-1 victory as one of the key players for the American squad had to be wheeled off the ice on a stretcher.
Hutson was expected to play a big role for the team in this tournament as he played 24:20 minutes in the tournament opener, tallied two assists and quarterbacked the USA first power play group. The Washington Capitals prospect is just one point away from tying Erik Johnson’s USA world junior championship record for career points by a defenseman as he has 13 points in eight games. An injury to him could be a significant factor for how the squad could move forward in this tournament, but it’s a positive sign that he was quickly released from the hospital and was back with the team afterwards for the team meal.
“You just try to keep the energy up after seeing something like that happen,” said LJ Mooney. “Obviously, you don’t want to see that and everything, but I think we did that one for him after.”
Brodie Ziemer got the game’s first goal for the USA by converting a James Hagens pass for the tally, but his energy on the bench might have been just as big a factor in the result Saturday night. Multiple players mentioned that Ziemer was one of the vocal guys on the bench when much of the arena was on pins and needles.
“I think it just comes down to the leaders like Brodie and what he’s saying on the bench,” said Adam Kleber. “And then it kind of stems down from coach in the locker room just saying, we’re going to be in a lot of these games in the rest of the tournament. So just get used to it, be comfortable in these situations and just stick to our details.”
The details in the win were to get traffic to the net because the Swiss would be boxing out players and make sure to be quick in any transition plays, because that structure would make offense challenging when given time to establish their systems.
“I liked our response tonight from yesterday’s game. Obviously, that wasn’t our best,” said Ziemer. “We had a meeting this morning and talked about what we need to do if we want to have success. I’m proud of the group for coming out and answering the bell.”
While Basile Sansonnens evened the score at 1-1 for the Swiss shortly after the Hutson injury, Will Zellers regained the lead for the red, white and blue with a snipe into the top corner of the net where he just had enough space to fit a puck through.
Then the team had to hang on to the one goal lead to the finish with six defensemen filling a bigger role than many had expected coming into the night. Kleber thought they did a good job just kind of playing simple, getting the puck out and letting their forwards get up the ice to relieve pressure.
“Miller was telling us D to kind of be a little more reserved, since we only had 6 D back there, and not necessarily join the rush,” said Kleber. “You had to be smart about picking your spots, conserving energy and our job was just to play mature defensive hockey.”
The team gets an off day Sunday, will get a practice in tomorrow afternoon where a scoreless power play will get some attention and hopefully get some news on the status of Hutson for the rest of the tournament. Another task will be making sure this roster builds on the details that got them through a game that sat on the knife edge for much of the night and gets them ready for their final preliminary round games with Slovakia on Monday and Sweden on New Year’s Eve.
“We’re dealing with a lot of young guys that love to score, and we had to tell them and convince them that they played excellent,” said Motzko. “They have got to buy into that. Their whole career they’re going to find themselves in games like this.”