Pretty tough to beat both the referees and the reigning champions who returned 8 players from 4 months ago and have a more veteran team.
The scoreboard was not reflective of that game at all. Not that it's a consolation for the team but that was at worst an evenly played game for the team. But a game they likely feel they should have won sans the refs and if they had minimized some of the really poor line matching / defensive coverage that plagued them in the 2nd.
A few issues plagued the team tonight beyond the refs.
The US got outcoached, a running theme for USAH. In a game where they had last change, they put the Peart - Ufko pair out against the Bedard line ahead of numerous face-offs, and it cost them 3 goals. The team didn't have the ideal balanced defensive pair you'd want against that line as they've had in other tournaments. But Behrens - Hughes pair is your best pairing, even if flawed, and you ride that pairing. Peart has been bad all tournament and Ufko was not much better, despite Starman and Nelson blowing their loads over his 5 assists against Germany. I'm wholly unsurprised they gave up 3 when they had that matchup, even with them only sporadically getting the assignment. In a game where Bedard was quiet (despite the 2 points), barely had the puck, and didn't generate much offense, the poor matchup decisions helped gift that line 3 goals nonetheless.
They lost too many key face-offs. The poor line matching with the last change contributed and they gave up multiple goals directly off face-offs.
They lost their way a bit on the offensive approach they came out with during the opening 10. They were intentional and direct with the puck to start - getting the puck to the Canadian goal and crashing it with authority (see Stramel's quick shot and Connors crashing for the goal). They didn't completely get away from this but it was less consistent.
Milic outplayed Augustine. Trey was fine but he was not making saves he shouldn't for his team like Milic was. Being 19 instead of 17 is a huge advantage.
There were some defensive lapses that weren't the result of pressure, just too many offensive-minded puck movers making poor decisions under limited, if any, duress. See Ufko's nonchalance on the Bedard goal in a situation that's an easy, routine stick tie-up, Mittelstadt vacating the backdoor to try to cover a guy already being collapsed on by 2 US forwards on the Fantilli goal, or Peart vacating the left defensive dot to wander to the slot, letting Clarke walk right to an unimpeded shot on Augustine, and even when Peart ended up out of position on the right side of the crease, he just stood there and didn't tie up Stankoven, instead giving him an easy tap in. Milic was huge for Canada but our defense made it too easy for Canada on a lot of their goals in a way Canada's defense didn't for us.
Coaches never deviated from their forward lines. Generating offensive chances wasn't an issue tonight and they carried more of the play for sure, but when you have huge momentum shifts (going up 2, going down 1, 2 of your goals overturned), you need to coach with urgency and agility to keep guys' emotions going. And even if you're generating the chances, you still need to score - chances don't count. Shorten your bench, and mix up your lines. Instead, we kept rolling 4 lines, highlighted by Sam Lipkin taking another penalty in one of his few shifts.
Even if those goals count, it's obviously no guarantee they win. But it was too much to overcome. The most disappointing part (other than another IIHF game where the refs make themselves the center of it all) was the fact that they got the best possible start and blew it. They were all over Canada, went up 2-0, silenced the crowd, and had them hanging on for dear life. And then some poor coaching decisions and some defensive lapses, and they lost momentum, let the crowd into it, and couldn't recover from that and the overturned goals. A disappointing way to lose the semis, but a somewhat fitting way for it to happen given how unevenly they've played all tournament.
Whether true or not, if I'm the coaching staff, you make the team believe it's them against everyone else, including the IIHF and the refs, for the bronze medal game. It'd be easy for the team to be demoralized and come out flat tomorrow. And doing so is a USAH special, although not as often in the WJC as it is in senior tournaments. Make the team believe the IIHF / refs don't want them to medal and rally them around doing so to get back at those tilting the scales against them. And you talk to the team about their opportunity to exact some revenge against a Sweden team, who like the US has a ton of players from the 2022 U18 tournament on their team, and who beat the US for gold in that tournament in a game the US thoroughly dominated.
