Just saw USA's last pre-tournament game against Sweden. Some thoughts about the team:
The lines in the game was;
Clarke-Stastny-Cole
Bochenecki-Arnason-Stempniak
Backes-Kessel-Hall
Larose-Peterson-Davis
J Johnson-E Johnson
Ballard-Pothier
Greene-R. Sutter
Hutchinson-Alberts
Grahame
Right away it was obvious that this is the starting of a new era for US International Hockey.
All these guys, except two, are comming from playing in the NHL without a redline-offside rule.
Gone are the days of having a mix of two lines with slow vets and two trapping lines. I haven't seen a US team play as smart as US did today since around 96', that is smart for "international hockey". A highflying dynamic offensive style, with allot of creativity in the transition game, compared to before when they lived on counter attacks only, which gave them a hard time against poor teams when they tried to run the show. Thoose days are defenitly over.
Will be interesting following the adventures of United States in International Hockey in the future!
They have always had that "fighting spirit", but with so little creativity in the NHL it was a tough translation to international hockey.
The lines in the game was;
Clarke-Stastny-Cole
Bochenecki-Arnason-Stempniak
Backes-Kessel-Hall
Larose-Peterson-Davis
J Johnson-E Johnson
Ballard-Pothier
Greene-R. Sutter
Hutchinson-Alberts
Grahame
Right away it was obvious that this is the starting of a new era for US International Hockey.
All these guys, except two, are comming from playing in the NHL without a redline-offside rule.
Gone are the days of having a mix of two lines with slow vets and two trapping lines. I haven't seen a US team play as smart as US did today since around 96', that is smart for "international hockey". A highflying dynamic offensive style, with allot of creativity in the transition game, compared to before when they lived on counter attacks only, which gave them a hard time against poor teams when they tried to run the show. Thoose days are defenitly over.
Will be interesting following the adventures of United States in International Hockey in the future!
They have always had that "fighting spirit", but with so little creativity in the NHL it was a tough translation to international hockey.