U18: USA Roster

[AmericanDream]

I think the third line is kind of a waste with Hain and Giles on it. Turcotte has no help, he wants to play a skill game with grinders. At least move Weiss up who's way more skilled than all the other bottom 6 players, besides Turcotte. And while Pivonka isn't a big skill guy, he's a good grit player who can keep up with skill guys. I think a Turcotte-Pivonka-Weiss third line would work much better.

I like Weiss, I said put the kid in the top 6 over Gruden months ago. Him and Pivonka are the two kids I have coming out of this team that will be players that got lost in the shuffle and will go on to enjoy nice careers and possibly make the NHL similar to Riley Barber and Shane Gersich.

 

[SanDogBrewin]

Kids love to score but need to work on the D portion of the game.

 

[clevelandcane]

Ya the D is a mess so far.

Standiuts on O were many. Hughes, Caulfield, Wahlstrom, Haim, and Turcotte all played well I thought Stastny stood out and Mattias Samuelsson was really good.

Knight was shaky but at least settled down in the 3rd.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Defense was awful. Defensemen are mistake prone, and most of the forwards provide no back check.

Hughes and Turcotte were great.

 

[kroypuck]

Defense was awful. Defensemen are mistake prone, and most of the forwards provide no back check.

Hughes and Turcotte were great.

I thought York and Samuelsson were good. Surprised that they are not playing York more. With 3 assists and a plus 2 this game they will have to think about moving him up. Stastney also played good. He has been solid this tournament so far, hopefully he can keep it up. He looked very good playing with York in the 3rd. Hughes had a tremendous game, and definitely looks like a lock for first overall in 2019. I thought Knight played terrible in the first 2 but played a little better in the 3rd. I hope they go back with Deridder on sunday, but we will see.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I thought York and Samuelsson were good. Surprised that they are not playing York more. With 3 assists and a plus 2 this game they will have to think about moving him up. Stastney also played good. He has been solid this tournament so far, hopefully he can keep it up. He looked very good playing with York in the 3rd. Hughes had a tremendous game, and definitely looks like a lock for first overall in 2019. I thought Knight played terrible in the first 2 but played a little better in the 3rd. I hope they go back with Deridder on sunday, but we will see.

I didn't mean every defenseman was bad, but I would mostly agree on that assessment. Mattias Samuelsson is mostly immune to the defensive criticisms. He's easily the best performing defenseman on this team, and has been all year. I don't know why he's rated so low on most draft lists. York was good enough, I don't think he was great, but I was surprised to see he has four assists. He's not who I would consider to be one of the problems though. Stastney is mostly fine in a limited role.

Of the 5 goals Knight gave up, 3 of them were rush chances, which are very hard to stop. He also stopped a few other rush chances, so its hard to expect a goalie to stop more than 1 or 2 of those, if they are executed well by the other team. He deserves blame for the mishap playing the puck and the shot from the blue line that went in, but DeRidder let in some bad goals against Canada. I don't think Knight was good, but was he any worse than DeRidder. I'd go back to Knight. He's a good goalie who had a bad games.

 

[TLP]

Hughes has 6 points but is only even (plus minus)
Wahlstrom has 4 points and is -1.
That will have to change or their in big trouble. Can’t just rely on power play points and get scored on at even strength regularly.
Did they have defensive issues during the year?

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Man we are loaded this year. This team looks like it could be even better than 2016.

Excited to see Hughes at this level.

I expected more out of this team. I expected them to be a dominant team at this tournament. I am disappointed.

I have really liked Hughes, Turcotte and Farabee ... If Wahlstrom couldn't stand on the top of that circle and shoot on the PP.. he wouldn't do anything at all.

 

[SanDogBrewin]

Sweden is a very good team. Surprisingly today was a better defensive game from the US but the Swedes were better at playing a tighter D.

 

[William H Bonney]

No idea if they'll turn it around, but hopefully this is a wake-up call. I've long been fairly critical of the 2000 age group. They had a lot of promise 3 years ago, but outside of Wahlstrom and Farabee, they've mostly been disappointing for the entirety of their NTDP careers.

Wilde, Miller, and Mattias Samuelsson are all huge projects. Could they end up strong NHLers? Sure, but they're not impact junior players. Adam Samuelsson is in over his head as he's been much of his NTDP career. He's basically Ryan Collins, but with less athleticism and skating ability. York, Stastney, and Emberson should be playing the bulk of the minutes.

Knight was good today, but not even close to being tested to the level you'd think had you just listened to the announcers. Most of Sweden's opportunities only required fairly pedestrian saves.

 

[cagney]

This is one of the most fundamentally poor US NTDP teams I’ve ever seen. I actually don’t think any other team has even been close to this sloppy in terms of technicality and decision making. If I didn’t know they played the whole season together I’d be shocked to hear it.

The coaching staff obviously deserves a lot of the heat for this but players are doing things out there they have to understand they shouldn’t be doing at this point in their development. The unforced turnovers, terrible positioning and bad reads are just non-stop.

Wahlstrom has a tremendous shot but he’s a disappointment in every other regard - incredibly sloppy passing from him. Hughes still has some great moments but he hadn’t been making any of the types of errors I’m seeing from him when he was down with the U17 team. The Farabee line hasn’t been generating enough and there’s no depth beyond those top two lines (I like Turcotte but his line mates aren’t offensive threats in any way at this level).

The defense are major disappointments. I’m incredibly nervous whenever I see Wilde, Miller or Adam Samuelsson on the ice. I expected more from the first two, particularly Wilde, but right now using a first round pick on him seems like a big risk.

Goaltending hasn’t been great but the team in front of them is a mess. I’m not sure who they go with from here but either way they need more help.

I think there’s a pretty good chance they lose to either the Finns or the Russians in the quarterfinals. They’ve got their work cut out for them to keep the medal streak going. I’m really missing the days the US would allow less than a goal per game at this tournament.

 

[SanDogBrewin]

Agree, defensively I have never seen a US U18 or U20 this sloppy. If the US forwards aren’t possessing the puck in the offensive zone then the team is scrambling.

 

[cg98]

Big let down by this squad so far.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

We need to switch these lines.

Defense: Can't be playing Wilde and Miller together anymore. Hurts the team too much. Samuelsson with Wilde, Emberson with Miller. Keep the bottom 3 as is, but play York more and Samuelsson less.

Forwards: Move Farabee back to the top line. Gruden has been awful. Move Turcotte up to the second line, he'd have at least five points in this tournament if he was playing with players who could help him out, at all. Gruden-Pivonka-Weiss as the third line. The others as the fourth line. I wouldn't even let them enter the ice, besides maybe an occasional Janicke shift. They don't look like draftable players to me.

 

[JiggsNY]

Completely agree on moving Farabee back up, I know the worry is to not overstack one line and leave the others lacking, but those 3 were unstoppable when they played, and Gruden is such a drag on them. And Turcotte has definitely earned more time.

 

[Teemu]

Oof. Russia, then Canada in the bracket

On the bright side, they'll be the late games (10:30ET) in this series

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Is Appert going to play Knight or Deridder? I'd play Knight. He was very good against a Sweden team that could actually threaten the USA. Deridder shut out Belarus, but Belarus sucked, and posed no threat.

Its good that Appert made some changes in the lineup. Wilde with Samuelsson makes sense, but I don't like the other pairs. Don't want Adam Samuelsson with Emberson, considering Emberson needs to be playing bigger minutes. Adam Samuelsson with York, Emberson with Miller. Its good that Gruden was finally moved down, but move him down further, and promote Turcotte to his spot.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Our game is at the same time as Canada's. Is NHL Network not going to show it?

 

[Teemu]

Our game is at the same time as Canada's. Is NHL Network not going to show it?

NHL Network has committed to show all US games.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

NHL Network has committed to show all US games.

I'm sure TSN has committed to show all Canada games. Are they going to fly a new crew out?

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

I'm sure TSN has committed to show all Canada games. Are they going to fly a new crew out?

TSN shows the US game scheduled on TSN3 ... so its being broadcast I guess regionally , likely NHL network has the same broadcast
https://www.tsn.ca/live/schedule

 

[SanDogBrewin]

NHL Network shows an IIHF game scheduled for early Thursday morning.

EDIT:

“Quarterfinal matchup is set! #TeamUSA will face Russia on Thursday at 10:30amET in Chelyabinsk. The game will be shown live on @NHLNetwork. #U18Worlds”

 

[kroypuck]

Much more well rounded game today. I thought the defense looked much better.

 

[Dominance]

I’ve seen very little of the tournament, especially of the US, but Wahlstrom has looked awful from what I have. Useless without the puck, regularly bobbling passes and dishing the puck into the feet of his teammates, although he honestly might have Svechnikov and Zadina beat for best shot in the draft class. Can anyone comment on why this is? Did he play better today?

 

[SanDogBrewin]

“I thought underager Spencer Knight was stellar in goal despite just 17 shots. Made three or four key saves. Joel Farabee stood out as well. His SHG turned things around.”

Knight and Farabee were great!