USA Hockey Finishes Off The Year By Shellacking The Shit Out Of Slovakia
Team USA came into the World Juniors as heavy favorites to win gold. This team has more 1st round NHL draft picks on the roster than most teams in this tournament have draft picks in general. This is a group of 18/19 year-olds who have won gold and silver at the U18 World Championships, and won bronze at last year's World Juniors. They've been the most consistent group of '04-05 birth years in the world, and now they have a chance to win the biggest one of them all with a World Juniors gold.
But they haven't necessarily looked the part through the first few days of this tournament. It took them a while to get themselves going against Norway to open the tournament. They beat up on Switzerland in game 2, but that was to be expected. And then they picked up a huge win against Czechia in a shootout--which was great to show this team has the jam to win those tight games, but it still wasn't overly convincing.
If you were still needing a "statement" game from this US team to prove that they're clearly the best at this tournament, then you got exactly that this morning against the Slovaks.
The final score of the game was 10-2 USA. But it wasn't a full blown shit pumping from start to finish. Team USA went into the first intermission with a 2-1 lead, but still had 3 minutes to kill of a 5-minute major penalty from Gavin Hayes for kneeing. 1-goal lead, 3 minutes to kill to start the next period, it was definitely a dicey situation for the Americans. But then Gavin Brindley (CJB '22, 2nd rd), confirmed sick bastard, went ahead and scored one of the tastiest shorthanded goals you'll see just 30 seconds into the period to give USA some insurance.
Sick, sick, goal. But Slovakia wasn't done yet. Team USA got into a little more penalty trouble, were already playing with a short bench because Hayes got tossed from the game, and Slovakia had the ice tilted a little. They took 20 shots in the 2nd period, and this one from Filip Mesar (MTL '23, 1st rd) was finally able to get past Trey Augustine (DET '23, 2nd rd)
It was a 3-2 game with 22 minutes left to play. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect out of this game. Team USA is elite, but Slovakia has all the makings of a team that can steal a medal at this tournament. It was anybody's game at this point…until it wasn't.
Because immediately after that Mesar goal, Team USA went into full blown dick kicking mode. It was pure carnage and destruction from that point forward. Ryan Leonard (WSH '23, 1st rd) scored just 30 seconds later off this nasty feed from Will Smith (SJS '23, 1st rd).
And then Captain America Rutger McGroarty (WPG '22, 1st rd) scored 30 seconds after that to completely demoralize the Slovakians heading into the 2nd intermission.
One moment it was a 1-goal game, then before the Slovakians could even catch their breath this game got blown wide open. The 3rd period was just total domination.
McGroarty finished off his hat trick. Isaac Howard (TBL '22, 1st rd), who got the job done for USA in the shootout against Czechia, added a few more goals to his tournament. And I might be biased as a Flyers fan, but I'd argue that Cutter Gauthier (PHI '22, 1st rd) getting his 1st goal of the tournament might have been the biggest goal of the game. Not because it gave Team USA a 9-2 lead, but getting that monkey off his back is going to be huge heading into the medal rounds. He's been taking about a hundred shots per game, and just needed to see one of them hit the back of the net. Now that's happened, and hopefully the floodgates are opened.
It was a total beatdown against a team that has (or had) expectations to fight for a medal at this tournament. This was the game we were looking to see out of Team USA, and now they set themselves up with a game against Latvia in the quarterfinals. What a win, what a way to close out the group stage, and what a way to close out 2023.