Subject: USA U-18 Team

It's tied at 0 going into the second.

USA leads 1-0 on a goal by Flores! Assisted by Burks and Welch.

2-0! Goal by Rhoads. Assists by Simon and Burks. The fourth line is contributing today.

Going into the third, the United States somehow leads 2-0 despite the 23-16 shot advantage for Slovakia. Rutherford has been a stone wall.

3-0! Goal by Shorter. Assisted by Milton and Corey.

The United States gives up a power play goal. 3-1. Rutherford's bid for a shutout ends.

4-1! With under two minutes left, Holt scores, assisted by Brownlee and Zehnder. The goalie was still in the net.

The United States beat Slovakia 4-1 today in the first game by a national hockey team from the United States in the top division.

Tactics were pretty much a non-factor. Slovakia actually outshot the United States 40-25, but Jordy Rutherford stood on his head to steal the win. Penalties were even. The lone powerplay goal gave Slovakia their only goal. The United States only won 44.1% of the faceoffs. Slovakia controlled the puck for about 55.6% percent of the game. Slovakia had a significant advantage in personnel, but sufficiently close goaltending and shooting for the United States turned out to be enough to allow for the possibility of the upset.

Looking back a few seasons, one win is enough to guarantee that a team will avoid relegation maybe about 50% of the time. More than 3 points should definitely be enough to secure a trip to the next round, so the United States pretty much just needs to not lose the next two games in regulation.


Looking at the standings, it seems that the United States is currently in second in the division with 3 GD; Russia has 4 GD. Slovakia has -3GD and Spain has -4GD. The goal differentials already heavily favor the United States in any tie that might arise. Overall in the tournament, the United States would be ranked third at this point. Rutherford should be leading the goaltender rankings for now.

Now for some scenarios. The United States clinches the next round by beating Spain, even in overtime. With a loss, the United States should be able to hold onto the GD tiebreaker and would have to get points against Russia. Slovakia will play Russia tomorrow, so even if the United States loses, it will most likely either end up tied with everyone or Slovakia will go into the third game without a win.

Should the United States be lucky enough to advance, I believe the top 3 teams from group 2 and group 3 would play each other. The games between the teams that played each other in the preliminary round will count for the qualifying round. With this in mind, the win against Slovakia will really make a difference should the United States advance since Slovakia is very likely to advance.

Good luck to the other United States national hockey teams! Hopefully the United States U18 National Hockey team can build off of today's performance.

A new article for today from the Serbian PPM magazine about the U18 Top Division World Championships:

ppm.powerplaymanager.com/...

There are interviews from a bunch of the managers of the U18 national hockey teams, including mine. Using google translate, I think a few of my answers might not have translated perfectly (or at least, the translation didn't translate back again to English exactly as I originally wrote the answers).

Fantastic win for the U18 and U20 teams. Not sure what happened with the senior team but I have faith we will reach the playoff rounds there too.

Way to go. Future is bright for team usa

I had a 50-50 shot of either nailing the tactics or being completely beaten on them. Yep, that was fun. Oh well, on to tomorrow.

Is Clinton going to start tomorrow?

The goal was to rest him so he was fresh against Germany and Sweden. Now that we're down 0-1, he may have to play today.

Makes sense. I suppose it should help to play a healthier Clinton in each of the following matches.