Tema: USA U-18 Team

The United States managed to beat Canada 2-1 to move to the semifinals of the top division for only the second time. The United States has never moved onto the finals or even won the third place game before.

The game was a bit stressful since even though penalties were about even, Canada managed to take a lot more shots on their powerplay and scored their only goal on the powerplay. They regularly took 1-3 shots on the powerplay while the U.S. took no powerplay shots (while giving up a few shorthanded shots).

Hirsch had his 3rd strong game in a row to ensure the win. In fact, for a goaltender that was relatively weak on paper, he's given up 0 goals twice and 1 goal twice in 4 games (the outlier being 3 goals, which still isn't too bad). It helps that the one U.S. strength relative to most other teams is defense.

Now that I have the game summary, it looks like Canada actually outshot the U.S. in the 2nd period, 3rd period, and overall. They also dominated in the faceoff circle. Luckily, the United States won on tactics for all three periods.

Raleigh Orr (Microbrasseurs from Canada/Sierra Stars) and Zack Sloan (Puxina from Czech Republic/Sticky Toads) scored for the U.S. Hirsch gave up 1 goal on 34 shots.

Tomorrow's match will be against Slovakia. Hungary will play France on the other side. Slovakia will probably win tomorrow, but upsets do happen fairly often in the U18 level, especially if a tactics advantages can be obtained.

Keep her rollin Cap!

Wow, good luck today!

The United States lost 1-2 today in a shootout. The U.S. came about as close as it could in a game where the U.S. was a major underdog. Slovakia outshot the U.S. 37-26 and won 58.7% of the faceoffs. Slovakia actually took more penalties (6-4), but the powerplay continued to struggle to produce. Slovakia had a slight advantage in offensive zone time.

Robert Deshano (les castors from France/Sticky Toads) opened up the scoring with a goal at 6:31 in the first period with assists from Vern Schulte (Medvescak 1983) Charles Baumgarten (Momentum/Smart People). Slovakia tied the game at 16:57 in the first period, and that was the end of scoring in regulation and overtime. In the shootout, nobody scored until the end of third round when Slovakia finally scored a goal. Despite the loss, Hirsch had another surprising strong game (he's currently available on the market by the way since I already have better prospects and just wanted to make sure he had good training; the backup and next season's starter is also available).

This isn't the end of the tournament for the United States. Tomorrow the U.S. will have a rematch against France to try to earn a medal for the first time. Hungary and Slovakia will play for the title.

I wish bad teams wouldn't bid on national team prospects.

I'm with you there! Has a way of screwing up their development! Doesn't help the buying team either!! They can see the possibilities, but don;t have the facilities or staff to make it happen!

The United States lost today and failed to get a medal. Honestly, France, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are all a step above the competition, and I didn't expect a win (especially with this season's team) barring luck with the RNG. It was lucky to even get into the semifinals, and we already had our lucky match yesterday when we were a few coinflips away from moving onto the finals against the Slovakian team that ultimately won the tournament.

Our 2nd best player would be the 19th best player on the French team. Of our lines, only the first line defense would currently be good enough to make the top 4 lines on the French team. We were also at a 190-113 disadvantage in goaltending.

My only goal going into this tournament was to make the qualifying round and avoid relegation since this season's team was relatively weak. The starting goaltender, Hirsch, still doesn't have 1,000 OR (and he was the only 18 year old goaltender good enough to make the team). The goaltending this season might be the worst I've ever had to work with on paper (though outside of the last game, Hirsch's performance has been among the best). From there, I saw an opportunity to sneak into the playoffs with some luck. The game against Finland didn't go well, but having the Czech Republic scheduled after they clinched the playoffs and decided to rest made up for that. We were lucky that we got a favorable matchup in the first round (Canada was preferable to Hungary or Slovakia, though they were still a challenging opponent that would have won more often than not, especially without the tactics victory we obtained).

This season's performance should help the U.S. to start to move back up in the rankings a little after a bad season 34 and season 35. It'll take 1-2 more seasons of respectable performances to really recover.

Going into next season, the team should be a little stronger. Next season's starting goaltender, Lester Bunek, will be much more reliable on paper. Ross Boudreau is going to be one of the best players in the tournament. The defense will be strong once again. I'm a little worried about offensive depth at center and right wing.

*left wing

I will go through my scouting information and update the roster by the 3rd or 4th. Before I get to that, I was helping with scouting for the new managers of the other national teams. I'm finished with the Senior NT and will work on the scouting information for the U20 NT tonight (this should be a lot quicker).

I'm finished with the U20 NT Scouting and will finally be going through the U18 players today. I should be able to finish by tomorrow.

I've added the new players for season 38.

I've already talked about this season's team, and not much has changed now that the lineup is finalized. The team should be good enough to be competitive. 6 17 year old players including the entire first line for next season are good enough to play this season. 6 more will sit on the bench for the exhibitions and collect the training bonus. Overall, 12-14/22 of next season's roster will be called up for this season (two other 17 year olds may end up being called up depending on whether 2 18 year olds improve enough; I'd rather the 18 year olds improve though).

The team coming in 2 seasons from now looks like one of the deepest ones in a while as long as all the key players develop well and stay with good teams.

The lineup is set for the World Championships which start tomorrow. Unfortunately, the second best defenseman on the team is out for 9 days and will have to be left off the roster.

The first game will be against the Czech Republic, followed by matches against Finland and Brazil.

The United States is admittedly the underdog in the division, but I'll see what I can do to avoid relegation. On the brighter side, 7 of the starters and 4 of the players on the bench are 17 years old and will go into next season with a headstart on chemistry.

Maybe I should just rest against the Czech Republic since it is very unlikely that we will win today. That would help win over the next two days and avoid relegation.