Assunto: US National Team

He's been great for me too. Can't complain.

But I'm also pleasantly surprised that Vincent Ferguson is our top line LD. These guys, including Freddy Lee, have been my core players. Add to that Waldo Gould, who seems to never lose that last bit of career longevity and I can't be happier.

Disappointing loss today, 3-0 to Romania. Penalties were a big problem in the third. Though we never gave up a powerplay goal, the time with our guys in the sin bin hurt our chances in the opponent's zone. Both goalies played well today, with Davidson filling in for Clinton in the third after Clinton gave up 2 goals in the second.

We have now played 2 teams that are notably better than us on paper. We have a record of 1-1 with a 0 goal differential to show for it. We're currently in the middle of the pack and we knew we were underdogs coming in. 3 games left and another win could make a huge difference.

I chose Offensive trying to counter what I expected UK to play and they spanked us nearly as badly as they did in our friendly. The tactics choice was mine and I own that. Apparently a score of 7-4 is just in the cards for the US today. Unfortunately, we were not on the right side of that drubbing like our U18 team. The good news is that I see something that's not working for us in period 3 that can easily be changed.

We're in a slightly bigger hole than we were hoping for at this point. Tomorrow's game against Belarus is important. Our friendly games against them were both losses, but hopefully we can change that when it counts.

Clinton sucks. Let's trade him.

Agreed. Let's ship him out of town like Ryan Miller and start the rebuild. Stock up on draft picks!

i trade him. i send you all my 25+ year old players for him.

Just in time for the first draft!

I started watching today's game near the end of the third period because it was more interesting than work. I almost audibly cheered when Dexter scored the go-ahead goal with under 4 minutes to play. I also nearly swore out loud when Belarus pulled their goalie and tied it up with 49 seconds left. My phone may have been slightly airborne when we lost in overtime. At any rate, our boys got the memo that there are actually three periods in hockey and decided to show up for all of them. We forgot to mention overtime was a possibility in that memo. Sorry.

Although we wanted the win, stealing a point from Belarus was a BIG boost for us. We're still 5th in the bracket, but we're only 2 points behind Belarus and Slovenia. What does this mean for us? We play Norway tomorrow, who has been playing EVERY game on very low. They're already the weakest team in the bracket. Unless they decide to turn the afterburners on suddenly, we should be able to come away with the W. If Belarus or Slovenia loses and we win, we break top 4 in the bracket. If either of them loses in overtime and we win, we could break top 4 on goal differential. In other words, we're not out of the playoffs yet.

Too bad about today's game. I think that it will probably be necessary to win in regulation to have a good chance. It sounds like Norway accepted that it wouldn't have a chance and decided to conserve energy for the relegation round (though any points it loses against the 5th place team will count towards the relegation round). The only problem is that the top 2 teams may decided to conserve energy unless they are worried about matchups. Norway might also try to win tomorrow if it sees tomorrow's game as game 1 of the relegation round.

Yes, we need to win in regulation. I hadn't mentioned the possibility of UK or Romania conserving energy on the off chance that they read this thread. That's probably what I'd do if I were them and I didn't want to give them any ideas that would hose us.

I think that most managers should be changing tactics and weighing tactic changes before every game. If someone is diligent enough to go around to threads for other countries, including countries they are not even playing, then they probably already took the time to weigh different tactic changes. I suppose that someone from Canada might think to look for this thread, but that's about it, and Canada is going to go all out to hold onto its position anyway.

What players from the U20 team do you think have a chance of making the Senior team in the future?

Do any more 21 year olds have a chance? Dre Thibodeau and Neo Matthews are definitely not surprises, though Rodger Baker is a little bit of his surprise, despite the insane potential he's had.

I think that the current class of 20 year old is on of the the better classes in a while.

It seems that Earl Barrett was lost with the High Hitterz, though Ulberto Brewer has passed him on the depth chart anyway.

Lester Roberson is the same as Earl Barrett due to the better depth available.

Burke, Davis, and Hill are still available if more depth is ever needed on defense.

The LW depth that year was pretty bad, though Witherspoon seems to have developed into a solid LW anyway.

Rod Luke is avilable at RW.

I think that at the very least, Haus should absolutely be considered. He was by far the best defenseman of his class.

Warren also continues to have a great OR for his age, though it is somewhat distorted.

Ditto for Cardwell, though he may not have been quite as good as Thibodeaux or Lance.

Robertson doesn't have the highest OR for his age, but he's always had the potential to be one of the best players.

The same goes for Fellows and Staton. The Staton-Fellows-Robertson line is a great line. Hopefully the game engine gives them a chance to produce more in the upcoming games.

Mack Gaudreau, originally from the Big Juicy Tacos, was definitely a great find. I don't know if he has senior team potential though.

Bolin was the other member of the Cardwell-Warren line and deserves at least some consideration.

Gallant is turning out well on defense. Initially he was trained badly at 1:1:1:1:1, so he has come a long way.

It looks like Argentina and Bulgaria are the most likely opponents if the United States falls into the relegation round. Both are beatable but not a walk in the park. If it manages to succeed today, then Italy would probably be the opponent in the first round of the playoffs. They seem to have an insane goaltender.

In any case, good luck today!