Turin – The Olympic dry spell has sucked Team USA to the dark, nether regions of its bracket. But one illegal jab by Sweden’s Daniel Sedin caused the American floodgates to groan and bulge Sunday.
U.S. hope floated in a 5-on-3 advantage – the team’s second such edge in five minutes, a rare treat from the hockey gods. They had muffed the first chance. Surely this time, they would break their Italian drought.
On the attack: five Americans who own four Stanley Cups and a combined NHL salary of more than $20 million. Helping protect the goal: three Swedes with zero cups and a combined NHL salary of less than $2 million. One, defensemen Kenny Jonsson, now plays in a Swedish league.
Please put 1 minute and 55 seconds on the clock. Cue the “U-S-A!” chants. And tell the goal judge to keep his thumb on the right light switch.
Team USA jammed the net with Mike Modano, Keith Tkachuk and three fellow snipers who cut and fed, jabbed and slapped. But the precious moment crumbled in the pads of Swedish goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who added to the Americans’ goal thirst by making 24 saves in a 2-1 win.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can score goals in the National Hockey League in that locker room. It’s just that we haven’t done it here,” U.S. coach Peter Laviolette said.
“We had people in the right places, and we had the right people on the ice. We hit (Lundqvist) a few times. He made big saves. We missed the net a few times,” Laviolette said in a reserved tone. “It’s a disappointing loss to us.”
Sweden didn’t even have its best player on the ice. Peter Forsberg, the former Avalanche star who has been bothered by a sore groin, wore his uniform, skated the warm-up and sat on the bench the entire game. He said later the injury “felt great.” But he decided to rest until Tuesday’s game against undefeated Slovakia.
Read into that what you will, Team USA.
“I feel good. No problems,” said Forsberg, who had two assists against Latvia on Friday night. “We decided early I was only going to play one game this week.”
Forsberg dressed in his Team Sweden jersey, he said, so he could share the moment with his team. And from his ice-side perch, Forsberg detected Team USA’s primary emotion: “They were frustrated.”
In four Olympic outings, the United States has accumulated nine goals and one victory. A round-robin finale looms Tuesday against Russia (3-1), which beat Latvia 9-2 on Sunday.
The U.S. squad of NHL players now clings to the fourth spot in a six-team bracket. Only four teams from that group will advance to the quarterfinals. But for the Americans to get bounced before that single-elimination phase, it would take a meltdown of Olympic proportions.
Any tie in the standings will be decided on goal difference. So if Team USA (1-2-1) loses by one goal to Russia, Latvia (0-3-1) would have to beat Kazakhstan (0-4) by 15 on Tuesday to move on and knock out Team USA.
That’s unlikely. But it has come to this: America’s short- term medal hopes now rest with Vitaly Kolesnik, the Avalanche minor-leaguer who stops pucks for Kazakhstan.
Laviolette is thinking about shuffling the lines to juice up the scoring. He wants his players to pass less, shoot more. He wants them to storm the net and clog the goalie’s sight lines.
Those are the plans.
Something has got the change, the coach said.
“And,” U.S. forward Scott Gomez added, “it’s got to happen quickly.”
