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WJC: 2023 Team USA Roster Talk

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Game one thoughts….so It almost doesn’t matter. Long way to go.

I know they kept talking about how well Cooley finds open areas but I was struck today by our inability to get position and get visible for a pass. We were always behind.

The team doesn’t seem to lack confidence. That’s good….right? Lol.
 
No issues with the first game. Pretty much dominant last two periods beside that egregious effort by Hughes and a screened shot from the blue line. Swiss game is sure to be infuriating, but hopefully they can score first and make the Swiss open their game plan up leading to more chances off the rush etc
 
Only the top two from each group should make it through. The group stage feels like a waste of time to me for the most part.
 
Bonin21 said:
Only the top two from each group should make it through. The group stage feels like a waste of time to me for the most part.
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When Russia was in the tournament every year a top team was going out in the QF. The group stage absolutely isn't a waste of time. Even this year with a number of upsets if teams don't take care of business there is potential for a pretty tough quarter final matchup. Count me as someone that thinks only taking 2 teams from each group would completely gut the tournament.
 
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Mathieukferland said:
It’s a shame Ray Ferraro can’t occupy his position now that he’s in the USA full time
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Disagree 1000%.

Starman or someone like Adam Wodon or Mike Morreale are far more familiar with US college hockey (where the bulk of this team plays) and the USA prospect pool overall.

Ferraro and Gord Miller are basically cheerleaders for Canada's team.

Why would you want them doing USA games?
 
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Jersey Fan 12 said:
Disagree 1000%.

Starman or someone like Adam Wodon or Mike Morreale are far more familiar with US college hockey (where the bulk of this team plays) and the USA prospect pool overall.

Ferraro and Gord Miller are basically cheerleaders for Canada's team.

Why would you want them doing USA games?
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To be fair, if Ferraro started doing games for a USA network then he would approach it differently and become a USA cheerleader. He probably has the best technical analysis of any hockey analyst I've ever watched, though I agree that Starman's familiarity with college hockey is an important pre-requisite.
 
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TheBeastCoast said:
When Russia was in the tournament every year a top team was going out in the QF. The group stage absolutely isn't a waste of time. Even this year with a number of upsets if teams don't take care of business there is potential for a pretty tough quarter final matchup. Count me as someone that thinks only taking 2 teams from each group would completely gut the tournament.
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Agreed, the group stage isn't a waste at all. Although I wish they'd find a way to make the games more competitive, especially for the lower tier teams. Maybe something like a set up where the top 6 in the rankings (i.e., US, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Czechia, Russia) are all in one group, and play each other for QF seeding. That would be competitive and a bar burner each tournament. And then in another group you have the remaining teams (i.e., Latvia, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia) play each other for 2 QF spots where the games would be more competitive. The teams battling relegation don't benefit from being shellacked by double digits, but they would benefit from playing competitive games where they can still advance to the QFs to face top competition when their team is doing well.

You'd have to figure out some things like maybe make both groups 6 teams, how the QF seeding would work, etc. but it would set up more competitive games.
 
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I disagree. There used to be way more games where big five completely destroyed their opponents. Many smaller hockey nations have improved a country mile in the past ten years.
 
2 games in a row the staff and players aren't ready to play. That's a concern.

Mbereko looks like Mbereko, which isn't good. Hutson played that so soft but that's a weak goal. Mbereko is really poor stopping the puck on net front scrambles.

Starman in classic form thinking Boucher plays for Boston College.
 
Is Brock faber not on this roster? Or is he not eligible? Sorry im new to all of this. Thanks in advance.
 
William H Bonney said:
Agreed, the group stage isn't a waste at all. Although I wish they'd find a way to make the games more competitive, especially for the lower tier teams. Maybe something like a set up where the top 6 in the rankings (i.e., US, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Czechia, Russia) are all in one group, and play each other for QF seeding. That would be competitive and a bar burner each tournament. And then in another group you have the remaining teams (i.e., Latvia, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia) play each other for 2 QF spots where the games would be more competitive. The teams battling relegation don't benefit from being shellacked by double digits, but they would benefit from playing competitive games where they can still advance to the QFs to face top competition when their team is doing well.

You'd have to figure out some things like maybe make both groups 6 teams, how the QF seeding would work, etc. but it would set up more competitive games.
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The Swedish-Germany game was 1-0, Switzerland beat Finland in 3-2 in OT and Latvia had respectable 5-2 loss to the US.

I don’t see how this is less competitive even with Austria unfortunately getting curbed stomped in every game. That happens with the worst team, they’ll get demoted.

This is still a tournament for teen amateurs, the round robin is not meant to be a challenging as the later rounds. I don’t see the logic of lesser teams getting to go to the quarterfinals by beating weaker teams either.
 
Guttersniped said:
The Swedish-Germany game was 1-0, Switzerland beat Finland in 3-2 in OT and Latvia had respectable 5-2 loss to the US.

I don’t see how this is less competitive even with Austria unfortunately getting curbed stomped in every game. That happens with the worst team, they’ll get demoted.

This is still a tournament for teen amateurs, the round robin is not meant to be a challenging as the later rounds. I don’t see the logic of lesser teams getting to go to the quarterfinals by beating weaker teams either.
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Also with Austria due to Covid they are still in this tournament when in a Covidless world they are likely relegated two years ago and maybe we have a slightly more competitive group entering the tournament(whoever that may be) but the group that brought Austria up to the main tournament has long since aged out.
 
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Guttersniped said:
The Swedish-Germany game was 1-0, Switzerland beat Finland in 3-2 in OT and Latvia had respectable 5-2 loss to the US.

I don’t see how this is less competitive even with Austria unfortunately getting curbed stomped in every game. That happens with the worst team, they’ll get demoted.

This is still a tournament for teen amateurs, the round robin is not meant to be a challenging as the later rounds. I don’t see the logic of lesser teams getting to go to the quarterfinals by beating weaker teams either.
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I could cherry pick results the opposite way, too. I'm not saying the current format is bad, it's not. The logic would be giving them something to play for while playing in more competitive games. You wouldn't end up with more of the lower tier teams making the QFs than you already get in the current format.
 
William H Bonney said:
I could cherry pick results the opposite way, too. I'm not saying the current format is bad, it's not. The logic would be giving them something to play for. You wouldn't end up with more of the lower tier teams making the QFs than you already get in the current format.
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I am sure you already know this but the Womens world championship runs the tournament format you mentioned. Two groups of 5 with the top 5 in one group bottom 5 in the other play within your group. All 5 in Group A make it to the quarters and 1-3 in Group B make it as the 6-8 seeds. So in a world where Russia hasn't been banished you would be looking at a Group A of Canada-USA-Sweden-Finland-Russia. Would be an absolute meat grinder to say the least but lots of great hockey as well. I think it is atleast worthy a discussion even if I don't dislike the current format.
 
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William H Bonney said:
I could cherry pick results the opposite way, too. I'm not saying the current format is bad, it's not. The logic would be giving them something to play for while playing in more competitive games. You wouldn't end up with more of the lower tier teams making the QFs than you already get in the current format.
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The blow outs happen every year, there isn’t a year that it doesn’t happen. I don’t see them as bad though.

The weakest teams that fought to get promoted have already beaten lower tier groups and they can do it again if/when they get demoted.

There are countries that have made progress, Germany and Latvia are having their best success ever. This Czech team is formidable.

There isn’t parity but that isn’t some terrible problem to be solved and isolating the top teams from the rest isn’t even a good solution.

This tournament isn’t just for tv viewers, it isn’t about making a tough gauntlet with the top teams only playing each other.
 
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