USA needs to start by shaking the old Herb Brooks "I'm not looking for the best players..." nonsense. Keith Yandle, Bobby Ryan, Kyle Okposo and Jack Johnson all should have been on that team. Instead, the USA brain trust tried to be too smart for the room, failed, and embarrassed their own players in the process.
There's a time and a place for the "I'm not looking for the best players" approach, but a tournament like the Olympics isn't it. At least not in the modern setting. The team doesn't have months together to train and gel, they have two weeks.
A big part of the problem is that the management and coaching (at least this year) for Team USA doesn't seem to buy into the same philosophy as what's coming up developmentally for the US. Maybe look at some of the top college coaches, they seem to be far more innovative in what they're doing then the outdated thinking of the Bylsma/Burke/Poile crowd. ****, I think even Jim Rutherford would have assembled a better team.
Yes, they obviously were not mentally in the Finland game following a close loss to Canada, and yes they only lost 1-0 to Canada. But watch that Canada game again, Quick's the only reason it was that close, easily could have been 4-0 or 5-0.
I think blaming the GM is a lame move anyway. Aside from one or two players this was the absolute best line-up the team could put on the ice. This is an incredibly hard team to evaluate post-mortem as they started with such promise.
Normally I'm right with you, but I have to disagree on this in a big way. It wasn't just one or two players, there were at least 4 players that should have been there who were denied the chance because of the US's thinking.
Who shouldn't have been:
Brown
Wheeler
Pacioretty
Orpik
replace them with:
Ryan
Saad
Pominville
Yandle
that's a much deeper offensive team and IMO a more competitive team in these Olympics as a result.
Not on defense. Your team winning had almost nothing to do with them wanting it. Your depth is unparalleled. Don't act like Doughty is bad but tries really hard and succeeds. You have all very talented defensemen and players in general. Our 2nd pairing has Brooks Orpik on it. You already won, no need to gloat on every level. These players did want it and if you can't see how depressed their faces were after the game I don't know what to say.
Orpik shouldn't have even made the team, and certainly shouldn't have been getting anywhere close to the ice time he was getting. There was better then an entire Olympic blueline worth of flat out better players left at home in favor of Orpik, and 4 more guys that actually did make the team that got the shaft in terms of playing time in favor of Orpik. But Bylsma gonna Bylsma.
