i have to admit that when i saw roster of team usa, i was laught .. and think it is a shitty roster. I expected bigger names but the way how they play how good is this team and how they look on the ice is really beautifull and i hope this team can make gold medal,, lets go USA !
USAH fans, myself heavily included, often overreact to the actual roster because we are endlessly frustrated by the endless declined invites from all of our best players. Our acceptance rate is still pathetic, and it negatively affects our objective assessment of the actual team.
A few of us did point out that even with all the declined invites, they clearly built a roster with an intentional identity - young, fast, quick, pesky, and skilled. They avoided what a lot of the prior management staff did in taking 4th line plugs (i.e., Austin Watson) that aren't a fit for international play. But it's one thing to build an identity on paper and it's another for that identity to be realized. We have had other rosters that should have performed better here - either because they had a good amount of talent, a strong identity, or both - and it didn't pan out.
It gets less attention by fans of Team USA or Canada but the biggest issue the NA teams face isn't that we struggle to get our players to show up (although it's a huge issue, too), but that we don't really prepare for the tournament. We show up a couple of days before the tournament, practice a couple of times, get in 1 exhibition, and then start. Most of the European teams are putting in a ton of preparation for the tournament. Preparation, or the lack thereof, obviously doesn't guarantee team identity or chemistry, but it gives one more insight. US fans just see the roster and think of the 30/40/50+ players who were asked and didn't want to play, have no idea whether the team will actually play with any identity, and thus just wish we had more of our top players show up so we could fall back on elite talent if a team identity isn't realized.
