Bad Boys For Life: USA Takes Down Sweden, Finish Up Group Play Undefeated At The 2022 World Juniors
Andy Devlin. Getty Images.Here's the deal--you might not care as much about this iteration of the World Juniors as you would in December. That's fine. Just as long as you understand that nobody gives a shit about what you think.
For the boys? This means everything the same way it would have back in December. It's not their fault Canada got scared of a few sniffles and decided to call the tournament early. It's not their fault the IIHF decided to reschedule the tournament to a point of the year when they knew that nobody would really be watching. This team had a mission to win back-to-back gold medals at this event for the first time in USA Hockey history, had that mission taken away from them in the winter, but were ready to deliver the goods any place and any time.
That time and place is right here (Edmonton) and right now. 4 games to start things off in group play. USA got their tournament underway by laying a 5-1 smackdown on the Germans. Then they played against Switzerland and Austria, and they won those two games by a combined score of 14-1. Good tune up games to get the fellas buzzing and get the offense activated early. But you had to wonder if maybe starting off with 3 cupcakes would be just a few too many empty calories that could hurt them heading into the game against Sweden last night. You didn't have to be worried about it, necessarily, but you at least had to wonder.
Scratch that. Nevermind. No need to worry when you've got Thomas Bordeleau giving a quick shoutout to his mom before opening puck drop. That's how you know the boys are a perfect level of loose before this game even started. They're loose, they're confident, and they're ready to kick your ass. And speaking of Thomas Bordeleau, he set up this 1st goal of the game with a look-off pass down to Brett Berard on the powerplay.
Keeps everybody away from Berard with his eyes, great power move from Berard to go right to the net and puts home the rebound. That's big boy hockey.
Speaking of big boy hockey, let's talk about this piss missile of a shot from Matt Coronato to take the 3-0 lead in the 3rd period.
Holy shit that was a rip. Heavy forecheck, heavy bombs. That's a USA team that just wants it more than the Swedes. Nasty nasty stuff from the gentlemen in Red, White, and Blue.
Sweden would go on to score 2 goals after that, but USA knew they had already done enough to get out of group play with 4 regulation wins. So they locked it up when they needed to the most and got out of there with the W.
If anything, they just wanted the practice on how it would feel to close out a tight game in the final minute. That's going to help them down the road when it comes time to face the Canadians in the gold medal game. So I wouldn't look too much into almost getting pushed to overtime by the Swedes after taking a 3-0 lead in the 3rd. It's all a part of the master plan. I'll see everybody on Wednesday for the quarterfinals.