USA recovers from Auschwitz

08 May 2015Petr Polák»

Before the game against Belarus, a part of Team USA made a trip to the concentration camp Auschwitz. Probably they were so shocked out, that firstly they lost to Belarus 2-5 and just one day later had a lot of problems to beat Denmark.

The only possitive on American`s play could be found from the Game Report`s field which gathers shots on goals, only. Towards Denmark`s starting goalie Sebastian Dahm, the Stars and Stripes sent 41 shots, which can be considered an impressive number, what is worse is the fact that the only one eneded in the net, making Dahm a hero of the night.

It proved to be a working tactics for Danes to concentrate on defensive only, with possibility of occassional breaks. All five Denmark players on the ice were accessing their American opponents very tight, making them the play feeling like hell. After all, majority of the fourty-one shots by USA were from quite a distance and well visible to Dahm.

Needless to admit, several of U.S. actions were very smart and also the goal-construction helped to Dahm keep his statistics that well (97.6%), still you would expect much more from Team USA.

After all, as the game`s only goal-situation from the game will be archived in the books the clever action by Brock Nelson. Nelson used the confusion in front of Denmark`s goalie after his own slapshot. A representative of the NHL`s New York Islanders shot on Dahm, skated down to his crease to steal the puck, did a wraparound his net and using Dahm`s momental inflexibility, put the puck into the empty net from its other side.

But later, when Denmark realized USA is the opponent to play against tonight, they started performing offensive invasions more often, which culminated in Denmark`s empty net play with six men on the ice, late in the third period.

However as they were unable to beat Connor Hellebuyck in America`s goal, the final score kept to be 1-0, making Team USA the Group`s leader with 12p and two-points lead above Belarus, which eventually is missing one game to play, compared to USA.

Denmark stays the second last in Group B, looking forward to game against Norway on Mai 9, which with the highest probability will determine which team is going to be relegated to Division One of the 2016 World Championship.