Finland still mum on starting goalie for World Cup of Hockey

The pre-tournament friendlies are over, and Team USA is ready for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. “We have a clear No. 1”, Swedish coach Rickard Gronborg said.

On Tuesday, Tortorella even talked about Quick’s performance against Team Canada in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In other words, they exist so teams can make mistakes, figure out what went wrong and rectify it for the games that count.

Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Ben Bishop, who played the third period in each of Team USA’s previous exhibition games, will back up Quick Tuesday night.

Finland defenseman Sami Lepisto (18) squeezes USA forward Patrick Kane (88) against the boards during the first period of a World Cup of Hockey exhibition game, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Washington. It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if Finland was playing a game of possum. First came the physical, survival-type win against Canada last Friday night, but then Canada returned the favor with an in-your-face – in both physicality and goals – defeat of the United States of America on Saturday night in Ottawa.

“A lot of things can happen in the tournament, but I believe in the body of work from all three goalies”, Tortorella said. Of the three goalies, Schneider has the least amount of global and National Hockey League playoff experience.

Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien even made an impact playing forward, crushing Finnish defenseman Olli Maatta with an open-ice hit.

While this team doesn’t have the same talent deficit as in 1980, John Tortorella is no Herb Brooks and this team will just get beaten one night by a more talented unit.

There’s simply no way the US are going to find themselves on the positive side of blowouts in this tournament, so the ability to find ways to escape these games with wins is all that will matter. “We have had some power plays where we have moved it around good, but it’s still about the finish”.

It very well could be temporary, but it’s an interesting experiment and it’s only an exhibition game anyway. He’s always been tremendous and his playoffs have spoken for itself over the years and over their runs that L.A. has made. However, with Byfuglien moving to the fourth line, the US makes itself a little more dynamic up front. Something USA will have to put out there on the backend, and for more than 10 minutes. And on top of that, if Byfuglien is a better fit at forward, what does that say about the roster construction of this team? Without Byfuglien, it’s not almost as dynamic a group back there. With the focus of the opposition on containing names like Ryan McDonagh and Ryan Suter, this Caps duo has found ways to make ’em pay. The team may have some concerns about Erik Johnson and Jack Johnson together, though. They don’t want to listen to us, they don’t want to go through the practice.

Team USA also has to continually evaluate ways to boost scoring. So many of their scoring chances were one-and-done.

Even if Byfuglien moves back to D, the US has to explore keeping the top nine that they’ll use against Finland as their permanent group. Oshie. “We definitely wouldn’t have won the shootout without him”.

While I see the Americans getting out of the group after opening on Saturday against Team Europe, I don’t see them hoisting the trophy.