With World Cup of Hockey training camps set to open next week in North America and Europe, let’s catch up on what’s been happening over the course of the summer with each of the eight competing teams.
Today: Team USA
Training camp sites: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Sept. 5-9; Verizon Center, Washington D.C., Sept. 11-13.
Summer headlines:
•Lombardi wants U.S. World Cup team to win like it’s 1996
•Lightning’s Callahan out five months following hip surgery
•Team USA replaces Callahan with Palmieri for World Cup
Team captain: TBD
Assistant captains: TBD
Front-office refresher:
GM: Dean Lombardi
Head coach: John Tortorella
Other Staff: Paul Holmgren, Brian Burke, Jim Johannson (management group); Mike Sullivan, John Hynes, Phil Housley, Jack Capuano, Scott Gordon (assistant coaches).
Injury concerns:
Kyle Palmieri was added to the roster to replace Ryan Callahan, who had summer hip surgery.
Phil Kessel was not added to the original Team USA roster, which raised some eyebrows as he went on to finish fourth in playoff scoring with 22 points. It turns out that Kessel required hand surgery this summer, and likely would have not been ready to play anyway—an injury that could have been at the root of his exclusion in the first place.
Goalie Ben Bishop (strained ankle ligaments) is ready to go.
Zach Parise missed his club’s short playoff run with a back injury. He opted out of surgery and is expected to be ready.
Ryan McDonagh’s hand injury hampered him in the playoffs, but he’s healthy too.
This is a huge tournament for many Team USA players who are in the twilights of their international careers, at a time where the pace of play threatens to expose the legs of some American veterans.
There are 14 players on this roster from the Sochi Olympics, where the Americans were shelled 5-0 by Finland in the bronze medal game. Two years later, this roster still contains three Top-10 scorers from the last NHL season — Patrick Kane, Blake Wheeler, Joe Pavelski — but the United States will be looking for the jam and competitiveness to grind their way through an easier pool with Canada, Czech Republic and Team Europe.
Kane will be counted on here to produce offensively, as goals could be an issue.
They’ll count on the checking skills of Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Kesler to slow down some more high-scoring opponents, and Team USA will grind away and hit their way to victory. That is, assuming these players have that style of hockey in them at this time of year.
Key storylines entering camp:
1. Who Plays Goal?
With Jonathan Quick, Cory Schneider and Ben Bishop, no one has better depth in goal than this team. But, it can also be said that nobody has a tougher decision to make on whom to play.
Quick has the best pedigree, but he was average in a playoff loss to San Jose last spring, missed the playoffs the year before that, and wasn’t very good in that bronze medal loss to Finland. Bishop lost his job in Tampa Bay when he was injured during the playoffs but has the most recent big-game experience, and Schneider is also coming off of surgery to correct a core muscle problem after missing the playoffs with New Jersey.
“Surgery pushed me back a little, but honestly I think having the World Cup sooner was a good thing because once I was cleared and felt good to go, I started pushing pretty hard,” Schneider told NHL.com. “Not only to test the groin and make sure it’s where it needed to be and (that) we didn’t need to do anything else, but to get ready for the World Cup, too.”
Has head coach John Tortorella picked his starter before the tournament begins? Or, with three exhibition games, might each netminder get an exhibition start?
2. Blue-line Blues?
There are some very good players on this Team USA blue-line, but it doesn’t stack up to what the Canadians and the Swedes are icing. Not even close.
McDonagh knows he has to up his own game, after a first-round playoff exit to Pittsburgh in which he was not enamoured with his own play.
“I want to get back (to) where I was a couple of years ago, where I was a difference-maker consistently,” McDonagh told ESPN.com. “It can’t just happen once every three, four games. It has to happen every game. Get that motto and get that confidence going through our team and get everybody rallying together.”
3. The Process
NHLers typically aren’t accustomed to playing at this level of intensity so early in the hockey calendar. Team USA plays back-to-back games versus Canada to open their exhibition schedule, and with only 23 players on the roster, all but three players will play both games — something that would never happen at their regular NHL training camps.
“Canada-U.S.? I don’t think that’s going to be an ease-in process,” Bishop told ESPN this summer. “Exhibition games are going to be a little more intense, especially for goalies who like to slowly get into it. My first game could be against Team Canada, but after practicing for a week and some intra-squad scrimmages, I’m sure I’ll be ready.”
4. The question of captain
Although Team USA has yet to officially name its captains, it is believed Joe Pavelski will get the ‘C’ on his jersey. That marks a subtle changing of the guard in American hockey, and some will question why the annual highest scoring American-born player — Patrick Kane — was not named as captain.
At the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Parise was captain, while Ryan Suter and Dustin Brown served as alternates. Brown isn’t even on this roster, and if Pavelski vaults past Parise and Suter to take over the captaincy, will that cause ripples? Also, how can your most productive player not even get a letter? Unless, that is, Kane’s off-ice foibles are at the root of that decision.
5. Changing of the guard
For players like David Backes, Suter, and Ryan Kesler — who are closer to the end of their international careers than the beginning — this could be a last hurrah, especially with young stars like Johnny Gaudreau, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews and Jacob Trouba on their way up in national team ranks. (Of course, those four youngsters will be suiting up for Team North America at this tournament.) All of this under the tough task master John Tortorella, who always brings plenty of drama to the table. Could be fun.
Exhibition/Preliminary round schedule:
**Friday, Sept. 9 vs. Team Canada at Columbus
**Saturday, Sept. 10 vs. Team Canada at Ottawa
**Tuesday, Sept. 13 vs. Team Finland at Washington
Saturday, Sept. 17 vs. Europe
Tuesday, Sept. 20 vs. Canada
Thursday, Sept. 22 vs. Czech Republic
**Exhibition
