2022 World Juniors: USA vs Switzerland Recap

While Team USA eventually rolled to a 7-1 win, the Swiss gave us a tough 1st period, playing much tighter defensively than the Germans, while being quite physical. It ended scoreless, with the US taking the 1st penalty of the game for high sticking, and the Swiss getting called for crosschecking late in the period.

The Swiss killed the remaining 5 sec of the penalty to start the 2nd, but 2 sec later shot the puck over the glass for another penalty. They killed that, but a couple minutes later got called for holding. Near the end of this penalty, the US made them pay. Luke Hughes held the puck in the zone (it got halfway across the blue line), Bordeleau poked it from the corner to almost behind the net, Samoskevich skating past the right side of the net retrieved it and immediately slid a no-look backhand pass to Carter Mazur (Red Wings' 3rd round pick in 2021).

A few minutes later the puck took a weird bounce off the boards near our offensive blue line, got past a couple players, and a Swiss picked it up in the neutral zone and skated in alone, scoring 5-hole. But that was it for the Swiss; they appeared to tire as the period went on. Hughes and Bordeleau assisted on our 2nd goal, Mazur scored our 3rd and assisted on our 4th; Hughes assisted on our 5th, skating from left to right near the blue line, instead of going all the way over, he spun back at the midway point, whipping a wicked wrister which was tipped in front.

After a Swiss slashing penalty early in the 3rd period, Bordeleau scored a PPG for #6, assisted by Hughes & Samoskevich.

Austria is next up at 2PM ET on Saturday, followed by Sweden at 10PM ET Sunday. On NHL Network.