US upsets Russia to advance to IIHF WC Semis - Trouba scores
Jacob Trouba scored to help USA defeat defending champion Russia 8-3 today to advance to the seminfinals of the IIHF World Championship. Guess who played in net for the US: John Gibson. If only...
Other Michigan players of note on the US roster: Matt Hunwick, David Moss, and Aaron Palushaj. Hunwick and Moss have been two of the better players for USA. Moss is playing on the 1st line with Paul Stasny, and Hunwick is in the 2nd D pair with Erik Johnson.
Team USA will play Switzerland on Saturday for the opportunity to advance to the Gold Medal Game for the 1st time since 1960.
It was his first and only game. Ovechkin had a goal and an assist.
Honestly, given the mostly no-name roster Russia brought to the tournament, I can't say I didn't expect the US to be able to pull this off. Russia lost to France(!!) earlier, so this clearly isn't the powerhouse team they fielded last year. 8-3 - now that's surprising.
but the core of the roster is about the same as last year. And this year Russia had Kovalchuk. After Canada, Russia had probably the most talented roster.
have you seen the US roster? There is a dude I have never heard of and have already forgotten his name... he is a 10 year pro and has about a dozen NHL games to his credit.
And the never to be mentioned Goalie is 19 and has ZERO NHL games... and his 1 pro game in the AHL was 40 minutes with 3 goals against.
We do have a couple good players, but the majority are no name dudes (Who are obviously playing very well).
We have a roster of almost entirely NHLers; Russia does not.
Let's go USA!!! Of course this tournament doesn't feature the best players, but it is great to see the US having success in both the amateur and professional world tourneys. Definitely some good young talent out there.
Can't wait until Sochi when we take the gold from Canada!
U-S-A! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!!
Winning two gold medals in the same hockey season would be a pretty cool thing to do. I'm guessing there may have been some wunderkind from the old USSR days who might have done it, but with such little regard given to the World Championship on the senior level in North America I can't imagine anyone having done it from this side of the pond.
and any of the other (similarly aged) USSR players in at least 1978 did it, as did Sakic and Canada in 1994 (at least, I didn't check back further than that team). No American could have done it, since the USA hasn't won an IIHF World Championship since 1960 and the World Junior's didn't start up until 1978.
was in the NHL in 1994...his WJC days were well behind him by
then...what two international tournaments did Canada win that year with him on the squad?
That was his IIHF Word Championship title, and I hadn't even considered that he would be older than 19 since I started by looking at another table...Long story, but anyway, anyone on Canada's roster for both tournaments would have won both, but obviously Sakic wouldn't have been on both rosters.
To atone with some more, anyone on both Czech Republic's rosters in 2001 would have it. Same with 1989 USSR and 1978 and 1979 USSR. 1997 Canada would also fit the bill.