Milan– matthew tkachuk Emphasizing that he and his American teammates were only focused on defeating Germany in the preliminary round final and never worried about scoring enough goals to knock off Canada for the top seed at the Olympics.
“We never once talked about the top seed,” Tkachuk said. “Nothing about that seedy thing. That takes care of itself.”
On Sunday, with the help of two goals and the help of the captain, America defeated Germany 5-1, after which it has now been taken care of. auston matthews and saves from 23 connor hellebuyck. The Americans finished group play undefeated to clinch the second seed in the knockout round.
“The confidence within our group continues to grow,” Matthews said. “Each game, I think we’ve taken steps in the right direction to step up our game going into the quarterfinals and it’s good to see.”
Canada defeated France 10–2 in such a blowout that the United States had to score and defeat Germany by 10 goals to clinch the tournament favorite spot. North American rivals cannot reach the gold medal game.
They have to reach there first. The U.S. is set to play the winner of Tuesday’s qualification round game between Sweden and Latvia, while Canada will play either Czechia or Denmark in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
Sweden, the only European team at the Olympics with a full roster of NHL players, won two of its three preliminary round games and dropped to seventh place only due to a goal difference tiebreaker.
“A super-skilled team, a lot of the guys we’ve seen throughout the NHL season,” the defenseman said. Zach WerenskiWhose goal was set by Mathews. “They have a lot of talent on their team, and we know it was a tough game last year in the 4 Nations. I expect the same in the quarters if that’s who we’re playing against.”
This could be quite a tough test for the US, which has faced Latvia, Denmark and Germany so far.
The game against Germany was a chance for the Americans to improve their game before heading into the tournament’s single-elimination playoff. Tkachuk had two assists and Matthews, captain as he was in the 4 Nations face-off a year ago, had his best performance of the tournament.
Hellebuyck also played well in his second start, allowing only one goal. Tim Stutzle. After poor performance, America got the goal that was expected from it jeremy swayman 24 hours ago.
“I thought it was his best game,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I thought he was tracking the puck very well.”
