Make Room For Team USA In Olympic Medal Discussions
The United States Olympic team likely won’t be favoured to win a medal in Vancouver. The powerhouse Canadians, Russians, and Swedes will enter the tournament as top dogs, whereas the American team is widely thought to be in a rebuilding phase.
But watch out, because Brian Burke and Ron Wilson have a plan — the Americans might just surprise the world.
Beyond Burke and Wilson is an American boy who happens to be the league’s best netminder. Yes, Ryan Miller has been stealing games all season for the Sabres in front of an adequate group of defenders and he’ll be plenty able to continue that trend in Vancouver.
The Canadians may be gulping already. The majority of pre-Olympic talk in Canada has emphasized scoring, as the 2006 Canadian squad did virtually none of it.
Goaltending is the only area in which the United States is tops, but the Americans will be competitive in other areas. Their group of defensemen, while not star studded, are more than capable. As for the forward group, it should be the typical top-6/bottom-6 group that Burke often advertises.
Brian Rafalski will anchor the defense, having done so on competitive New Jersey teams and sharing the top pairing with Nicklas Lidstrom in Detroit most recently. Beyond Rafalski, we’d go with the group of Ryan Suter, Erik Johnson, Paul Martin, Tim Gleason, Jack Johnson and Mike Komisarek. Not a lot of star power in this group, but they’re all more than capable defenders. And it’s a far better collection of defensemen than Ryan Miller is used to playing behind.
The Americans will have a talented group up front, with a potential top line of Zach Parise, Paul Stastny and Patrick Kane. Phil Kessel and Ryan Malone will likely play wing on the other scoring line, with one of Joe Pavelski or Tim Connolly up the middle.
The bottom-6 will be full of sparkplug, character players like Selke nominee Ryan Kesler, hitting machine Dustin Brown, and New Jersey Devils captain Jamie Langenbrunner. Expect some combination of Bobby Ryan, Mike Modano, Brian Gionta, David Backes, Ryan Callahan, Scott Gomez, Brian Rolston and Jason Blake to fill out the forward unit.
Ryan Miller aside, having three game-breaking talents in Parise, Kessel and Kane will make the U.S. a threat to win each and every game, no matter who the opposition.
Sweden won the Gold in 2006, and who did they defeat? The Finns. Were they supposed to win Silver? No chance. Were the Canadians supposed to finish well out of medal contention? You get the picture. The Olympic tournament isn’t played on paper, so while the Canadians have enough depth to win gold with Team Canada II, an inspired American team could have the pieces in place to reprise 1980.
