MILAN (AP) — Mike Sullivan wanted his players to get their blood moving, break out a sweat and adjust to a new time zone with most of them fresh off flying across the Atlantic Ocean. He did not want anyone to read much else in to the first U.S. practice at the Olympics.
Sullivan on Sunday would not name his starting goaltender for the tournament opener and explained that not running forward lines or defense pairings was “by design.” With plenty of time until the puck drops Thursday against Latvia, the two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach is more than content to keep everyone guessing.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Sullivan said. “We have an idea of what we want to start with, and that will start to unfold here over the next couple of days.”
The Americans' biggest strength may be in net. Connor Hellebuyck is the reigning NHL MVP, Jake Oettinger is a tried and true playoff performer and Jeremy Swayman may be having the best season of the three.
Hellebuyck was the No. 1 goalie at the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago, when the U.S. reached the final before losing to Canada in overtime, but it's no sure bet he has the job in Milan.
“At the end of the day, performance will inevitably be the dictator,” Sullivan said. “In a tournament like this, it has to be. And so, we have an idea going in of how we want to go about it and how we want to approach it and we’ll go from there.”
Hellebuyck brushed off any concern about the uncertainty, saying, “We’ll know soon enough.” Swayman sounded excited about the chance to earn a start after not making an appearance at the 4 Nations.
"That’s our job, baby: Make it hard for them," Swayman said. "We want that. We want that high competitive environment, and I think it’s only going to raise our own level as well as the team’s level.”
The U.S. blue line is also stacked, even after losing defenseman Seth Jones to injury. Quinn Hughes, who won the Norris Trophy as the league's top player at the position last season and is thriving since a trade to Minnesota, could easily play with Wild defense partner Brock Faber or Boston's Charlie McAvoy.
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Perhaps the coaching staff decides to keep Hughes and Faber together, at least to begin the preliminary round.
“We may very well do that," Sullivan said. “We’ll see how it goes. We have an idea of what we’re going to do and how we’re going to go about it.”
The intrigue continues up front, where the initial indication was that Jack Eichel would center brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk, with Auston Matthews between Jake Guentzel and Matt Boldy. Tkachuk-Eichel-Tkachuk was arguably the best U.S. line last year in the tournament against Canada, Sweden and Finland.
“If we were to choose to go that route, the appeal would be they were terrific at the 4 Nations event,” Sullivan said. “We have a game plan on what we’re going to do going into this tournament.”
Canada took a different approach, holding a longer practice and rolling out lines that included Connor McDavid centering Macklin Celebrini and Tom Wilson, Sidney Crosby between Mitch Marner and Mark Stone and Nathan MacKinnon with Brad Marchand and Nick Suzuki.
“A lot of preparation went into this about who’s going to play with who and what works and what doesn’t,” coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s never like a situation where you’re pointing a finger saying, ‘Oh, I want to play with this guy.’ Nobody does that. But what helps them? ... Ultimately, you have to start somewhere.”
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