It's the day after Team USA absorbed its ass-beating at the World Cup of Hockey, and the salt is flowing.
The U.S. is done for a variety of reasons. Most of all, though, they chose physicality over skill, and it did not work.
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So, Canada beat them, because they were always going to. A few days before that, a hodgepodge of European players beat them first, because that always seemed possible too.
The death knell was on Tuesday, though, when Canada erased a 1-0 U.S. lead in seconds and won a 4-2 game that wasn't as close as it sounded. While all that was going on, Phil Kessel — who should've been on the team from the jump — was chilling.
Just sitting around the house tonight w my dog. Felt like I should be doing something important, but couldn't put my finger on it.
— Phil Kessel (@PKessel81) September 21, 2016
Kessel had surgery on a hand injury shortly after leading the Stanley Cup champs in playoff goals, but if you think the point is moot, you're mistaken. His omission was Team USA's problem in miniature; they passed on skill-first players, like Kessel, for grit-first players who, in sum, were worse at hockey. This was done because of an obsession with beating Team Canada; can't outskill them, so we'd better outgrit them, the thinking went.
The problem is that Canada has too much skill, by a factor of 1,000, to outgrit. In that universe, John Tavares is a third-liner.
Whatever "grit" is, they've got that too. So, yes, with their opponents behind the eight-ball on Tuesday night, they whipped ass. It should've been embarrassing, and may well lead to a necessary sea change in the U.S. team-construction thought process.
Whenever another international tournament goes down — hopefully at the Olympics in 2018 — turn the keys over to guys like Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Brandon Saad, Johnny Gaudreau, Justin Faulk, et al. They either are or will be better than the vast majority of the 2016 roster.
Most of all, stop obsessing over Canada. Build a hockey team that can beat everyone else (or, for this tournament's purpose, anyone else). Then, if you're lucky enough, hope you've closed the talent gap enough to hang with Canada via puck luck and goaltending. That's not a particularly pleasant way to go about things, but it's necessary because, again, the grit-and-hit method didn't work, and won't.
Beyond that, everyone associated with Team USA needs to wear this one on the chin. They stunk, and it's their fault.
From what I could tell, players were not pleased with the Kessel tweet. It was not seen as funny by the guys in the room
— Josh Cooper (@JoshuaCooper) September 21, 2016
Backes said tweets "don’t get lost in the fray and those comments are there and have been read and I think will be remembered."
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) September 21, 2016
David Backes said it's disappointing that former USA players were critical on social media last night. "Distasteful and aggravating"
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) September 21, 2016
As distasteful and aggravating as watching the games, perhaps. Ask Kessel; he'd know.