IIHF 2015 USA Earns Bronze

The United States IIHF team came back from a bitter defeat against Russia on Saturday to capture bronze.  They beat the Czech Republic 3-0 on Sunday in Prague.

Although the gold medal seemed within reach, this is a squad that still overperformed and surprised a few.  More than a third of the team has never played an NHL game.

Congrats to the team for a great showing.

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Though the Americans would have preferred gold — something they haven’t won at the World Championship since 1933, excluding Olympic golds in 1960 and 1980 — the fact that this team won a medal at all is pretty incredible.

Five players on the roster were in college hockey this season, including 18-year-olds Eichel and Dylan Larkin, a Detroit Red Wings first-round pick. Two were in the KHL. The No. 1 and No. 2 goaltenders were both in the AHL. The players that wanted to be there showed up and competed.

Outside of one bad period against Russia and a stunning preliminary round loss to Belarus, this team performed extremely well. They won Group B in the preliminary round, with wins over Finland and Russia, both with star goaltenders Pekka Rinne and Sergei Bobrovsky in net, respectively. They also beat a solid Swiss team in the quarterfinal and hung with the Russians for two periods before it all fell apart in the third in the semifinal. All told, this was a successful tournament by a group no one expected to do much of anything.

New York Islanders forward Brock Nelson led Team USA with 10 points, while Lewis finished with nine and Eichel finished with seven.

The U.S. record in this tournament has been extremely poor, unfortunately. As evidenced by this roster, a lot of available U.S. stars didn’t show up, and that has been an ongoing problem for years. Bringing people that want to be there can go a long way as young players stepped up to win a medal.

Photo courtesy of RicLaf.