SLOVENIA tops U.S. in men’s hockey. Page 2C.
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The U.S. men’s hockey team did just about everything right for the first 40 minutes of its Olympic opener Wednesday night.
Team USA skated fast, forechecked aggressively, got rock-solid goaltending and scored twice. Coach Tony
Granato couldn’t have asked for more from his team after having only five days of practice together as a group.
Then the third period started and everything fell apart.
Slovenia made a hard push, the Americans played on their heels and a promising night ended in disappointment.
Slovenia’s Jan Mursak tied the game with 97 seconds left in regulation and his goalie pulled, then scored the game winner 38 seconds into overtime to hand Team USA a stunning 3-2 loss in the preliminary round at Kwandong Hockey Center.
“If you don’t play for 60 minutes, you put yourself in a position where you might not win,” Granato said.
That’s precisely what happened. Team USA wasted a solid 40 minutes before playing a sluggish third period. The Americans had repeated breakdowns defensively and Slovenia seized momentum by keeping the pressure on.
The game felt like two different games because of the dramatic shift in momentum.
“It’s an unfortunate outcome and it’s something we’re going to have to get past,” forward Troy Terry said. “But even after that I really like our team. You saw how fast we are and we can make plays. Our issue right now is mostly defensively. We’re all getting used to new systems and all that. But I have no doubt we’re going to get better from here.”