U.S. men out to solve scoring problem vs. Slovakia

GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA » The United States had a goal-scoring problem at the Olympics.

If it lasts much longer, the Americans are going home early.

Only Norway and South Korea scored fewer goals than the four the U.S. put up in three preliminary-round games. Yet only Canada has gotten more shots on net than the United States’ 96 so far, so the goal in the qualification round against Slovakia on Tuesday is to figure out a way to turn opportunities into production.

“We haven’t scored goals, but we’ve a made it hard on teams in their own end,” coach Tony Granato said.

Without the young offensive talent of players like Auston Matthews, Johnny Gaudreau and Shayne Gostisbehere left behind in the NHL, USA Hockey knew this could be a problem after seeing similar high shot and low goal totals from the Deutschland Cup in November. The late general manager, Jim Johannson, brought in college players Ryan Donato, Troy Terry and Jordan Greenway, American Hockey League scoring star Chris Bourque and former power-play specialist James Wisniewski to score and they’ve combined for three of the four goals.

A goal or two a game isn’t going to get it done from this point on. Maybe the U.S. hasn’t gotten many helpful bounces, but at times it hasn’t deserved them.

“We need to make sure we’re getting more pucks to the net and earn our bounces,” defenseman Bobby Sanguinetti said. “It’s a combination (of) screens, the traffic and the secondary speed crashing the net, trying to find those loose pucks.”

Falling into the trap North American teams sometimes do on the wider international ice, the U.S. has taken a lot of harmless shots from far out, many without traffic in front of the net to screen the goaltender. Many goals in this tournament have come on those kinds of shots — deflecting off a body or stick in front — or scrambles around the net.

That’s a talking point for U.S. coaches and players.

“We’ve got to get more bodies to the net, we’ve got to be hungry around the net,” forward Broc Little said.