MILAN — Sweden is looming for the United States, which appears likely to face one of the tournament’s best teams in a do-or-die elimination game far earlier than anyone expected.
The good news from Sunday, though — the best possible news, really — is that Team USA just played its best game of this Olympic Games, handling Germany 5-1 with a sense of control that was never there against Latvia or Denmark.
As a result, the Americans finished atop Group C and enter the knockout stage of the tournament with a bye to the quarterfinals and the No. 2 seed.
Sweden needs to get by Latvia in the play-in round due to their own struggles in the group stage, and the U.S. will face the winner of that game Wednesday.
The bracket, a factor the Americans can’t control, is certainly not ideal.
The completeness and connectedness of their game against a solid Germany team, though, was a massive step in the right direction.
By an order of magnitude, this was the best game Auston Matthews has played in a Team USA sweater in best-on-best competition.
He, Matt Boldy and Jake Guentzel were a force all night, up ice nearly every shift.
Matthews fed Zach Werenski to open the scoring with nine seconds left in the first, then scored one of his own 3:25 into the second, tucking one in from Matthew Tkachuk on the power play.
He added a second for good measure, tipping Jake Sanderson’s shot in for the Americans’ fifth goal of the evening.
There is no player who can swing this tournament for the Yanks more than Matthews.
He came under major scrutiny for his 4 Nations performance, and his continuance in the captaincy has been a matter of debate among fans.
2026 WINTER OLYMPICS
He skated into Jack Hughes on the power play early in this one, an embarrassing moment, and you could hear the chatter starting up again.
He quieted it almost immediately.
This was a step in the right direction, too, for the defensive corps that never looked settled through two games.
Werenski got on the scoreboard with two assists and so did Jake Sanderson.
Brock Faber scored with a soft shot from the right point that German netminder Maximilian Franzreb lost track of 17:35 into the second to make it 3-0.
Jaccob Slavin played the sort of calm and controlled game that’s typical of him.
The penalty kill — against a stacked German top unit featuring Moritz Seider, Leon Draisaitl, Tim Stutzle and JJ Peterka — gave up nothing.
Connor Hellebuyck’s return to the net, where he will presumably remain for the rest of the tournament barring injury, helped too.
The Germans are not pushovers, and nor is anyone else the U.S. will see the rest of the way in these Olympics.
They could not afford another poor goaltending performance, and they didn’t get one, with Stutzle only breaking Hellebuyck’s shutout with Team USA ahead 5-0.
Clayton Keller’s Olympic debut, coming in for Kyle Connor on the third line, was forgettable, but Dylan Larkin and Tage Thompson connected on Thompson’s one-time blast that made it 4-0, a notable development for a line that’s been quiet all tournament.
The first and fourth lines, constants throughout the preliminaries, continued apace.
It wasn’t perfect; indeed, this team still has a ways to go to match up with a Canada squad that looks more invincible every game.
They don’t play as fast or as connected, and it hasn’t been as easy for them as it’s been for the Canadians.
Nevertheless, this was as close as Team USA has looked to the squad that went blow-for-blow with Canada last year, right down to Brady Tkachuk trucking over Parker Tuomie along the half wall.
Sweden or not, here comes the US of A.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
