The World Cup of Hockey begins Saturday, Sept. 17, from Toronto when Team USA faces Team Europe in group play at 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2).
It's time to stop worrying about who isn't on this team -- there'll be plenty of time for recrimination and finger-pointing after the tournament for ignoring Phil Kessel, Tyler Johnson, Kevin Shattenkirk and Justin Faulk if things don't go the Americans' way during the upcoming World Cup of Hockey -- and focus on who is on this hard-working, hard-nosed team.
Team USA GM Dean Lombardi, head coach John Tortorella and their highly efficient staff have assembled a surprisingly fast, very physical squad that will try to dictate pace of play with a vigorous forecheck and a game that hopes to be strictly north-south -- although the team's two pretournament games against Canada have shown that is still a work in progress.
How Team USA could win
First and foremost, alternate captain Patrick Kane is going to have to have the kind of tournament he hoped to have in Sochi at the 2014 Olympics but didn't. Kane is the defending NHL MVP and scoring champ, and Tortorella has put him in a leadership role that will up the ante for the Chicago Blackhawks star. If Kane is going -- and by extension that will mean the U.S. power play, which has been under the tutelage of associate coach and Hall of Famer Phil Housley, is going -- that will take some of the pressure off the rest of the forwards.
That said, Max Pacioretty, Blake Wheeler and Zach Parise will have to find a gear they didn't hit during Team USA's two-game split with Canada during the warm-up last week. The Americans aren't likely to get a ton of offense from the back end, but watch for Dustin Byfuglien, who has one of the hardest shots in the game, to keep opponents off-balance with his forays into the offensive zone. Jonathan Quick is the U.S. No. 1 because of his résumé, which includes two Stanley Cup rings, and his stellar performance in leading the U.S. to a victory over Canada last Friday. If Quick is on his game, anything is possible for this group.
How Team USA could lose
Erik Johnson and Jack Johnson were repatriated from the 2010 U.S. Olympic team that earned a silver medal in Vancouver, and Matt Niskanen was added to the group ahead of more offensive-minded players such as Shattenkirk, Faulk and Cam Fowler, all of whom were in Sochi. Was Niskanen the right choice? We're about to find out.
The U.S. looked disorganized in its own zone for long stretches against Canada. So trying to exploit its blue line, which doesn't appear to be as mobile as the Canadians', Swedes' or Team North America's defensive corps, will likely be the plan for opponents when the tournament starts. The Americans opted for more grit up front in the form of Justin Abdelkader, Brandon Dubinsky and David Backes. If the Americans get behind, though, they lack the explosiveness of a Russia or Sweden or Canada to erase deficits -- and that could be a fatal flaw.
What to watch for: Beat Canada, or bust
Right from the get-go, Tortorella and his staff opted to go with having Joe Pavelski play down the middle with Kane, even though Pavelski played on the wing with Joe Thornton at center in San Jose all last season. No one wins the World Cup without going through Canada at some point, and the teams will have played three times by the time the finals arrive (twice pretournament and once in the round-robin), so there will be familiarity and bad blood aplenty if we get a repeat of the classic '96 finals.