Three different U.S. players scored and both Logan Brown (St. Louis, Mo.) and Casey Mittelstadt (Eden Prairie, Minn.) had multi-point games for the second-straight night as Team USA earned a 3-2 victory over Sweden here today at the World Junior Summer Showcase.
"Tonight we saw a different kind of fight in our players," said Bob Motzko, head coach of the 2018 U.S. National Junior Team. "Having talent and skill is one thing, but having the will to grind out a win is an intangible our staff was excited to see. We'll enjoy tomorrow off and get ready for two great games to close out the Showcase.".
The U.S. returns to action Friday when it takes on Finland at 4 p.m. ET. That contest will be televised live on NHL Network.
Full recap after the jump
Sweden opened the scoring with 3:53 remaining in the opening frame when Lias Andersson snuck a wrist shot past Keith Petruzzelli (Wilbraham, Mass.) from the top right circle.
Team USA evened the score 5:16 into the second stanza when Riley Tufte (Ham Lake, Minn.) fired a snap shot by Sweden’s goaltender Filip Larsson. The play started when Mittelstadt sent the puck down low to Brown, who found Tufte alone in front of the net for the tying goal.
Kailer Yamamoto (Spokane, Wash.) gave the U.S. its first lead of the game when he found a rebound off an initial shot from Brown and one-timed it in at the 10:11 mark. Sweden netted the equalizer 2:18 later when Andersson tallied his second goal of the game.
With 5:50 remaining in the period, Quinn Hughes (Orlando, Fla.) scored on a long-ranged wrist shot from the blue line to give the U.S. a 3-2 lead while on the power play.
Petruzzelli stopped 15 of 16 shots he faced in 30:11 of action before Dylan St. Cyr (Northville, Mich.) made 21 saves in relief.
Date | Game | Result |
---|---|---|
Sat., July 29 | USA White vs. Finland | W, 4-2 |
USA Blue vs. Sweden | L, 3-4 | |
Sun., July 30 | USA Blue vs. Finland | W, 4-1 |
USA White vs. Sweden | W, 4-3 | |
Tues., Aug. 1 | Canada Red vs. USA White | W, 8-2 |
Canada White vs. USA Blue | L, 1-2 | |
Wed., Aug. 2 | USA vs. Sweden | W, 3-2 |
Fri., Aug. 4 | Finland vs. USA | W, 4-3 |
Sat., Aug. 5 | USA vs. Canada | W, 7-5 |