2010 Vancouver Olympics: USA Clashes with Swiss in Quarterfinal Match-Up

Do or die is the name of the game from this point on in Men’s Olympic Hockey, and Team USA will kick off their elimination play this afternoon when they go up against Jonas Hiller and the Swiss in a Quarterfinal match-up at 3 pm Eastern Time. The United States enters this game as the top seeded team in the tournament with a perfect record of 3-0-0-0. Switzerland was an opponent of the U.S. earlier in the tourney (last Tuesday) when the American won 3-1. They will be looking for a repeat effort today.

Team USA general manager Brian Burke stated immediately after the win over Canada that he was not particularly pleased with what he has seen from his team so far. He, along with many others that have followed the team, believes that they can be much better than the way they have played to this point. I think Burke also came out and made that statement to keep his team on their toes, and not think too highly of themselves just because they defeated the Canadians on Sunday.

Switzerland has made it clear that they are not in this tournament to be pushed over by more favorited opponents. They came so very close to upsetting Canada last weekend in a tilt that ended in a shootout, and for the most part, have played solid hockey in all of their outings. The Swiss are not going to be an ‘easy’ task for the United States, and I think Brian Burke knows that, hence the statement he made to the media, making his squad aware of what is to come.

A big part of Switzerland’s success has been because of the play of goaltender Jonas Hiller. Hiller has been unbelievable so far in the Olympic Games, keeping his team in every game and providing them with a chance to win. Hiller came into the National Hockey League last season with the Anaheim Ducks, where he took over the starting job from veteran netminder J.S. Giguere, who recently has was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Without him, the Swiss would probably have been defeated yesterday by Belarus in the qualifier.

With that being said, the United States offense has a lot of fire power up front, and I think they have not really used it just yet. Patrick Kane, Zach Parise, Paul Stastny, Phil Kessel are among the forwards who need to step it up on offense for Team USA. The Americans have been getting scoring from all angles, which is a good thing, but a lot of it has been secondary. The team’s primary scorers have not been all that effective just yet and need to bring their game to the next level in the playoff rounds.

Rangers forward Chris Drury has been one of the better players for Team USA and is opening the eyes of many with his recent play. Chris was one of the more frequently questioned picks by Brian Burke for Team USA, but with the way he has contributed in each win, how could they still be questioning the decision? The guy is a clutch player, not worth $7.5 million dollars, but he is valuable to this team and that has been made obvious.

Ryan Miller is going to have to be a story in the rest of the games for the U.S. as well. Much like Hiller, “Miller Time” has been awesome for the U.S. when he has had to be. I say that because in certain games, he did not have to face all that many shots, for example, against Switzerland the first time around. His 42 save effort against Canada, on the other hand, was tremendous.

Lastly, I do not know if you saw or not, but for the previous USA game I ran a live chat here on the site. We had a total of 14 members come on and chat throughout the game and everyone agreed that it was a load of fun. So, I bring you that chat once again this afternoon, beginning at 2:50 pm (10 minutes prior to puck drop) right here on the site.

All you have to do is click where it tells you to, insert a screen-name, I approve your first post, and then you are able to freely chat from that point on. Like I said, the first post of yours it will make me approve, but once that I see that first post, I can put you through to post without approval. I do ask, though, that we try to keep things clean as best we can. I will advertise it on twitter and in other places, but I would appreciate if readers can reach out to their friends and family that love USA hockey as well, and tell them to come and join the conversation as well.
(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)