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#WCH2016: Tortorella not yet sure on No. 1 goalie
- Updated: September 6, 2016
COLUMBUS — At least one thing gives Team USA hope in the World Cup of Hockey 2016: Goaltending.
Ben Bishop, Jonathan Quick and Cory Schneider each is good enough to give Team USA a chance to win any given game, even if the it’s overmatched in terms of skill, speed and possession against, say, Team Canada.
And this is a short tournament. The preliminary round is three games, with the top two teams in each four-team group advancing. The semifinals are single elimination. The final is best-of-3. If somebody gets hot for two weeks, anything can happen.
“Especially in this tournament, you need your goalie to steal games for you,” Team USA center Ryan Kesler said. “You look at our goalies, they’re all world-class goalies. There are a lot in this tournament, but I think we’ve got three of the best.”
The problem is that Team USA must pick one in less-than-ideal circumstances.
How do you go with a hot goaltender when everyone is coming in cold in September, not in midseason like at the Olympics? How do you evaluate the goaltenders when you have three pretournament games?
Coach John Tortorella said Tuesday he didn’t know who his No. 1 goaltender would be. He declined to say how he would play his goaltenders in the three pretournament games, but he said he wanted to decide on the depth chart before the third.
Team USA plays Team Canada at Nationwide Arena in Columbus on Friday (7 p.m. ET; ESPNU, SN, TVA Sports) and at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN3, SN, TVA Sports), and then plays Team Finland at Verizon Center in Washington on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVA Sports).
“There’s certainly not enough time to make a true determination of who wins a job,” Tortorella said after the second …
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