Jonathan Quick hoping history repeats itself

TORONTO — Jonathan Quick wanted to be like Mike Richter growing up. He had a poster of Richter on his bedroom wall in Hamden, Connecticut, about two hours from Madison Square Garden. He was 8 years old when the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, and he had a few friends over to eat ice pops and watch Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks.

It would be wrong to say Quick was glued to the television when Richter helped Team USA win the World Cup of Hockey in 1996.

“I didn’t really know what was going on back then,” he said.

But it would not be a stretch to say Quick could register high on the Richter scale in the World Cup of Hockey 2016. He will be the starting goaltender when Team USA opens the tournament against Team Europe at Air Canada Centre on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET; ESPN2, SN, TVA Sports), and he has the ability to make the difference on any given night and over the next two weeks.

“Especially if a goalie of his caliber gets hot, I mean, he can outright steal a game that swings the whole tournament,” Team USA defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “It’s completely a real possibility that he not only makes all the easy saves and makes it look easy but there’s going to be a couple doozies in there that could swing momentum. He has that ability for sure.”

Of the three goaltenders on the Team USA roster, Cory Schneider ranks first in NHL career save percentage at .925. Ben Bishop ranks second at .920. Quick ranks last at .916.

Bishop ranked first in save percentage last season with .926. Schneider ranked second with .924. Quick ranked last at .918.

But the World Cup is not a career. It is not an 82-game regular season. It is not even a four-round playoff of best-of-7 series. It is not about large sample sizes and long-term averages.

It is a short tournament being played in …

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