"Give Sweden credit." Battered USA loses to Sweden, faces roster questions for Four Nations final

BOSTON, Massachusetts — The United States had to strike a very delicate balance in their Four Nations round-robin finale against Sweden.

This was, in theory, a completely meaningless game for the US. They started their backup goalie and held three players out of the lineup — going with just 17 skaters, which feels crazy given the stink Canada raised about roster limits — to let them heal up a bit before Thursday's tournament final against Canada, after it clinched its berth earlier in the day. But the circumstances changed dramatically over the course of 60 minutes.

Even before the first period was over, it was more accurate to say the result, a 2-1 Sweden win, was meaningless. The game itself became entirely too meaningful.

"We talked as a group before the game about continuing to try to get better and improve the group," said US head coach Mike Sullivan. "We want to continue to push, to improve in different aspects of our game. Every time you step on the ice, it means something. I thought our guys competed really hard. We didn't get the result tonight. I don't think it was from a lack of effort or a lack of opportunity. I think we hit a four or five posts, you know, we missed on a breakaway. There was lots of opportunities."

Because of the gravity of that rematch on Thursday, they also couldn't take the night off and completely mail it in. Especially because Sweden, even with a flu bug seemingly ripping through its dressing room, was playing for the pride of not-finishing below its cross-Östersjön rival.

"Give Sweden credit, too. They played hard also," Sullivan said. "They're a really good team, they competed hard. For a game that for all intents and purposes didn't have significance with respect to the tournament, I thought there was a lot of professionalism on both sides with how hard the groups played."

Some players really seized the opportunity the various absences presented. Chris Kreider, who drew into the tournament for the first time because of all the injuries/illnesses in the US roster, left little doubt about how this game would end up going, though, scoring just 35 seconds into the game.

"That was awesome. First shift, too," saidJ.T. Miller, who now plays with Kreider for the New York Rangers. "That was great. you know, Chris has been a great teammate and to get the chance to come in today and then produce and get on the scoreboard, I'm happy for him."

The big neutral-zone hits from Brady Tkachuk that soon followed showed these guys weren't just hunting for points in a meaningless game, either. They were here to play. No doubt, being on home soil for the first time in the tournament helped.

For a little while, the fact that the US only dressed 17 skaters felt like they were showing off. But then Sweden answered with two goals late in the first period and pushed the pressure on the American depth.

"It's not easy to get up for a game like that when, you know, these guys know what they have ahead of them," said US starter Jake Oettinger, who stopped 21 of 23 in the loss. "So, just proud of the way the guys battled and especially with the guys we were missing in the lineup and stuff, so guys put a great effort forward and I think we win that game 9 times out of 10."

Late in the first, though, Tkachuk went to the room, came back for three shifts, then didn't come out for the second period and was ruled out for the remainder of the game. Vincent Trocheck also briefly went down the tunnel before the end of the first before returning himself. Their hope is it's all precautionary, but the question, at a certain point, becomes whether they will have their full complement of players for the Canada game. 

Even if everyone is close to 100 percent, they will surely play coy about that in the coming days, revealing as little as possible about any and all lineup decisions with the possible exception of starting Connor Hellebuyck. Maybe they can even engage in a little gamesmanship and get a couple guys on standby like Canada did with Thomas Harley.

Sullivan said all contingency plans will be explored, but he seems to anticipate most, if not all, missing players will be good to go for Thursday. But that was before a report that Charlie McAvoy was admitted to a local hospital with an upper-body injury.

"It's the reality of the game," said Matt Boldy. "Guys get hurt, guys go down and you just gotta step up and do what you can with what you have."

Again, the result here didn't matter for a whole bunch of reasons including the fact that they started with a short bench, but the Americans cannot be too pleased with the developments here tonight. You can't say they were simply looking past Sweden because they came out like a house on fire. Things didn't really go sideways until the Tkachuk injury, so while a loss isn't ideal it's also way, way, way beside the point. The mission was to get through this game, win or lose, without incident. Mission: not accomplished.

And as such, it opens up a whole boatload of questions over the next couple days. Questions they didn't want to have come up, let alone have to answer. At least they have a couple days off to recover, and regroup.

"I can only speak for our team; we're gonna try to get some rest here," Sullivan said. “Then we're gonna reinvest, we're gonna engage and re-engage, and try to put our best game on the ice. We look forward to it, to what we would anticipate would be an incredible atmosphere here in Boston.”