Not a Miracle: USA Hockey is an underdog no more

BOSTON, Massachusetts — Used to be that it took a Miracle for the United States to win big tournaments. But that time, to paraphrase a famous movie speech, is over.

The result of the Four Nations Face-Off championship game almost doesn't matter for the United States as a hockey country. The decades of being an also-ran, loping along behind the mighty Canadians, seem to have finally come to an end.

"That's where it starts: pride for your country, pride for the flag, putting on that crest, and going out for a game is just an unbelievable feeling, and this grew the game really well," said American center Dylan Larkin. "I hope that it pushes (current NHLers) to want a piece of this, and then there's the next generation that got to watch this, and they're gonna watch the Olympics next year. Hopefully there's a different outcome for our country that we feel we deserve."

Sure, it would have been nice to win the final tonight in Boston, obviously. It's on home ice. They already beat Canada once. The circumstances around the tournament have been… shall we say, testy.

There has basically never been a point at which this could be considered The Preeminent Hockey Nation. There was always Canada, and before that, there was Russia even if Canada wasn't there. A few decades playing second or third fiddle, broken up only by the occasional Miracle, takes its toll — which is why the 1980 Miracle still looms so large in the American hockey psyche. 

Maybe now the people at USA Hockey can finally get out of the Miracle Mindset, because their team appears poised to consistently compete for gold — or be favored — in best-on-best international tournaments in a way it never really did before. Hell, 1980 and 1960 weren't even best-on-best.

A lot of what you need to know about how Canada and the US have diverged as hockey nations comes from the honorary captains for Thursday's Four Nations final, who were meant to symbolize the best in their respective countries' hockey history: One was Mike Eruzione, who had one incredible accomplishment 45 years ago and didn't have much of a pro career. The other was Wayne Gretzky, by far the most prolific scorer in the history of the sport. You see the difference.

Even when there was a year like 2010, when the US put distance between itself and the Finlands, Russias, and Swedens of the world, they were still rolling out rosters with guys who weren't necessarily first-line options on their own NHL teams, while Canada brought All-Star teams to every event, and were talked about in a, "Would a team of the guys Canada left at home have won silver?" kind of way.

No more.

"I feel like for us, we should be excited in here, and this group's gonna be around for a long time together," said US defenseman Zach Werenski. "We expect to win now. 

It's one of those things where we have high expectations in here, we expected to win this. Didn't go our, but looking forward, we expect to win world tournaments. So it sucks right now, but I think for us, it's great having that confidence moving forward."

The fact that the US caught up, made the tournament as a whole a coinflip with the Canadians, and led a lot of people to actually say the Americans actually had more depth than their northern neighbors says the gap no longer exists.

American hockey has officially arrived as, if not the "Clear No. 1 Hockey Nation" Canada has been for the past few decades, then the team that should be projected as the 1a/b in the Milano Cortina Olympics next year, and likely beyond that as well.

"Just getting a taste of this best-on-best and how exciting it is, I think everyone in here wants that again," Werenski said. "Hopefully this is a group that sticks around for a long time together and wins some gold medals, but still a year away from that, so we'll see what happens."

Simply put, the US National Team Development Program, founded in 1996, is finally churning out more than just a handful of elite players as has been the case in the past. Only eight of the 23 players on the U.S. roster didn't come from the NTDP, and a handful more who were left at home also graduated from that program before moving on to college hockey. That alone may be what allows the US to continue to keep up with Canada, and perhaps even edge ahead as a clear No. 1 in the world as far as best-on-best hockey is concerned.

Let's put it this way: There's a reason the US roster consisted of exactly zero guys from the 2016 World Cup. Well, there's two, and one of them is that whole Team North America thing; although it's tough to say how many of the 12 Americans on that TNA team would have been allowed to crack the US roster back then. It's way more than just the passage of eight and a half years. They were doing the best with what they had available to them at the time, but the average caliber of player making up the bottom half of that American roster (which, for the record, had just six USNTDP alums) is significantly lower than what the US rolled out against Canada on Thursday.

This year's USA team left off two forwards who are tied for ninth in goalscoring and another who is currently 18th in points, and had the best top-to-bottom blue line in the tournament, even while the best defenseman in the league sat out with an injury.

Yes, the roster rules were janky, the tournament designed to be incredibly short in a way that had the potential to randomize outcomes even more appreciably than what you usually see in an NHL tournament, and the final essentially a coin flip. 

But the US can now go probably as many 20 forwards, 12 defensemen, and four or five goalies deep with All-Star caliber players. Most of them are under 30. And more are on the way to serve as reinforcements, replacing the handful of guys on this roster who are likely to age out of the top of the game in the next few seasons. Some players spoke after the game of hoping this drives more American NHLers to make the commitment to international hockey instead of bowing out of World Championship participation. 

Coach Mike Sullivan echoed the sentiment.

"These guys (are) the savants of the game," he said. "The game evolves because of their creativity and how they think the game and some of the things they're able to do ar such a high rate of speed. It's remarkable, and I just have so much respect for the players in today's game. We couldn't be more proud of this American group and I strongly believe that they inspired a lot of people. The next generation, for sure, but I'm sure they inspired their peers also to be one to want to be a part of something like this."

The 1996 World Cup win was a one-and-done for the US. Maybe that wasn't the sentiment at the time, but they haven't won another best-on-best international tournament since, and have only come in second three times in eight tries.

But this time? It feels different.

No miracles needed.