On Frozen Blog

We’ve known since Herb Brooks’ silver medal winning Olympic hockey team at Salt Lake City in 2002 that USA Hockey needed to transition to the next generation of American standouts for the top international competitions. We also knew that that transition — rebuild, if you will — was going to carry growing pains. This we saw last year with the Torino Olympics, and certainly to a lesser degree with American performances at the IIHF World Championships each spring. The salve of the past 5 years has been the performances of various Under-17 and Under-18 U.S. teams world-wide — a handful of gold, silver, and bronze medals among them. They suggested better days, on the biggest stages, on the horizon. Additionally, Americans have been clogging the first rounds of recent NHL drafts, particularly their upper echelons.

Yesterday afternoon USA Hockey hosted a conference call to discuss the release earlier in the day of its 18-man roster for this year’s Worlds, to take place April 27-May 13 in Moscow.

The first thing I noticed about the American youth movement wasn’t so much its overall average age (25) but rather how recently so many of the selected were residing in college dorms — and how some still are. Phil Kessel, Jack Johnson, David Backes, and Paul Stastny were all on campus last season (JJ was still there a month ago); Nathan Davis (Miami of Ohio) and Cory Schneider (Boston College) are still there. That’s one-third of the American roster that could have been competing in a Frozen Four last April, and now this April is representing the U.S. at the World Championships.

The next thing that stood out to me was Brian Burke’s patriotism.

“I just think that when your country comes calling for your services . . . I can’t say ‘yes’ fast enough,” he offered.

Burke, joined by David Poile, Ray Shero, and Don Waddell, was part of a quartet of NHL general managers asked by USA Hockey to be the architects of this year’s American entry in the Worlds. Interesting sidenote: 10 of the NHL’s 30 GMs are Americans.

An annual concern with both the American and Canadian teams with the Worlds, which always coincide with the NHL playoffs, is who among high profile players says yes to their sport’s respective governing bodies and who opts out. Yesterday Burke made clear that his advisory committee of GMs was interested in assembling only a roster of Americans who treated the invitations as a can’t-miss opportunity. Not surprisingly, even within this youthful roster there is seasoned experience when it comes to wearing Red, White, and Blue. For Robert Esche, this year’s Worlds will be his seventh international tourney representing the U.S., for Phil Kessel, his sixth, for Jack Johnson, his fifth.

Ironically, many of the team’s “veterans” — among them Eric Cole, Chris Clark, and Brian Pothier — bring comparatively little international experience. On yesterday’s conference call, Cole admitted that he was a “late bloomer” when it came to international hockey, having never been considered for a U.S. World Junior Championship team.

Fittingly, the Americans will be coached by Mike Sullivan, not yet 40. In 2003-04, in his first season behind the Boston Bruins’ bench, Sullivan led the Bs to the Northeast Division title and the second-best record in the Eastern Conference with a 41-19-15-7 mark and 104 points. He served as an assistant to Peter Laviolette in Torino last year.

The Americans, like the other 15 competing nations, are allowed to dress 20 skaters and three goalies at the tournament’s start, meaning that two roster spots remain. Obviously, Burke and his advisory committee are keeping close tabs on the NHL playoffs’ first round, and are virtually certain to fill their final slots with the newly vanquished. None of the four has a dog in the New Jersey-Tampa fight, so you can bet they wouldn’t mind seeing Zach Parise, Scott Gomez, and Brian Rafalski become available. After three games in the tourney, each team can add an additional two skaters.

As the United States National Development Team Program attracts more and more of America’s finest athletes and fashions them into world-class hockey talents, many of whom will make livings in pro hockey between October and April, we should see a markedly different team assembled by USA Hockey for the Worlds each spring. One that will look as if it has been playing together at hockey’s most prestigious tournaments for years. Because it has.

The Americans going to Moscow in two weeks in many respects represent a hybrid between the available American All Stars of the past and USA Hockey’s more cohesive blueprint of the future. More importantly, Brian Burke noted yesterday, every single player on the roster in 2007 possesses a high-pitched passion to play for his country.

The rebuild is on schedule.