Jesse Pierce

That's not how you win, um, at that level.

And so Bill Guerin and his staff did tremendous work and it was certainly controversial to not have players like Cole Caulfield, Jason Roberts, and some of those big names, um, not on that team, but, uh,

you don't need 10 or 15 guys to provide offense.

It's got to be some balance.

And they knew that, and they knew that there had to be some grit.

There had to be some guys that could block shots that could go out and kill a penalty.

And the talent on that penalty kill to me hit home the most when we weren't seeing Matt Boldy out there on a regular basis, because watching him on an everyday basis play for the Minnesota wild in my eyes, it's one of the best penalty killers I've ever seen for the hometown team.

and he couldn't even get on the ice.

So Bill Guerin picked the right guys, not the best players for this tournament, and I think he was vindicated with the result we saw culminate with that gold medal yesterday because, again, without the chemistry they clearly had on and off the ice and without the grit that they showed and the special teams that really rose to the occasion when it mattered most, they don't take home gold.

Yeah, I think Bill Guerin realized going into this tournament that if you wanted to trade punches and try to outscore Canada 6-5, you likely weren't going to beat them.

And so clearly they knew that they had to have a group of guys that would go out there and every shift, even as star players on their team,

even though most of these guys are top six players on their roster, go out there and know that a winning shift sometimes means that you go out there and you shut down the opposition's best for 45 seconds and get your butt to the bench, that you play physical and try to grind them down.

And even if you get the U.S.

won the hockey game and you never apologize for goaltending, but if you look at the analytics from the gold medal game, the expected goals were 6-2 Canada.

Even with all that being said, this is still a remarkable upset in my eyes and tip of the hat to Canada because they played a great game and they did so without Crosby and Morrissey.

Morrissey, one of their top weapons on the blue line and Crosby

Their best face-off guy.

And boy, did face-offs matter yesterday.

As I watched that game, and early on, the U.S.

kept having to ice that puck, especially in the middle period.