Uninspired US gets put on ice

TURIN -- In need of a little extra in all areas, including effort, skill, determination, scoring touch, discipline, and perhaps luck, the US hockey team came up woefully shy last night in its attempt to make a serious bid at an Olympic gold medal.

Down by a pair of goals early in the first period, and forced once more to play follow the leader most of the game, the Yanks suffered a 4-3 loss to Finland in their first, and last, playoff game of the XX Winter Games.

It was the fourth straight one-goal loss for the Yanks, who were silver medalists in 2002 at Salt Lake City. It also virtually guaranteed that a core of veterans that included Mike Modano, who was benched by coach Peter Laviolette in the critical third period, will retire their NHL-on-loan-to-America sweaters upon returning to the States.

''Well, we were down, looking for goals and looking for offense," said a crestfallen Laviolette, explaining why he put Modano in mothballs. ''To be honest, it wasn't about Mike Modano. We were trying to get players on the ice . . . guys with jump down in the offensive end. Some players in general didn't have jump, and some did."

The lack of get up and go -- even with that gold medal dangled at the end of their noses -- was evident from the start. The Yanks went down by a goal (Ville Peltonen) at 9:33, and then down by a pair (Sami Salo) at 12:01 of the first. They weren't so much tentative as they were plain funky and flat, perhaps showing signs of fatigue in the very compressed tournament. They were without the strong legs they flashed throughout most of the qualifying round, and the few times they did raise their energy level, their zealousness most often led them to the penalty box.

The benching of the 35-year-old Modano, perhaps the most skilled player in US history, was curious, especially in that it came when the Yanks were desperate for goals. They entered the third period with a 4-2 deficit and didn't cut the lead in half until 15:33, when Chris Drury, tumbling to the ice, zipped a cross-slot pass for Brian Gionta to hammer past Antero Niittymaki at the right post.

Modano and Bill Guerin, two of the NHL's highest-paid performers in recent years, both were held without a shot on net.

In six games, Modano finished with two goals and 13 shots. Guerin had one goal and five shots. Keith Tkachuk, another of the NHL's multimillionaires, didn't get a single point.

With Modano on the bench, Tkachuk never seemed to get off the ice. Hard to figure, because the undisciplined St. Louis winger picked up three minor penalties -- including a hooking call in his offensive end midway through the second period. Rather than being reprimanded for his unkempt play, Tkachuk promptly joined a power play once out the box. Only 2:06 after serving his hooking call, he was tossed back in the box for another hooking violation.

''As a group we are probably disappointed with the way we played," said Laviolette, well aware that his Yanks, by and large, weren't considered medal contenders. ''It was our least amount of pop and energy. We never seemed to get on track. Today, from the start, we were standing instead of skating. We were on our heels, and they were on their toes. We didn't find our energy level until the final 10 minutes of the third period when desperation set in."

Sensing that the fetid smell of last call was already in the air, Laviolette, who captained the '94 Olympic squad in Lillehammer, called a timeout at 10:24 of the first. Slightly red-faced with anger, he talked sternly to his players, and pointed repeatedly toward the offensive end of the ice.

''I was trying to gather them in," explained Laviolette. ''I was trying to get them to fire up emotionally, try harder."

Less than 30 seconds after the speech, captain Chris Chelios dropped Finnish winger Jarkko Ruutu with a devastating check, right where Laviolette had pointed. Had the Yanks kept up that hitting game, they might have forced the Finns to retreat some. But when Salo pumped in the 2-0 lead at 12:01, all of about 1:15 after the big Chelios hit, the Yanks' contact game grew dormant.

However, the US team began to chip away, beginning with ex-Bruin Mike Knuble, parked at the top of the crease, putting his body to a Mathieu Schnedier slap shot at 13:14 of the first. Handed a power play as the period ended -- Saku Koivu for a high stick on Tkachuk -- the Yanks knotted it, 2-2, with 1:29 gone in the second when Schneider drilled in a slapper from the high inner edge of the right circle.

But in a span of 12:04, starting less than four minutes after Schneider's equalizer, the stubborn Finns ran it up to 4-2 on a pair of Olli Jokinen strikes. The Florida Panthers pivot stepped out of the right corner on a power play and wristed in a shot from the right faceoff dot for the first one. No. 2, with 2:50 left in the second, came on a doorstep forehander that first hit goalie Rick DiPietro, then popped straight up before finally ticking the crossbar on the way down and falling into the net. The Finns were better at everything, luck included.

''One of those tournaments where you just can't get over the hump," said a frustrated Knuble, a constant source of energy, but not points (1-1--2). ''It went to 3-2, then 4-2, and it was just slipping through our fingers. If we could have just gotten over the hump . . . maybe one timely goal, one break, just one bounce of the puck. But the whole tournament felt that way."

Gionta's goal, his team-high fourth of the tournament, was mostly the work of Drury, who delivered a desperation slap pass while falling in the left circle. The lead down to a goal, the Yanks eventually pulled DiPietro with 1:25 to go, but the Finns burned down the house with repeated icings and airtight gritty defense in their zone.

''Ultimately it comes down to 1-4-1," said center Doug Weight, noting what the Yanks got for their six-game tour of Olympus, ''and that's what people will say and remember. I feel like we could have won every game, but that doesn't mean much to any of [the media]."

In Nagano in 1998, the Yanks flopped, and their legacy was busted furniture and a broken image in the international hockey community. Four years later, regrouped and mindful of their manners, they finished runner-up to the Canadians.

Here, they managed a tie with the hard-working Latvians and a win over the sad-sack Kazakhs. Other than that, America's double-runner darlings got what they deserved -- early tickets home and a further reminder that Lake Placid was a long, long time ago.