US power players lacked passion and purpose

TURIN -- The easiest game to play in town now, while picking through the broken dreams, is to ponder which hockey players Team USA should have brought to Olympus.

Tantalizing as that might be, it's not a game worth playing.

To do so, of course, immediately affixes blame on general manager Don Waddell and coach Peter Laviolette. The engineering of a team, even a winning team, always can be held up to scrutiny (see: Canada), and while there is nothing wrong with that, playing the game of 20/20 hindsight far too easily dismisses the central point. To wit: the players who so poorly filled those red, white, and blue sweaters should be the ones most accountable for the 1-4-1 performance here that sent the Yanks home after Wednesday's 4-3 loss to Finland in the quarterfinals.

The goaltending was fine, much to the credit of Rick DiPietro, who emerged as a capable go-to guy. Overall, the defense was more than adequate, even with 44-year-old Chris Chelios, also the team captain, still too vital a piece of the puzzle. As a unit, the backliners efficiently blocked the net, and consistently moved the puck out of the zone. They also chipped in a pair of goals and a half-dozen assists.

Where it broke down totally for the Yanks was up front, specifically among the aged hands and legs of Keith Tkachuk, Bill Guerin, and Mike Modano. Collectively, that troika totaled three goals and zero assists over the half-dozen games. That's the harsh reality, folks. Big names, miniscule results, and yet another Games gone by with nary a medal to show.

The Team USA signature here was getting behind early, remaining close enough to win, and then ultimately losing by a goal -- something they did in four straight games. Night after night, they had ample time and opportunity to win, but the players entrusted to finish off goals too often whiffed, or shot wide, or simply weren't around the net enough even to factor in scoring chances.

Starkest of all was Tkachuk's line of 0-0--0 and his eight penalty minutes -- all but two of those logged in the final game. Painful.

Modano's near-total ineffectiveness earned him a third-period benching in the finale. Postgame, he then rambled on about bothersome transportation issues the Americans had to deal with, being left on their own to arrange their plane tickets over here. Like his game, way off point.

Guerin, held without a point after connecting for the first goal in Game 2 (Kazakhstan), barely made himself noticed. He is considered first and foremost a scorer, and scorers, first and foremost, have to shoot. For the tournament, he had only five shots on net, anemic in comparison to the likes of Brian Rolston and Brian Gionta, who tied for the team lead in shots (19), and especially humbling when compared to veteran Finnish winger Teemu Selanne (6 goals, 9 points, 23 shots), or veteran pivot Saku Koivu (2 goals, 9 points, 11 shots).

When it was over, Laviolette said he figured age, and the fatigue factor inherent in old bones, joints, and hearts, might have caught up to his older vets by the last game. Well, OK, maybe. But Selanne is 35 and playing on a rebuilt knee. Koivu, 31, is a cancer survivor. And as even Laviolette noted, Chelios, the oldest man at Olympus, remained engaged and vital right to the bitter end.

Truth is, America can't offer three legitimate young names that might have supplanted Messrs. Tkachuk, Guerin, and Modano. They've had the goods for years, and even while those goods have gone somewhat stale, as evidenced by their NHL performances in recent seasons, they deserved to be on the team. In turn, America deserved better than they gave.

Now, that's not to say they were the sole reason(s) the Yanks packed up after only one playoff game. But it is to say that overall offense was the root cause of the disappointment, and those three, while not the whole problem, were the guys looked upon for leadership, purpose, and, most of all, point production among the wise, old American owls up front.

A quick reminder as to the career NHL numbers of Messrs. Modano, Guerin, and Tkachuk: 2,967 games and 2,669 points. Their '06 Olympic numbers: 18 games and 3 points. Olympic currency is different than NHL currency, sure, but not that different.

Four years from now, when the venue shifts to Vancouver, Team USA will have moved beyond a large group of core veterans, including upward of half the roster that dressed here. Derian Hatcher, Rolston, Mathieu Schneider, Doug Weight, Bret Hedican, and Mike Knuble, along with the likes of Tkachuk, Modano, Guerin, and Chelios, all likely have had their last kick at the golden can. One or two might survive as holdovers, but their age, along with the failed hope that was Italy, won't play in their favor.

The nature of the jobs of coach and GM is such that it's a good bet, too, that neither Laviolette nor Waddell will return. Overall, there will be talk of agonizing reappraisal by USA Hockey, and its Olympic mission. But under the current Games format, which parachutes players in for what amounts to a glorified NHL All-Star tournament, USA Hockey's role is, frankly, a stewardship. The good folks in Colorado Springs just select the candies that come down the NHL conveyor belt, box 'em and giftwrap 'em for the Lords of the Rings.

There is no disputing the governing body's connection to the players in those USA sweaters, but that connection dates back to their early- and mid-teens. When those same players return to Olympus, and slip back into the country's colors, they're no longer young men on a mission, playing for country, desperate to find a career path to the pros. Instead, they are two-week NHL loaners, most of them made-in-the-NHL multimillionaires. Good for them that they make the effort, still have the decency to show support for the governing body that helped shape their careers and bank accounts.

But it was evident here that not all of them played with the same passion and purpose on top of the mountain that they showed in the years when they were trying to get up the mountain. A function of age? Maybe. But not entirely. Wealth, lack of hunger, complacency within their peer group (read: nothing to prove), homesickness, mental and physical fatigue inherent in a grueling NHL season . . . all those things, and no doubt a few more, factored into the equation.

The NHL has committed to the 2010 Olympics, but isn't certain about anything beyond Vancouver. Now, if the league governors decided to pull out, that would turn the Games, and all of the country's governing bodies, into a much different theater. USA Hockey then would have to spend months assembling a squad, stocked with amateurs and minor pros, frame a schedule, do all the due diligence to make a team viable and Games-ready.

If the Yanks then collapse as they did here, then sure, second-guess until Juan Antonio Samaranch comes home, my friends. But under the current format, these rosters are essentially preordained. For countries with a true hockey pedigree, the homeboys who have the best NHL résumés get to go. True in the United States. True in Canada. True everywhere else.

When they don't get the job done, the finger shouldn't be pointed at the governing body, the GM, the coach, the traveling secretary, the PR guys, the trainer, the chef, or the stickboy. It should be pointed, instead, to the players who didn't play with the passion, purpose, or effectiveness to get the job done.