USA finishes fifth at Hlinka Memorial

If you are a glass half empty person you will see a fifth place showing for Team USA and maybe be a little disappointed the team which has had much success at the annual U-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup didn’t finish in the medals this time around.

If you are a glass half full person, you see a team that took a bit of a punch in the gut early — falling 5-1 to Finland followed by a 5-2 loss against Russia which took them out of medal contention, but then rallied back with an impressive 7-3 win over Slovakia and wrapped it up with a hard fought 4-3 edge against the Czech Republic to clinch fifth place.

Trailing 1-0 after a period, Team USA rallied back in a big way early in the second with goals by Casey Mittelstadt (Eden Prairie, MN) and Ty Farmer (O’Fallon, MO) in the opening 2:03 of the second and another by Kailer Yamamoto late with a little under five minutes remaining in the middle frame.

Czech Republic added one with a little under four minutes to go and added a little more momentum with a stop on a penalty shot by John Leonard 24 seconds later.

Yamamoto’s second of the contest, early in the final period added some insurance and ended up being the game winner after Czech Republic pulled one back with some desperate play at the end and the goaltender sitting on the bench.

Stephen Dhillon picked up the win in goal for Team USA.