2017 World Juniors: Team USA just cut one of their best players and you should be mad again

The 2017 World Juniors are days away, and Team USA just made a move that will make you want to root for someone else like you did when you rooted for North America in the World Cup. Like, three months ago.

Team USA sent forwards Logan Brown and Alex DeBrincat home on Thursday. Brown, the first-round pick of the Ottawa Senators in 2016, is still getting up to speed after an injury. It makes sense he didn’t make the team.

But DeBrincat’s exclusion makes little sense if you’re not receiving paychecks from USA Hockey regularly. The second-round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks is having a sensational year for the OHL’s Erie Otters: 30 goals, 60 points in 28 games. That’s a 145-point, 72-goal pace.

That’s nonsense.

And so is the idea of sending home that kind of player before the biggest international tournament of 2017. (This is not an exaggeration.)

So, why did they do that?

Ah, geez.

OK. Let’s put aside, for the moment, the fact that in between those two camps DeBrincat put up 60 points in 28 games. Or that he put up 101 points and 51 goals in 60 games last season.

I guess we’ll just forget that for a second. And we’ll forget the fact that, as our college blog points out, Team USA thought DeBrincat was a first-line player or bust. That’s a whole other article.

So, if a player clearly that talented didn’t look good enough in two camps to make Team USA, is the problem ... coaching style?

The answer is probably yes.

When Team USA unveiled their initial selection camp roster last month, USA Hockey general manager Jim Johansson said they hoped “each of these players can fit the style of hockey Coach Motzko (U.S. head coach Bob Motzko) first implemented at our National Junior Evaluation Camp last August.”

As it turns out, Motzko’s style of hockey seems pretty familiar. From The Hockey Writers back in August:

Despite the more consistent emergence of top forward talent in recent years, the U.S. appears to still maintain a grind-it-out mentality. The players having the best games at camp have not necessarily been the most talented players, but gamers willing to do battle in the corners and work hard for every inch they get. It’s a familiar identity for a national team that plays this way at every level of international play.

They really do. You’ll recall that Team USA general manager Dean Lombardi was lambasted for leaving skilled guys like Phil Kessel home in favor of gritty forwards who best fit coach John Tortorella’s system. Long story, short: Team USA failed spectacularly, Kessel himself roasted management, and we wrote that the whole of USA Hockey needed to grow up.

Should. Will they? Not if Tortorella and Lombardi are still around. They doubled down on grit and compete after Sochi, so there’s no reason for anyone to believe they’ll give young guys chances over veterans going forward. As soon as Jack Eichel and Johnny Gaudreau are eligible to join the United States in the next World Cup, expect Tortorella, Brian Burke, and Lombardi to bury them in the press box until they earn their places. You know, like David Backes and Justin Abdelkader just did.

There is a key part in that Hockey Writers snippet up there: the players having the most success were guys like Erik Foley (a Jets prospect at Providence who has played well in this system but lacks the offensive upside of DeBrincat or the other USA forwards), who will likely make the final roster. So, it was working back in August.

I suppose it’s worth pointing out that the United States took home the bronze last year and Canada didn’t even medal. But that was with Ron Wilson behind the bench; Motzko is leading a younger, more inexperienced squad that might need all the offensive spark they can get. Especially with top forwards like Brock Boeser, Max Jones, Brown and Christian Fischer all either injured or (in Fischer’s case) being prevented from playing by their pro team.

And you might as well let your country’s best young players get that experience, right?

The fact that DeBrincat got sent home and a guy like Foley made it speaks to how pervasive this odd USA Hockey mindset is. (No knock on Foley; he’s a good player, but he’s stuck with the DeBrincat comparison all tournament.) When even the guys in charge of the future of USA Hockey don’t give the best players the chance to play, what’s the point?

I guess this is my point: if Patrick Kane or Johnny Gaudreau didn’t look good during brief weeks in your system, would you waive them? Or would you find a way to bend your system to give them the best chance to succeed, knowing that the best chance of the team succeeding is if they’re playing well?

Of course you’d take the latter route. The fact USA Hockey isn’t with its teenage players is troubling. At that point, you’re trying to mold skilled players out of their strengths into a playing style that doesn’t jive with the game anymore. Or you’re just stubbornly unwilling to let things play out with him when half of your best forwards aren’t available.

And, honestly, you’re just flat-out ignoring the fact that an American forward just dropped 60 POINTS IN 28 GAMES in one of the toughest junior leagues in all of hockey.

As an un-objective American, I hope I’m wrong! But right now, it’s hard not to feel disappointed. Again. And a little resigned to the fact that feeling won’t go away anytime soon.