NAHL U.S. National Team

U.S. National Under-17 Team Falls To Russia, 5-4

Published on November 10, 2006 under North American Hockey League (NAHL)
U.S. National Team News Release


ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The U.S. National Under-17 Team dropped a 5-4 overtime decision to Team Russia in the gold medal game of the 2006 Phantom Fireworks Four Nations Tournament tonight at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube.

Team USA jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Danny Kristo (Eden Prairie, Minn.) at the 12:50 mark of the opening stanza. Kristo took a pass from Colin Moore (Medfield, Mass.) at the right face-off circle and sent it over the Russian netminder Alexander Pechurskiy's left shoulder.

It took about two minutes for the U.S. squad to jump out to a 3-0 lead on a pair of second period power-play goals by Kristo and David Wohlberg (South Lyon, Mich.), just 1:58 apart.

Justin Florek (Marquette, Mich.) gave the U.S. a 4-0 advantage with another power-play marker at the 13:47 mark. Defenseman Sam Lofquist (Fairbault, Minn.) had the initial shot on net and the rebound was poked at by Vinny Saponari (Power Springs, Ga.) before Florek deposited the puck into the back of the net in the scrum.

Team Russia closed the gap to 4-2 with a pair of goals just 1:12 apart in the second period. Evgeni Grachev scored unassisted, off a USA turnover, at the 15:32 mark before Nikita Filatov took a pass from Pavel Chernov for a power-play marker at the 16:44 mark.

Filatov finished off the natural hat trick with two goals in the third period. Filatov took a pass from Kirill Petrov to beat USA netminder Nick Maricic (Alta Loma, Calif.) at the 3:31 mark. A shorthanded goal by Filatov at 17:42 evened the game at five.

In the extra session, Team Russia needed just 4:25 to score the game-winning goal as Kirill Petrov took a pass from Grachev and walked into the USA zone. Petrov fired a shot from the right boards that beat Maricic top shelf for the game winner.

USA netminder Nick Maricic finished with 30 stops, while Russia goalie Alexander Pechurskiy finished with 32 stops.

"We lost a heartbreaker tonight. No doubt about that," said Team USA Coach John Hynes (Warwick, R.I.). "Now, the true mark of this team will be how we respond coming out of our first international tournament together. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the past week, and I'm excited about moving forward with this team in the coming weeks and months."

Team USA (2-2-0) returns to action next weekend (Nov. 18-19) with a two-game set at the St. Louis Bandits.

Check out the U.S. National Team Statistics

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North American Hockey League Stories from November 10, 2006


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