USA mens hockey handles Germany in best Olympics win yet as possible worrisome matchup looms

MILAN — Sweden is looming for the United States, which appears likely to face one of the tournament’s best teams in a do-or-die elimination game far earlier than anyone expected.The good news from Sunday, though — the best possible news, really — is that Team USA just played its best game of this Olympic Games, handling Germany 5-1 with a sense of control that was never there against Latvia or Denmark.As a result, the Americans finished atop Group C and enter the knockout stage of the tournament with a bye to the quarterfinals and the No.2 seed.

Sweden needs to get by Latvia in the play-in round due to their own struggles in the group stage, and the U.S.will face the winner of that game Wednesday.The bracket, a factor the Americans can’t control, is certainly not ideal.

The completeness and connectedness of their game against a solid Germany team, though, was a massive step in the right direction.By an order of magnitude, this was the best game Auston Matthews has played in a Team USA sweater in best-on-best competition.He, Matt Boldy and Jake Guentzel were a force all night, up ice nearly every shift.

Matthews fed Zach Werenski to open the scoring with nine seconds left in the first, then scored one of his own 3:25 into the second, tucking one in from Matthew Tkachuk on the power play.He added a second for good measure, tipping Jake Sanderson’s shot in for the Americans’ fifth goal of the evening.There is no player who can swing this tournament for the Yanks more than Matthews.

He came under major scrutiny for his 4 Nations performance, and his continuance in the captaincy has been a matter of debate among fans.He skated into Jack Hughes on the power play early in this one, an embarrassing moment, and you could hear the chatter starting up again.He quieted it almost immediately.This was a step in the right direction, too, for the defensive corps that never looked settled through two games.

Werenski got on the scoreboard with two assists and so di...