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WORLD CUP OF HOCKEY

September 20, 2016

John Tortorella

Toronto, Ontario

Team Canada – 4
Team USA ‑ 2

Q. The first five minutes you guys were off to a hot start. What can you explain how things happened after the five minutes?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, I think there's some self‑inflicted wounds there. Going into tonight's game, I think it was very important that if they were going to get something, they had to earn it. I thought we had a good start, but we gave them a couple of freebies there, and you just can't do that. They surged, and we were trying to catch up through most of the rest of the game.

Q. In hindsight, do you think maybe you would change the makeup of this roster at all?
JOHN TORTORELLA: No.

Q. What did you say to the guys afterwards? And is there a way to describe how disappointing it is to be in this situation?
JOHN TORTORELLA: I haven't spoken to the team. I didn't go in after the game. I don't go in after games, win or lose. I'm sure they're thoroughly disappointed, but I haven't talked to them.

Q. How disappointing is it for you and your staff to be basically done two games into this tournament?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Yeah, it's disappointing, frustrating. All different types of emotions. Yeah, I think we let some people down. It's on my watch. I certainly feel responsible for that. So yeah, it's really disappointing.

Q. If it isn't the roster, as critics like to say, what was the problem, or what should you have done differently?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, I'm still looking for us to generate offense. I think we have some good offensive players on that roster. I think we have some jam in that roster. I think we can play a lot of different ways.
We have not played well offensively. We have not made enough offensive plays as a group. There's no one particular person, but as a group I just don't think we have been consistent enough, when really quite honestly, I think there were some plays to be made. I said it after Game 1, and I see it tonight. We have some chances to make plays, and we just did not complete that. Hit some posts. I don't think we got a whole bunch of puck luck, but we didn't play well enough. We didn't play well enough.
But you guys can beat up the roster all you want. You look at some of those players on our roster, there are some pretty good skill players, and we just simply did not do enough offensively. And we self‑inflicted quite a bit in the two games. We gave some easy goals, and you just can't do that in a short tournament.

Q. You said yesterday we need our best players to be our best players. How would you assess the play of your best players tonight?
JOHN TORTORELLA: We lost. It wasn't good enough.

Q. I know you probably don't want to use this as an excuse, but how much different or better do you think this team could have been if you had access to the 13 guys who are playing on Team North America right now?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, it's an interesting tournament that way. I think there is definitely a fantastic future coming here, not only for the USA, I think for Canada, also. There's some pretty good players coming through for Canada. But yeah, there are some good young kids there that I think‑‑ I think they'll bring some juice to the program, as you can see right through the tournament here as the way they played. Anxious to see them play the rest of the tournament.

Q. Were you ever able to get back‑‑ the first pre‑tournament game in Columbus, you guys played with so much tenacity and really went after them. Do you feel like you've ever gotten back to that stage so far?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, it's not so much the tenacity. I mean, that's part of our team. It's forechecking to develop offense. It's backing a team off and then getting a chance maybe to make a play off the rush. We were not consistent there, and that was‑‑ as I said, I don't think we created enough offense, obviously, with just one goal in the two games, and then couple with that, I think at times we gave up free goals.
I think we cured some of the odd man rush stuff, but we have chances to break out, and we just blow up tonight, and that changes the whole complexion of the game. I thought we started well. I thought the guys were prepared, but we blow up, self‑inflicted, and they surged, and we had no answer. We kept trying to catch up the rest of the game and just couldn't get it done.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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