I was right behind Kolzig for the 1st and 3rd. I'll do a full write up for my site later, but here's the down-low:
1st goal (Park) sharp angle shot from outside the circle near the goal line. Should have been stopped. Kolzig went down early to cover a potential cross-crease pass and got beat to the top corner. Great shot, though.
2nd goal (Andy Roach!) at least one redirection, maybe two. The puck came in high, went off the arm/upper body of a player, possibly another, trickled through under Kolzig's right pad. He was not happy. The Germans couldn't clear the crease all night.
3rd goal (Bates Battaglia) should not have counted, imho. Slapshot from far out, went five-hole on Olie after being re-directed by a skate (with a distinct kicking motion, as I saw it from about 6 rows behind the goal). Kolzig was very, very annoyed and barked at the refs for quite a while about that.
4th goal (Jillson) was weird. It was at the other end, but I got a perfect view and had to see the replay twice. Jillson took a nice feed from behind the net and skated straight down the slot. A Deutschland defender went down to the ice on both knees to block a potential shot. Jillson did shoot, a full second later, and it somehow went straight through/under the defender without losing a bit of velocity. Kolzig had no chance as he was screened and couldn't reasonably expect the puck to go through one of his own players.
Kolzig got much stronger as the game went on (more on that later).
Overall Halpern was great on faceoffs (a weakness overall for Team USA) and was dominant cycling. He had hands of cement trying to receive long passes and stick-handle, but when he had the puck he didn't let it go.
Grier was probably the best forward on the ice for Team USA. He flubbed a short-handed breakaway, of course (great stop by Olie), and blew another partial one in the third at even-strength.
Battaglia was good, flashy, having fun. He got a lucky goal for his efforts.
Andy Roach of the Adler Mannheim was the best d-man for Team USA (and player of the game with a goal and two assists). I annoyed the Nuernberg fans by doing Mannheim's cheers for him, they actually broke into a "Mannheim sucks" type chorus on a couple of occasions. Roach is very smart with the puck and, like most guys who play over here for long, is a great passer and stick-handler.
Team USA had issues with the wide open game and rule changes at first. They fell into it later. They physically dominated the Germans: better checking, better screens, cleared their own crease. Team USA got really tired late, though, it seemed and Germany was the better team for the last 10 minutes or so.
