The United States beat Germany, 3-2, tonight at Wukesong Sports Centre in the final preliminary-round game in Group A. The result gives the U.S. a 3-0 record and a bye directly into the quarter-finals. The Germans, with a win and two losses, must now play Slovakia in a qualifying came on Tuesday. That winner will play the Americans in the QF game a day later.

This is one of the oldest rivalries in Olympic hockey, one that started 90 years ago in Lake Placid when the Americans beat Germany, 7-0, at the 1932 Games. Since then they have now played 15 times, the U.S. winning 12. Germany’s last Olympics win against the Americans was back in 1994.

"We got what we wanted today and are ready for the next round," said U.S. forward Sean Farrell, the tournament scoring leader with six points. "It's good to play in tight games like that especially early on. I think games are just going to be tighter, more defensive going forward, and we're going to need to bear down and be able to kind of weather the storm at the end of the games, whether it's five on six or late power play and stuff like that."

"Game by game we just wanted to establish ourselves," added Nick Abruzzese. "Being high in the brackets was obviously the goal, and it feels good to have our effort validated now. Our last two games against Canada and Germany were much tighter. Ice was a lot harder to come by and that's what we're going to see here and now. So it's really important that we got some good reps of that here in the round robin."

"The Slovaks are known as tough team with big defencemen," noted German forward Patrick Hager. "They also had a tough start and got now their first win against the Latvians. They also had to find themselves. Now it’s Game 4 for both. Either you peak as a team or you fly home. Now we have the challenge to regenerate and then we will watch the Slovaks more closely. It will be a tight game."

The last time these teams played was at the 2021 World Championship in Riga. The U.S. won that bronze-medal game, 6-1, but the only player on that team in this game was Matty Beniers (today's winning goalie, Drew Commesso, was on the team but didn't play). By contrast, that German team was virtually the same as today's, as 17 players from that game were part of this loss.

"I think we're tenacious," said Steven Kampfer, who scored the first U.S. goal. "You look at the young guys, they're all hungry. All of us are hungry whether it's the guys that have played before or are looking to play. Everybody has a little bit of something to prove and they want to show everybody that we have a great team and that USA Hockey did a great job of picking all of us."

The Germans got the quick start on the U.S. thanks to an early power play. Matthias Plachta made a great pass to Patrick Hager to the side of the goal, and he made a perfect redirect over the outstretched arm of Commesso at 2:00. 

But the U.S. answered with a power-play goal of their own two and a half minutes later when Steven Kampfer’s long shot eluded Danny aus den Birken. 

Power plays continued to be the story of the period when Kenny Agostino nullified another U.S. man advantage by taking a double minor, but even though Germany had an extra skater for two and a half minutes the U.S. penalty killers did a masterful job of keeping the puck far from Commesso.

The Americans went ahead early in the second after an extended period of domination in the German end. The sequence of plays reached a climax when aus den Birken lost his stick, tried to get it, lost it again, all the while the U.S. was buzzing around his goal. In the end, Matt Knies got to a loose puck in front and roofed it in at 4:50 for his first Olympic goal.

German coach Toni Soderholm challenged the play on the basis of goalie interference, but review found no fault with the Americans and the goal stood. Of course, the Germans also incurred a bench minor on the unsuccessful challenge, but their penalty killers were terrific and kept the score 2-1.

Germany had two more man advantages in the period, but the power play that opened the scoring with confident and creative play had vanished, and the U.S. PK was letter perfect in holding the lead. 

The Americans doubled their lead early in the third courtesy of a bad turnover by Plachta. He got the puck at the left faceoff dot in his end and backhanded the puck softly, directly to the middle of his own slot. Nathan Smith was right there and fired a quick backhand past aus den Birken before the goalie knew what had happened.

Tom Kuhnhackl made the ending interesting when he scored at 17:31. Lean Bergmann kept the puck in at the U.S. blue line and fired a quick shot on goal. Commesso made the save but couldn't find the rebound before Kuhnhackl flipped the loose puck in.

The Germans tied valiantly to tie the game with aus den Birken on the bench, but the Americans held the fort and mobbed Commesso after the final horn. They now have three days off before their next game.

"Germany played extremely well today," Kampfer added. "They are a big, physical team. Their power play looked good. They get to the net really well. If we play them again, it's something that we'll look at and we'll be ready for. They're a heck of a team. There's a reason why they finished second last Olympics and they showed it tonight against us playing hard for the full 60, putting a little pressure on us at the end."

"We have been improving," Hager said. "It’s a process. We play at a smaller ice rink here and the roster, even though we know each other, hasn’t been together that long. Players born in North America may have an advantage here. But today we made better decisions, got used to play faster, harder and sometimes to dump the puck to put away pressure. We have to build on this, but if we want to advance we have to change up a gear. I expect our best game on Tuesday."