They’re defending gold medallists for a reason, and the Swiss found out the hard way why. The United States scored four goals in the first and coasted to a 7-2 win over Switzerland in the second quarter-finals game of the day. 

"I thought we played a good back and forth game with them, got pucks behind them and went to work," said forward Brandon Svoboda. "We're a fast team, and when we play like that, we're hard to beat. We're watching video every day, and if we can keep improving little things then we'll continue to be successful."

"We played like a team in the third period," said Nils Rhyn, one of the scorers for the Swiss. "That was very good, but in the first and second the goals were coming too fast from our own mistakes."

The result couldn’t come as much of a surprise given that the U.S. all-time head-to-head record is 24 wins and two ties in 26 games and a goal differential of 154-50 against the Swiss. Make it 25 wins now.

The Amercians lead the tournament in scoring with 29 goals in five games.

James Hagens and Ryan Leonard scored two goals each while Gabe Perreault had three, second-period assists for the winners. But Captain Leonard in particular deserves special mention for also taking a high stick to the nose and a point shot to the face. It might not all add up to some sort of funkily-named type of hat trick, but he surely achieved warrior status with his performance.

"It was good," said Zeev Buium. "We continued to build on what we've harped on. This group of guys is phenomenal. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is a great person off the ice. It makes it easier, makes it more fun to play. For us, it's important to continue to build, and that's what we're doing."

 

The Americans jumped into an early 2-0 lead thanks to goals less than two minutes apart. Svoboda opened the scoring at 6:39 when his bad-angle shot went off the stick and pad of starting goalie Christian Kirsch. It was not a great goal to give up.

Soon after, Brodie Ziemer found Hagens in front, and he outwaited the goalie before tucking the puck in along the ice. Leonard made it 3-0 five minutes later when he cut hard around Rhyn and lifted the puck over Hirsch’s glove. 

Coach Marcel Jenni lifted Kirsch for Elijah Neuenschwander in the hopes of waking up his team, and it worked in the short term. Jamiro Reber won a faceoff in the U.S. zone directly back to Rhyn, and his long shot fooled Hampton Slukynsky to cut the lead to 3-1 at 15:04. 

Less than two minutes later, however, the Americans struck again. This time, after a close call for offside at the blue line, Oliver Moore got the puck in front and Danny Nelson tipped it in on his way by.

The Americans skated away with the game in the second, scoring three unanswered goals the result of quick, beautiful passes from Gabe Perreault. It started early, when Timo Bunzli took a double minor for high-sticking Leonard. Perreault found Buium on the doorstep for a tap-in at 7:45. Seven minutes later, it was the Perreault-Hagens combination that made it 6-1 at 15:03, and 80 seconds later Perreault spotted Leonard to the back side on a power play for another gem.

The Swiss doubled their output with a power-play goal early in the third when Andro Kaderli jammed home a puck from the blue ice, but it was much too little too late.

"We always played as a team," Rhyn added of the overall summary of the Swiss performance in Ottawa. "We have a lot of fun together; we're like a family. But we need to shoot a little bit more. Overall, it was a great experience. We were a bit unlucky in the group stage, but I think next year we can make the quarter-finals and even the semis. Anything is possible."