“U-S-A! U-S-A!” chants from the very red, white and blue crowd filled the arena at the opening puck drop and throughout the game.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — The Team USA men’s hockey team, filled with NHL players, defeated Team Germany in a preliminary round at the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Sunday.
The 5-1 win pushed Team USA to keep their Olympic win streak.
Auston Matthews, captain of the Team USA hockey team and for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL, scored twice. Once in the first period and the other in the third. He assisted all three other goals scored by his teammates.
The other goals to push Team USA to the win were scored by Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres, Brock Faber of the Minnesota Wild and Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
It was Werenski’s first-ever Olympic goal.
Team USA had 37 shots on the goal while Team Germany had 24.
In the second half of the third, Germany put their first point on the board with Tim Stützle of the Ottawa Senators scoring.
The game came a day after the team defeated Denmark 6-3.
“U-S-A! U-S-A!” chants from the very red, white and blue crowd filled the arena at the opening puck drop and throughout the game.
After rolling over Latvia 5-1 in their opener on Thursday night behind two goals from Brock Nelson, the Americans have six points in the standings, the same as Canada, going into the final day of the preliminary round.
Canada put such a beatdown on France on Sunday, winning 10-2, that the U.S. would have had to run up the score and beat Germany by 10 goals to pass the tournament favorite. The North American rivals cannot meet until the gold medal game.
They have to get there first. The U.S. is set to face the winner of the qualification round game Tuesday between Sweden and Latvia, while Canada plays Czechia or Denmark in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.