United States performed as advertised against Latvia

One of the gold medal favorites at the 2026 Winter Olympics got off to a strong start on Thursday.

The United States might have had a bumpy start against Latvia in their first game of the tournament, but they ended up running away with a 5-1 win.

The big names scored in the win, as Auston Matthew and Brady Tkachuk found the back of the net, with a great game out of Brock Nelson, leading with two goals. They heavily outplayed Latvia for most of the game, which was to be expected for last year’s runners-up at the 4 Nations Face-Off. The convincing finish showed the power that the U.S. can be in a tournament filled with star players.

On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton explain how the U.S. played exactly how many expected against Latvia.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I thought that was a predictably dominant outcome. They probably could have scored a few more if a few reviews would have went their way. I think my one comment would be: No notes. Team USA looked as advertised.

Carter Hutton: I think so, too. I thought Brock Nelson was good. I thought Jack Hughes, who had a lot of question marks about him, how he could perform this tournament. I thought he was very good as well. For a first period where there’s a little bit of nerves and things don’t go your way, they could have easily crumbled a bit more, too. I think they answered the call. They managed what came at them. Reassuring for them, there’s a lot of dynamic play. I thought Hellebuyck was solid. He didn’t really get challenged a ton. It will be interesting to see how he answers the call as they get into tougher matchups for Team USA, but as we expected, they look like a very complete hockey team.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…