It was the Americans’ second straight overtime loss in the tournament after falling by the same score against Germany, and they now need to beat Finland in the last group game to reach the next round.
Lassen’s wrist shot was stopped by U.S. goaltender Scott Clemmensen, but the defenseman tapped in the rebound 2:04 into the overtime period to hand the Americans an embarrassing loss.
Also Monday, Switzerland reached the second round with a 3-0 victory over Italy in Group B. Thibaut Monnet, Damien Brunner and Martin Pluss scored for the Swiss.
Later, Germany played Finland in Group D and Canada faced Latvia in Group B.
Like I said to Joe (who is covering the tournament for Universal Sports), when Scott Clemmensen is your No. 1 goalie ... you better be an AHL team. And with all respect to Kyle Okposo, if the budding power forward is possibly your top scorer while other teams sport players like Steven Stamkos (Canada) or Alex Ovechkin (Russia), you might have a little trouble filling the net.
Not all hope is lost for the U.S., but it’s difficult to envision a medal of any kind for the underwhelming squad right now.