Auston Matthews had two goals and an assist to help the United States win its pool with a 5-1 victory against Germany in its final preliminary-round game at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Sunday.
Tage Thompson, Zach Werenski and Brock Faber also scored, Matthew Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson each had two assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves for the U.S., which swept Group C after previously beating Latvia and Denmark.
Tim Stutzle scored and Maximilian Franzreb made 32 saves for Germany, which finished 1-2-0 in the preliminary round.
The U.S. was seeded second for the playoff bracket and will face the winner between Sweden and Latvia in the quarterfinals Wednesday.
The Americans took a 1-0 lead with 8.7 seconds left in the first period.
The Germans won a faceoff in their zone, but twice missed a chance to clear the puck before Matthews collected it along the wall and passed to Werenski entering the opposite circle. His shot from the right dot went through the legs of German defenseman Moritz Seider and into the net.
The U.S. outshot the Germans 15-8 in the opening period.
After the U.S. killed Germany’s first power play early in the second period, the Americans immediately went on their own man advantage and stretched the lead to 2-0 at 3:25. A shot by Quinn Hughes was saved by Franzreb, but the rebound went off the body of Matthews and slid across the goal line.
Faber made it 3-0 at 17:35 of the second when his shot from the right point went off the glove of Franzreb and across the goal line.
Thompson increased it to 4-0 at 1:55 of the third with a one-timer from above the circle.
Matthews tapped in the puck from the crease after Franzreb initially stopped his redirection to make it 5-0 at 6:46.
Stutzle broke up the shutout when he drove to the net and scored from the bottom of the left circle to cut it to 5-1 at 11:22.
–Field Level Media
