Barber, Kuraly Lead USA past Germany

The goals haven’t come as quickly at Miami for freshman sniper Sean Kuraly as he would like, but on Thursday in Ufa, Russia, the 19 year old from Dublin, Ohio opened the scoring for Team USA in the 2013 World Junior Championship as the Americans routed Germany 8-0. Assisting on his goal was Miami teammate Riley Barber who contributed a goal and two assists to help the Red, White and Blue to an opening day win. Barber tied for the team high in shots on goal with six while Kuraly finished with 1-1-2 and won 10 of 14 faceoffs (good enough for a team-leading 71.4%), something we’ve come to expect from him thus far at Miami.

Chris Peters of UnitedStatesofHockey.com has a full run-down on the victory HERE and the complete stat sheet can be found HERE.

Next up for the Americans? Host nation Russia tomorrow at 9am. The game can be seen on NHL Network and NHL.com (if you can find the link on their awful site).

Notes

• Former Miami forward Tyler Biggs was held off the score sheet but contributed a penalty to the cause. Where have we seen that before? And, for those questioning the quality of play in the NCAA vs. the CHL, take a look at Biggs’ stats. Last year with Miami, Biggs notched 9-8-17 in 37 games. But, in just 34 games with the Oshawa Generals of the OHL, Biggs has 15-18-33. The OHL as a weaker league? It sure looks that way because the Biggs I saw today was slow with poor hands and no scoring touch hitting the German goaltender in the chest on a perfectly executed cross-ice pass. Pretty much exactly what we saw in Oxford last year.
• Miami de-commit, Ryan Hartman, also scored a goal for the Americans and five of the six players with Miami ties saw ice time in this game with D Pat Sieloff the lone former/could-have-been-RedHawk who did not suit up today.

Miami will face duhOSU and Robert Morris this weekend in Pittsburgh in the Three Rivers Classic at Consol Energy Center without Barber and Kuraly so look for Steve Mason, John Doherty and Max Cook to see more ice time to make up for their absences.