The 2025 Hlinka Gretzky Cup has officially gotten underway and has already provided some exciting games on Day 1 of the tournament. In Czechia, Canada scored with 8 seconds remaining in the second period to break open a 2-2 tie and then held off a determined Finland team to secure the 5-3 victory, Czechia then proceeded to handily take care of Switzerland firing 48 shots on net en route to a 6-2 victory. Over in Slovakia, Sweden looked like a dominant threat as 8 different players scored in their 10-0 victory.

Of course, the game Oil Kings care about most involved Noa Ta’amu and Team USA taking on Team Slovakia this morning. The Slovak side clearly came to play for a highly engaged home crowd, and put up a thrilling battle with a very talented American team. Slovakian 16-year-old forward Oliver Ozogany was the highlight of this game, scoring all 3 of Slovakia’s goals to secure himself the hat trick. 

Despite Ozogany’s best efforts though, Team USA came out on top after adding 2 empty net goals to their 4-3 lead to finish with the 6-3 win. Noa Ta’amu started the game listed on the 2nd Defensive pair with Levi Harper, and there is a lot to breakdown about his game today.

A Rough Start

Starting on the 2nd D Pair, and an early Team USA Powerplay, meant that we had to wait a little while before we got to see Ta’amu jump onto the international ice for the first time. When he finally did, if you blinked you probably missed it. Ta’amu jumped a play along the boards at the offensive blueline to stop a Slovakian clearing attempt, he quickly sent a pass out front to Noah Davidson that was smothered. Ta’amu did not stay for the ensuing whistle, and we were back for waiting to see #5 on his next shift.

That 2nd shift is where Ta’amu’s game took a drastic turn in the wrong direction. A Slovakian dump in went to Noa behind the USA net, Ta’amu attempted to wrap the puck around the boards but it was knocked down at the top of the faceoff circle by Adam Goljer, quickly sent on net for a dangerous opportunity and Ozogany jumped on the big rebound for his first of the game, tying it at 1-1 at that point. 

Team USA had 7 defensemen dressed for this game, and after this 1st Slovakian goal it felt like Ta’amu found himself dropped to that 7th D position. After the goal, he had a shift where he again jumped a Slovak breakout attempt at the Slovakian blueline, and went in but fired the shot attempt wide. His next shift saw Team USA with an extended o-zone shift with a strong cycle and multiple high danger chances, but that eventually stalled when Ta’amu couldn’t catch a pass from his D partner and Slovakia managed to clear the zone. Beyond those shifts, Ta’amu only had very short shifts through the remainder of the period as most shifts were a rotation of the other 6 defenders.

But Wait, There’s More…

A rather uneventful 2nd period for Ta’amu was not uneventful for the teams around him. His D partner, Levi Harper, potted a powerplay goal early in the period, but Ta’amu was not given any powerplay time so he played no part in Harper’s goal. Late in the period Ozogany would score his second for Slovakia, but Blake Zielinski would put Team USA back up 3-2 heading into the intermission.

In the third period, Ta’amu had the wheels fall off again and went through a very rough stretch. First, while paired with Zaide Penner as his D partner midway through the period, Ta’amu had centered himself in the slot to cover while Penner battled for a puck in the corner. Slovakia managed to win the puck battle and sent the puck cross ice to a wide open Ozogany, who clearly has been watching Alex Ovechkin for the past 20 years, because he set up shot on the faceoff dot and blasted it home to complete the hat trick and tie the game 3-3. Credit where credit is due, Ta’amu did the best he could to slide over and put himself in the shooting lane but the puck had eyes and managed to elude all 6’2” and 200+ lbs of the big defender. 

Shortly after the tying goal, with USA already having taken a penalty, Ta’amu was given a valuable opportunity on an important penalty kill late in a tie game. What did he do with this opportunity? He threw an errant, backhanded clearing attempt clean over the glass into the crowd, and put his team into a dangerous 5-on-3 penalty kill for 1:43.

It’s Not All Bad

Noa’s fortunes began to change with that bad penalty, however, as the Americans managed to kill the entire 5-on-3 and came out the other side still tied at 3. I’m sure he breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he got to step out of the box, at the end of the 2 minutes, with no harm done.

Despite all of the bad that I’ve managed to pull from Ta’amu’s game, he was still in a position where Coach Porter trusted him in the dying minutes once Team USA regained their lead at 4-3. He was the one patrolling the backend while Slovakia was pushing to tie the game for a 4th time, and he was the one that took a loose puck and sent Brooks Rogowski in for the Empty Net insurance to seal the game away.

All things considered, and having the benefit of hindsight to look back on the game as a whole, it’s easy to get too focused on the fact that Ta’amu was the one in these positions that looked bad. The more keen eye will look at the fact that Ozogany had himself a spectacular game, and Ta’amu became an unfortunate victim of a hot player. The coaching staff appeared to gain more and more trust in him as the game went along, going as far as earning penalty kill minutes and late game “hold the lead” minutes in a tightly fought contest.

Team USA has an unenviable task of playing all 3 of their round robin matches in this tournament in consecutive days, so Ta’amu and the rest of the Americans need to be prepared and ready to go again tomorrow. Hopefully the big Oil King prospect can build on the confidence the coaches showed in him late, and put forth a better effort tomorrow against an extremely dangerous Sweden team.

Players of the Match

Canada: Keaton Verhoeff (1G, 2A)
Finland: Oliver Suvanto (1A)
Czechia: Lukas Kachlir (2G, 2A)
Switzerland: Pascal Kunz (42 Saves)
Sweden: Marcus Nordmark (1G, 3A)
Germany: Max Bolle (47 Saves)
USA: Noah Davidson (GWG)
Slovakia: Oliver Ozogany (3 Goals)