Team USA making the same mistake that doomed the Bruins

James Hagens might've felt like he was living in some perpetual time warp when he walked into Team USA's dressing room on Monday and saw Alex Steeves' name at the top of the line charts. Hagens, who accepted the invite to attend the World Championship for Team USA, is joined by Steeves and Mason Lohrei from the Boston Bruins, but the Olympic Champions aren't having the same success with this roster.

Steeves started on the first line against Team Finland on Monday, flanking Tommy Novak along with Ryan Leonard. With the roster lacking a ton of NHL star talent, it felt like a good chance for Hagens to get a ton of shifts in the team's top six, but he was stuck on the fourth line with Danny Nelson and Max Plante.

It isn't the worst line for Hagens to try to build some offense, with Plante the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner and Nelson among the top players in the NCAA. It could be Don Granato's plan to form a trio of NCAA players from this past season to build some chemistry, but it is still striking to see a lineup card with Steeves on the first line and Hagens on the fourth.

It isn't the first time over the past few weeks that Bruins fans who are also rooting for Team USA have had to live with this injustice. Steeves infamously slotted into the Bruins' lineup for Games 5 and 6 after Marco Sturm started benching Hagens after Game 3. While Steeves did bring a different element, fans weren't too happy with wasting a year of Hagens' contract for him to miss the AHL playoffs and sit in the TD Garden press box.

Granato is trying to do what he can to get his team rolling, so you can't really look too much into Steeves being on the first line. The head coach doesn't have enough pieces to form a cohesive lineup, so he is trying to spread the wealth around. It hasn't gone well for the team as of yet, as Team USA is 1-2 with a -2 goal differential. It might take some more lineup shuffling to get this team rolling.

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