USA routs Germany 6-0 at world juniors

The strength of Team USA at the World Junior Championships is that it is challenging for opponents to know where to assign their best defensive players.

The USA's depth of pure offensive skill was on display Sunday when four current or future NHL first-round picks generated five goals to pace the unbeaten Americans to a 6-0 win against Germany in the preliminary round in Montreal.

"It's like I get to go in a side door because of the attention that other guys draw," said Detroit Red Wings first-rounder Dylan Larkin, who had two goals and an assist to lead the USA's offensive attack.

Columbus Blue Jackets first-rounder Sonny Milano also scored, as did U.S. captain Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews, who are expected to be early first- round picks in the NHL's 2015 an 2016 draft respectively.

"Other teams focus a lot on them, and that's a credit to how good they are," Larkin said. "I get other matchups where I'm not going against the other's best checking forward."

Eichel will be taken in the first two picks of the June draft, and Matthews is considered a candidate to go No. 1 overall in 2016. Hudson Fasching (Buffalo Sabres) scored the other goal for USA, which outshot Germany 53-14.

German goalie Ilja Sharapov played brilliantly and that was the only reason why the Americans didn't score 10 or 12 goals. He was voted Germany's Player of the Game, despite giving up six goals.

This American is loaded full of premium players on both offense and defense. The Americans have given up one goal in two games.

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"We played the way we wanted to play," said U.S. coach Mark Osiecki. "We wanted to play down below the tops of the circles with our forwards as quick as we could. That was our focus the last couple of days and I think our guys responded to that."

The Americans (2-0) have no time to savor the victory because they face Slovakia Monday (4 p.m. ET, NHL Network) in an important game because the USA wants to be unbeaten when it faces Canada on New Year's Eve. Slovakia showed its danger level by knocking off Finland 2-1 on Saturday.

"The thing we said after the game was that it was all about recovery now," said Osiecki. "Turn the page and get ready for Slovakia. Rest. Recovery. Get the nutrition. The one thing about this group is that they just want to play. And when you get a group like that it can be beneficial to play back-to-back."