I wonder how much of his meltdown at the tournament played a role? I think it still has more to do with the US limiting non USNDT players
Apparently he didn't really have a good pretournament. Last year's early penalty for spearing vs Canada probably didn't help either.
As for size, the US is actually rolling with a good handful of smaller players, 5'10" and under:
Jack Ahcan, Adam Fox, Jeremy Bracco, Patrick Harper, Clayton Keller.