The loss of the point was very signicant.
Here's the format, tie breakers,etc:
http://www.iihf.com/channels10/olymp...en/format.html
Essentially the 3 group winners and a wild card get the bye. The loss of point almost guarantees we won't get seed #1 or #2 even with a win against USA. It also all but eliminates us from backing into the wild card bye spot.
To clarify an earlier comment, the winner of the game is the first tie breaker for ties within a group. So all that matters is beating US in reg or OT, or SO. Any of those gets us a #3 seed. Lose that game and the loss of point tonight, we drop way down in the quarter final seeding, and probably have to play a decent team to just make the semis.,