Question: Input: U.S. Routs Slovenia in Olympic Hockey
Updated Feb. 16, 2014 3:06 p.m. ET

SOCHI, Russia—One day after its thrilling win over Russia, the U.S. men's hockey team ended the preliminary round of the Olympics with a snoozer.

Phil Kessel led a 5-1 rout of Slovenia with a hat trick Sunday and the U.S. earned a bye to the quarterfinals, which begin Wednesday. The U.S. will play the winner of Tuesday's Czech Republic-Slovakia game in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, setting up a potential semifinal against Canada. The only potential rematch with Russia would come in the gold-medal game.

The U.S. improved to 3-0 in the tournament—with one of the wins by shootout—and won its preliminary-round group, quashing concerns about its ability to compete on the larger international ice. And while beating up on Slovenia isn't much of a gauge of how the Americans will fare in the medal round, U.S. coach Dan Bylsma said he was encouraged by what he saw.

"Going into the tournament, you look at our pool, and it's a tough task playing Russia on their home turf in the second game, Slovakia in one and Slovenia in another," Bylsma said. "To be able to come through in the three games and have two regulation wins and a shootout win…is a good thing for our team."

Kessel's three goals marked the first Olympic hat trick by an American since John LeClair in 2002. He has four goals in the tournament so far.

After starting in goal for the first two games of the tournament, Jonathan Quick got the day off. Ryan Miller, a driving force behind Team USA's silver-medal finish in Vancouver in 2010, started instead and finished with 17 saves. Only Marcel Rodman's goal for Slovenia with 17 seconds left in the game prevented the shutout.

"It could have been a situation where we took them lightly, but we were all focused," Miller said. "And I wanted to contribute to that focus. My contribution is important. I'll be ready if I need to be."

Bylsma declined to say which goalie would start Wednesday, but Quick is expected back in net.

Any concerns about a letdown game for the U.S. were allayed just 1:04 into the game, when Kessel, a Toronto Maple Leafs forward, scored from the slot. A little more than three minutes later, Kessel scored again, this time charging the crease on a pass from Joe Pavelski behind the net.

"The speed at which he can accelerate down the ice, he can put teams in trouble with that speed," Bylsma said. "And to finish it up with the shot that he has, it's one of the more dangerous weapons out there. And today we saw both of those [skills] right from the start."

The 2-0 lead obscured some sloppy early play by the U.S. But Slovenia, a first-time entrant in the Olympic hockey tournament, was still overmatched.

Kessel completed the hat trick with 8:55 to go in the second period, slamming in a rebound in front of the net. And just over a minute later, Ryan McDonagh made it 4-0 on a one-timer from Blake Wheeler on the right side. David Backes added a goal in the third.

When asked by a moderator to begin his postgame news conference with some opening remarks, Slovenia coach Matjaz Kopitar said, "Um, yeah, there's not much to say."

Write to Brian Costa at brian.costa@wsj.com
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It's about: One day after a thrilling shootout win over Russia, Phil Kessel had a hat trick as the U.S. men's hockey team ended the preliminary round of the Olympics with a 5-1 rout of Slovenia.

Q: After missing Malaysian plane's pingers are dead, then what?

(CNN) -- Once investigators looking for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 decide to shift from listening for pings emanating from the floor of the Indian Ocean to poring over its terrain, they will begin drawing from a whole new set of tools.

Among them will be the Bluefin-21, a probe equipped with side-scan sonar -- an acoustic technology that creates pictures from the reflections of sound rather than light.

"That is a piece of equipment that does assist in locating where the wreckage may be," said Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer from National Geographic who was chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Though the discovery of four pings believed to be from the jet's so-called black boxes -- its flight data recorder and its cockpit voice recorder -- have helped investigators narrow the search area, they would still face a formidable task. "It's a lot of terrain to cover," given that the Bluefin-21 moves at the pace of a leisurely stroll, she told CNN.

Though it moves slowly, it creates good images -- so good that they are "almost a picture of what's there ... but it's imaged with sound instead of with a camera."

Listen for a ping, and the water may play tricks on you

Once the debris field is found, then other equipment -- such as remotely operated vehicles -- would be brought in to recover the black boxes, Earle said.

ROVs working at depths of three miles would require power conveyed down a cable from a ship above, she said. "There are not many pieces of equipment in the world able to do this."

And there are only a handful of countries that have manned submarines capable of descending to such depths, she said, citing the United States, Russia, Japan, France and China.

"Having the human presence there can make a big difference," she said. It "can give you a real edge in terms of understanding what's there."

The scarcity of resources "shows how ill-prepared we are to operate in the deep sea," Earle said. "We've invested in aviation and aerospace, and we've been neglecting the ocean."

The time to move from listening for pings to looking for debris is fast approaching, said Alan Diehl, a former Air Force accident investigator. "We're right on the cusp where we need to go from passive listening to active (looking) with the Bluefin," he told CNN.

That's because the batteries powering the black boxes' locator devices are probably already dead, said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, who noted that more than four days had elapsed since any pings were detected.

"I'm surprised that they lasted as long as they did," she said.

The failure of searchers to find any debris linked to the plane has not surprised CNN Aviation Analyst David Soucie, author of "Why Planes Crash."

The model used for tracking the debris could be incorrect, he said, noting that that was the case when investigators were searching for evidence of Air France Flight 447, which plunged into the southern Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing all 228 people aboard.

"They spent weeks looking for debris in the wrong area," he said.

The lack of debris could also mean that the plane did not break apart on impact, but instead sank largely intact, he said.

If that was the case, it could complicate the effort to retrieve the black boxes, since they were stored inside the tail of the plane. Investigators would have to dismantle the tail in order to extract them and whatever secrets they may hold.

Lessons from past air disasters

A:
Answer: Crews looking for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may soon shift to a new set of tools, including side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles.