TURIN, Italy (AP) – John Grahame was out of the picture. Now he’s in the net.

The Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender wasn’t even invited to the United States’ Olympic orientation camp in September, yet he was chosen Tuesday as the starter in the opener against Latvia today.

Grahame took the roster spot that appeared to belong to Buffalo’s Ryan Miller. The Sabres’ young goalie was sidelined by a broken thumb that hadn’t healed enough by the time the team was picked in December.

So Rick DiPietro and Robert Esche were joined by Grahame, who has not played in international competition since 1996. Miller, who has since recovered from his injury, is at home and will only come to Turin should one of the three goalies in front of him get knocked out.

All along, coach Peter Laviolette and general manager Don Waddell said that player performance in the first half of the NHL season would determine who plays.

They held to that in naming Grahame, who is 22-15-1 with a 2.68 goals-against average in 40 games this season. He was the backup to Nikolai Khabibulin during the Lightning’s run to the 2004 Stanley Cup title.

“John Grahame has had the best season in the NHL,” Laviolette said. “We have three starting goaltenders, all of them have had success, all of them have winning records but yet Johnny stands a little bit better than the other two.”

Before allowing five goals on 26 shots Saturday in a win at Boston, Grahame went 5-1 with four shutouts in seven games. His shutout run of 202 minutes, 46 seconds from Jan. 17-29 is the longest in team history.

“We’ve been focusing more on the last four or five weeks,” Laviolette said before holding his first practice Tuesday night. “We wanted somebody who is playing well, especially in that position. We want a goaltender who is basically pretty hot.”

And Grahame has one more advantage – rest. He was one of only two American players that made it to Italy on Monday. The remaining 21 arrived Tuesday, many having dealt with difficult travel conditions because of a snowstorm that buried much of the Northeast.

“I think we’ve all played well,” said DiPietro, who is 19-16-4 with the New York Islanders. “The coaching staff has to do what they feel is the best for the team. Right now, Grahame is playing well.”

“You’ve got to want that pressure on your shoulders,” Grahame said. “You have to be dead not to be excited. I’m no different. I’m ready to get started.”

With five games in seven days, the work will likely be spread around. DiPietro, who played under Laviolette – the former Islanders coach – will dress as Grahame’s backup on Wednesday. Esche has been slowed recently by a groin injury.

The United States should be able to get past Latvia in the Group A opener, but expectations are not high for the Americans, who lost to Canada in the gold medal game four years ago in Salt Lake City.

Not only aren’t they a popular pick to return to the medal stand, some say they will be well back in the 12-team field.

“Underdog doesn’t bother you, but when you see sixth, seventh and eighth, those numbers start to bother you,” said Doug Weight of the Carolina Hurricanes.

With only a weeklong camp in September and one practice in Italy, there wasn’t much time to teach the system the United States will employ in the Olympics.

“Ultimately it won’t be systems that win or lose the hockey games, it will be how hard those players play within the system,” Waddell said.

But since most teams are loaded with NHL players, some of whom were still playing in North America on Sunday night, no one really has an edge.

Latvia, however, has just one player currently in the NHL. They likely will start Arturs Irbe, who also played under Laviolette briefly with Carolina.

“Hopefully we can play close games,” Irbe said Tuesday, “and make the teams that are expected to win games against us to kind of sweat and get a little nervous.”

AP-ES-02-14-06 1826EST