TORONTO

Patrick Kane was on the verge of tears as the final horn sounded on another American loss to Canada.

A 4-2 wipeout eliminated the United States from the World Cup of Hockey on Tuesday night, ending what was perhaps the best chance for this generation of players to win an international competition. Instead, the U.S. flamed out in two games, leaving disappointment, frustration and plenty of questions about the direction of the program.

In the aftermath of a dominant, clinical performance by the tournament favorite, and a lackluster showing by the U.S., top players were shell-shocked by the early exit.

A shutout at the hands of Team Europe, a group of players from eight countries, and then a mistake prone loss to Canada was enough to keep the U.S. from reaching the semifinals. Canada and Europe clinched spots.

What Kane called a “dud” against Europe put the U.S. in a must-win mode against its biggest rival. Regulation victories against Canada and the Czech Republic would’ve advanced the Americans, and now the final round-robin game Thursday is a matchup of lame-duck teams.

U.S. general manager Dean Lombardi said in June that his goal was to build a team that could beat Canada. The American roster, heavy on size and grit and light on speed and skill, was widely panned when it was announced, and it took more hits this week.

“You guys can beat up the roster all you want,” coach John Tortorella said. “You look at some of those players on our roster, there are some pretty good skilled players and we just simply did not do enough offensively and we self-inflicted quite a bit in two games.”

Tortorella said he’s still waiting for the U.S. to generate some offense. It got an early goal by defenseman Ryan McDonagh and a late one by T.J. Oshie well after the game had been decided.

Forwards Phil Kessel, Paul Stastny and Kyle Okposo, and defensemen Justin Faulk and Kevin Shattenkirk were among the players left off the roster who could have provided more offense.

After mistakes led to two Canada goals by Matt Duchene and one each by Corey Perry and Patrice Bergeron, U.S. players brushed off Kessel’s tweet and criticism of the roster construction.

The U.S. continued to be not good enough against Canada, falling to 1-5 against the world’s top hockey power dating to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

On Tuesday night Canada was the better team from about the five-minute mark on, getting two goals 14 seconds apart.