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For the next two weeks, I‘ll be recapping each Olympic men’s hockey game, so check the site daily for game recaps as well as news and notes.
The afternoon started with the United States playing Switzerland. Despite the Swiss roster containing only one noteworthy NHL skater (Mark Streit), the game was a lot closer than most would have predicted. The USA won 3-1 on even-strength goals from Bobby Ryan and David Backes. Ryan Malone added a power-play goal midway through the second period. Switzerland got a goal from Roman Wick in the third period when Ryan Miller unsuccessfully tried for the pokecheck. Miller made 15 saves, but his mistake cost him a shutout. It wasn’t Team USA’s best game, but they got the three points. However, only scoring three goals could prove costly if their rank for the qualification ends up coming down to goal differential. Miller wasn’t great, but he made saves when he had to. They did give up numerous odd-man rushes, but Switzerland still wasn’t able to generate much offense and got a solid effort from Jonas Hiller, who kept Switzerland in the game by stopping 21 of 24 shots. Next up for Team USA is Norway on Thursday, while Switzerland plays Canada on Thursday. But don’t count the Swiss out: they beat Canada and the Czech Republic in the 2006 games in Torino.
The second game of the afternoon was clearly the most hyped with Team Canada playing a true home game against Norway. To put things in perspective, every member of team Canada plays in the NHL, while Norway has just one such player: Ole-Kristian Tollefsen of the Red Wings. Norway also hasn’t been in the Olympics since 1994 when they qualified as the host nation, and Norway hasn’t finished higher than eighth in nine Olympic appearances. Playing Canada on the first day wasn’t good news for Norway, but to their credit, they hung around in a scoreless first period thanks to 14 saves from unknown keeper Pal Grotnes. Canada appeared to be nervous at the start, yet the heavily favored squad scored three in the second and five in the fifth for an 8-0 victory. A total of 17 different players recorded a point for Canada, and the only player with three points was Sidney Crosby, who was making his Olympic debut after being left off the roster four years ago. Jarome Iginla and Dany Heatley each had two goals. Iginla appeared to have a hat trick as fans littered the ice with hats, but the goal was credited to Rick Nash. Canada outshot Norway 42-15 and went two-for-six on the power play. Roberto Luongo got the start in his home rink in what could be his only start of the tournament. Team Canada plays Switzerland on Thursday with Martin Brodeur already having been named the starter for that game.
The final game of the night pitted Russia against Latvia. For those on the east coast like me who stayed up late enough to watch it (it ended at 2:20 AM EST), Sergei Fedorov and the Russians showed just how explosive the team is in an 8-2 win. He may not be in the NHL anymore, but the 40-year old Fedorov sure kept up with the youngsters. He had a jump in his step in setting up two early goals in the first period. Alex Ovechkin scored with under a minute in the first, his first of two goals on the night. The Russian captain Alexei Morozov, who was celebrating his 33rd birthday, also tallied a goal. Five goals were scored in the opening four minutes of the third period, but Latvia (which has just two NHL players on its roster- neither of which I can spell or pronounce) could not overcome the early deficit. Evgeni Nabokov allowed two soft goals, which could be cause for concern for the Russians especially since they still have to play the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which both have more potent offenses. Russia will play Slovakia on Thursday, while Latvia is off until Friday when they play the Czech Republic.
Olympic News and Notes:
Marian Gaborik (Slovakia) will miss his first two Olympic games as he is still recovering from a thigh injury he suffered in practice last week…Marian Hossa, who missed a game last week after taking a vicious hit, said he felt much better and will be in the lineup Wednesday against the Czech Republic…In three games, Canada’s two teams (men’s and women’s hockey) are outscoring opponents 36-1…Every men’s Olympic hockey team has at least one player in the NHL, with Norway and Belarus the only teams to have one player each (Tollefsen on Norway and Ruslan Salei on Belarus)… According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Niklas Backstrom will start in goal for Finland against Germany on Friday. However, Miikka Kiprusoff is expected to start every other game for the Finns, including Wednesday’s game against Belarus.
Email questions or comments to david@fantasyhockey.com.
For the latest Olympic line combinations, check out Hockeycentric.
From the department of semi-meaningful stats: the goal originally credited to Nash was credited to Iginla about four hours after the game. So Iggy got his hattie.