USA 6, Norway 1
A tad off the beatdown pace that Canada applied to poor Norway, but holding serve nonetheless. Two goals for top defenseman Brian Rafalski.
The real story occurred last night – the decision by Team USA coaching/management to ride poor Ryan Miller through every game of the tournament. The decision is baffling on so many levels. A nice effort against Western Conference power San Jose notwithstanding, Miller has had a rough few weeks–comparatively–leading up to the Olympics. What would be the harm in resting to poor guy, to recharge his batteries for the critical second week of competition? A move to ride him is so misplaced, so unnecessary, so win-the-battle-not-the-war, so damn amateur – Folks making decisions like that shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions no more. Tim Thomas was fully capable of leading the United States to a 3-1 win over Switzerland or a 6-1 win over Norway, just the same as Miller. Frankly, even were the United States to miss the secondary round bye and end up with an elimination game against the likes of a Latvia or Belarus, Team USA should still break down and go with Thomas for a game–it’s a layup, folks–before turning the stretch run over to Miller. The bottom line is that going with their–marginally–best goalie for every game actually decreases America’s chance of medaling down the line. Aside from all that, the Buffalo Sabres sure have to be ticked off at Ron Wilson and company for further grinding their bread and butter into a pulp.
Norway and Latvia are shaping up to be the two bottom seeds in the secondary round, drawing the Canada-USA loser or the second place team from Group B, probably the Russia-Czech Republic loser. By extension, really all the 2nd place teams get a virtual bye. There’s no real chance of losing that game.
Canada 3, Switzerland 2 (SO)
As the Swiss shut out Canada in 2006, it might seem odd for overtime to shock anyone. But it was shocking, especially with Canada leading 2-0 going into the last minute of the second period. Jonas Hiller is a big difference maker for Switzerland, of course, but their team is very solid overall. No team should take Switzerland for granted, especially once the elimination games begin. Clearly, the result puts the United States’ 3-1 win in a different light. Deeper still, consider that Switzerland outplayed both hockey powers in the third periods of the games. Lesson: you better beat up on this team early, because their effort and endurance just might nip you at the wire.
Teams like Canada and the United States left off many skill players for the sake of experience, toughness or some specialty as a role player. Is there any doubt that in a game like this that Mike Green would have been more valuable than the overrated Scott Niedermayer–remember, it’s 2010, not 2006–or that Martin St. Louis or Jeff Carter would have been more valuable than Brendan Morrow? When it’s nip and tuck, you want skaters that’ll just put the damn puck in the net.
What’s up with the silly international rule that you can keep recycling your top three shooters in the shootout? What a dumb rule.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter that the game went to overtime. Even an overtime win against the United States will rank Canada in first place of Group A. The point will make no difference there. The takeaway from this is an extra point for Switzerland, much might well bump them up a spot or two to a better matchup for the secondary round; maybe it’s the difference between facing Belarus instead of Germany, or Germany instead of Slovakia. Update: make that Russia?!
Slovakia 2, Russia 1 (SO)
Hard to believe that staying up past 2:30 might have been worth it–at my age–but it probably was. Shocked at the result? Sure, but probably more shocked at only 2 regulation goals, given all the firepower on the rosters. Bryzgalov had a game effort – he’s certainly not to blame. And with all the power plays Russia had, you have to give kudos to Halak and the Slovakian D. Strbak is a nice player; he’s going to parlay this tournament into an NHL gig, you watch. Amazing that the Slovakian penalties didn’t bite them in the dumbass again.
All right: the shootout. Finland left off Jussi Jokinen (54%), but they’ve got several shooters who are proven to be over 40% over a relatively large number of career attempts (No, leaving Jokinen off is a mistake because he’s having a career season and he’s better than 3-4 forwards on their roster). So why did Russia leave off the other best all-time shooter, Slava Kozlov (not to be confused with Viktor Kozlov), who is a whopping 58.7% over nearly 50 career attempts? No good answer there, as the superstar forward talent of the Russians ends at their top two lines. Yet against Slovakia, there were many, many elite and above average choices benched for many below average choices. Russian shooters, career shooting percentage (20% is poor, 33% is average, 40%+ is elite): Datsyuk 49%, Markov 44% (4 for 11), Tyutin 43% (3 for 7), Afinogenov 35%, Semin 32%, Ovechkin 27%, Kovachuk 25%, Gonchar 25% (1 for 4), Malkin 23% . With Ovechkin getting three attempts, that’s bad coaching. With their best three shooters sitting on the bench, that’s bad coaching. In fact, it’s horrible, horrible, inexcusably horrible coaching.