USA 6, Finland 1
Finland came into the semifinal matchup with Team USA off of two poor performances, a lackluster 3-0 loss against archrival Sweden and a somewhat fortunate 2-0 win against the sleepwalking Czech Republic. Thus, it was encouraging to see good energy in the first few shifts, including the typical extra effort of Tuomo Ruutu. Enter: Miikka Kiprusoff’s bonehead gaff – which not only disrupted the positive energy, but obviously put Kiprusoff’s head completely out of the game. Much like Bykov for the Russians, Jalonen–who should never be allowed to coach the national team again–waited until the game was all but over to make the goaltender switch…except, it should have been Antero Niittymaki dressed as the backup; Niittymaki has had a far, far superior season to Backstrom–playing Backstrom is so 2008-9–and he was red hot heading into the Olympics. All moot, with the hideous offensive effort put forth by the team outside of the Germany and Belarus games, of course. Oh, and the United States did exactly what they needed to do, clinically dispatching a faltering foe. Surprise good move on the coaching end, pulling Miller for Thomas–albeit much later than optimal–to rest Miller for the finals.
Canada 3, Slovakia 2
Why Canada won, aside from all that talent: 1. They played an intelligent, controlled game that kept the lethal Slovakian power play off the ice for most of the game. 2. Smart coaching, to be taking those wrist shots from the point; nifty deflections beat the underrated Halak for the first two goals. 3. The change to Luongo gave a slight edge over Brodeur, though Luongo was a hair’s breadth away from being the goat of a colossal third period collapse. 4. The choice of Brendan Morrow to the squad. I disagreed with both the Morrow and Staal selections, but both have been key to the Canadian effort, especially over the last two games. What an upset this would have been, and nearly was.
Bronze medal game: Finland vs. Slovakia
Aside from Gaborik’s injury, Slovakia and not Finland should be favored in this game. Has anyone been paying attention to the fact that Slovakia beat two of the tournament’s three favorites, while nearly taking a third to overtime? Finland’s resume is basically the opposite of that. Bronze medal games can be tricky to predict, though, because many teams will mail it in for a consolation game. Assuming consistent effort to what we’ve seen from both teams, even with the Gaborik injury, Slovakia will likely prevail – unless Jalonen makes the correct choice of Antero Niittymaki in goal. Niittymaki would be on a mission; Kiprusoff is mentally cooked and Backstrom is not that solid.
Gold medal game: USA vs. Canada
Oh, the cockiness–and short memories?–of twenty-some year old Canadians tweeting out there. Canadian fans, and team Canada itself, should be anything but overconfident. Team USA has been the best team in the tournament, bar none. Aside from their perfect record, think of the quality wins – comfortably over Switzerland in the prelims, great win against the Canadians–and sorry, it wasn’t all Miller–trashed the Finns, with only the quarterfinal squeaker against Switzerland a bit of a mediocre performance. That’s 3 of 4 good to excellent efforts against the better teams of the tournament. Canada’s track record–regardless of how good their roster looks on paper and how badly they trashed Norway and Germany–is spotty: an overtime nailbiter against Switzerland, the USA loss, and the Slovakia near-overtime near-epic-collapse, offset only by the impressive effort against Russia. That’s 1 of 4 above average performances against the better teams. Yes, Canada can bring better talent to the table, but with that track record, this game looks like a dead-even tossup to me. Above else, Canada needs to play from in front, or the pressure will become hard to bear. Tossup, but I’ll call it 4-3 USA in OT. Zach Parise with the game winner.