The Red, White & Blue versus Canada with Gold Medals on the line...does it get any better, hockey fans?
In the Americans' semifinal matchup against the Finns, the Red, White, and Blue struck early and often - absurdly early and often - to come away with a 6-1 clobbering of Finland. By the 7:13 mark of the first period, the score was already 6-0...you know it's bad when your starting goaltender (Miikka Kiprusoff) pulls himself, and that's just what "Kipper" did after the American's fourth tally courtesy of Patrick Kane.
Everything that could go right for the Americans did go right in the early going. Kane broke out of his slump with his second and third goals of the tournament. Brian Rafalski added two more assists, and now leads the entire tournament in scoring with eight points, while Zach Parise chipped in with a goal and an assist of his own, bringing his point total to seven. Ryan Miller lengthened his shutout streak for two and half periods before being relieved by Tim Thomas.
Every member of Team U.S.A continued to pull their weight, whether it be Dustin Brown drawing two Finnish penalties which led to the second and third U.S.A. tallies, or Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan continuing to bust their butts defensively and on the penalty kill.
As for the Finns - embarrassing. They had been fairly flat and passive for much of the tournament, but no one expected an effort like this. After Kiprusoff's horrid turnover which allowed Ryan Malone to pot the first goal of the game, all the wind was sucked out of the sails of the Finnish skaters.
For the Canadians, their semifinal victory didn't come quite as easily. After putting forth an imposing effort in the first 40 minutes of their contest against Slovakia, Canada lost its focus and allowed Slovakia to climb to within one goal with just under five minutes to go in regulation.
Pavol Demitra, who played some of his best hockey in arguably five or six years, was stoned by the glove of Roberto Luongo with a shade under eight seconds left in the game. Live, I thought Demitra simply missed the empty cage and nicked iron, but on the replay it became clear that Luongo got a piece of his glove on it. Many Canadians have already dubbed the save "the Glove from Above."
It was undoubtedly a gigantic save by Luongo, but it might not have been necessary if he hadn't let in a weak Lubomir Visnovsky shot from the side of the net that got Slovakia's comeback started.
Perhaps the biggest bright spot for Canada was the play of the Brendan Morrow - Ryan Getzlaf - Corey Perry line. Morrow continued to throw the body every chance he could get, and his net presence resulted in two goals, one of which he scored himself via a deflected Chris Pronger point shot. Ryan Getzlaf showed no ill-effects from a recovering sprained ankle which kept him out of the morning skate, and was his usual hulking, dominant presence with the puck in the offensive zone.
For the Americans to win tomorrow, they need to keep doing what they're doing and get another great performance from Ryan Miller. In truth, the Americans are playing much better than they were heading into their first game against Canada - their defense has improved with every game.
The Canadians, too, are playing much better than they were heading into the first U.S.A./Canada matchup. If Canada can continue to throw the body and dominate down low in the offensive zone, they should be successful. Mike Babcock is surely hoping for some more production from the Sidney Crosby line - Crosby has no points in Canada's last two outings - and will need his defenseman to play a strong 60-minute game, something they've done just once (Russia), so far...
Is anyone else getting fed up with the current Team U.S.A. comparisons being made to the "Miracle on Ice" 1980 U.S.A. squad coming out of the media?
Seriously, this isn't even worthy of an "apples to oranges" analogy. This is apples to...something...err...very "unapple like."
The 1980 team featured a composition of college-aged kids who beat the best team in the world - a team that had beaten this same team 10-3 in a pre-tournament game, had routed an NHL All-Star team 6-0 the year before, had won every single Gold Medal dating back to 1960, and didn't lose a single international game after this one until 1985!
The media is making out the Americans to be a team that had a very remote chance of even medaling in this tournament, and many proclaimed their victory over Canada to be the biggest international American victory since the 1980 upset of the Soviets.
What about 1996 when we won the World Cup over Canada? What about 2002 when we won Silver in Salt Lake City? What about our World Junior Championship victory over Canada in 2004? How about our championship in the World Junior Championship over Canada that occurred not even two months ago?
Tomorrow's game will feature 23 NHL players facing off against 23 NHL players. Ryan Miller is the front-runner for the Vezina Trophy as the best goalie in the NHL, Tim Thomas won last year's Vezina Trophy, and Jonathon Quick leads NHL goaltenders in wins this season. Zach Parise was third in the NHL in goals and fifth in points last season. Patrick Kane is ninth in the NHL point-scoring race this season. The team boasts three of the 30 NHL Captains (Dustin Brown, Chris Drury, and Jamie Langenbrunner), twelve first round selections, and two of the last four first overall picks in the NHL Draft.
You want to point to the U.S.A. finishing eight in the last Olympics? Canada finished seventh!
Look, I'm not trying to underscore what the Americans have done, here. We have a young team that has come together and played some great hockey. But, this is a team that was clearly a medal threat coming in.
If the Americans take home gold, it will be great for the game here in the U.S. of A. It will, and should be, classified as an upset.
But it won't be a "miracle."
If you haven't already, take a look at this interview with Ryan Miller on MSNBC, an interview in which Miller claims that the Americans were already looking at video of Canada because the American side knew that Canada would beat Slovakia (this was before last night's game), and where he essentially guarantees victory over Canada in the Gold Medal Game.
Ryan Miller - a very soft spoken and professional athlete - wouldn't say that, right?
Right. Turns out, that wasn't Ryan Miller.
How MSNBC allowed somebody who wasn't the U.S.A.'s starting goaltender to con his way into a televised interview as Ryan Miller is beyond me. They issued a professional apology during "Hardball" later that night, and conducted an interview with the real Ryan Miller during that time.
A similar thing happened on SportsCenter the other day, with one of Howard Stern's buddies pretending to be Brian Dawkins...
Enjoy tomorrow's game - should be a dandy!
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