While Canada, Sweden, Europe and Russian Federation prepare for the semifinals this weekend, the US and Czech Republic played out the string in front of a half-empty arena. Now, the top two teams from each pool advance and we breakdown the matchups ahead of elimination action this weekend.
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Russian Federation will go up against hosts and favourites Canada, the reigning Olympic gold medallists who strolled through the group stage with a 100 per cent record in the semi-finals, on Saturday (September 24).
Canada just outlasted Russian Federation in the final pre-tournament game with a 3-2 overtime win.
Armstrong – the general manager of the St. Louis Blues – was tasked with picking the pieces for Canada’s team, along with a brain trust that included Detroit’s Ken Holland, Anaheim’s Bob Murray, Montreal’s Marc Bergevin, Los Angeles Kings assistant GM Rob Blake, and Scott Salmond from Hockey Canada.
Avi Dunkelman and Joe Gault of Toronto designed the six-stamp Canadian issue, which features head-and-shoulder images of the players in uniform. Halak’s 1.98 goals-against average is slightly higher than Lundqvist’s 1.95. The Canadians boast the deepest roster and have gone relatively untested so far. This has made them highly competitive at those levels and ousting several Team Canada’s that couldn’t figure out what the hell they were trying to construct.
This is a rivalry in need of a major rejuvenation and it could come right here.
“It’s going to be like Russian Federation when we play Olympic Games”, Ovechkin said.
Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Telegin and Evgeni Malkin each scored a goal for the Russians, who advance to face Sidney Crosby and Group A victor Canada on Saturday (7 p.m. EDT).
The Canadians will be looking to their incredible abilities in controlling the puck, dominating possession and leaning on one of the game’ best goalies in Carey Price. They’ve already matched their goal total for the tournament – everyone take a drink! He looked overmatched at times – particularly when Connor McDavid turned him inside out on a blazing rush up the slot – but feels the experience will help him. Getzlaf had three points in just over 10 minutes. Sweden (2-0-1) is still considered a strong favorite, however.
Getting nearly skated out of the rink by Canada wasn’t entirely unexpected, but players acknowledged their recipe to move on was to beat Europe and the Czech Republic. It should be a fascinating semifinal between the historic rivals nonetheless. Meanwhile, Europe is 11-for-12 on the penalty kill in this tournament. They are only available in a pack of six, like hockey cards. “They have a pretty good team with solid players”.
Sweden may not be a bad matchup for Europe in the semis.
They played hard, gave effort in a meaningless round-robin finale but still lost, 4-3, to the Czech Republic on Thursday night.
The Swedes will obviously have other ideas. Victor Hedman has looked every bit the all-world defenseman he’s grown into in the National Hockey League. They know how to play with the players they have.
“I don’t think we showed enough respect for the talent on that team”, Lombardi said Thursday morning. They were thoroughly outplayed early, quickly going down 2-0 before rallying to force overtime. Byfuglien couldn’t let this meaningless game go and went after Jordan at the end of the period, resulting in a big pile up of people. They’ve won 13 straight best-on-best games dating back to 2010, rolling through the preliminary round here in Toronto with next to no real tension.
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To sum up, Team USA had a very poor showing at this tournament and has endured a lot of criticism – albeit, deserved criticism. Expect that line to match up against Europe’s top unit of Marian Hossa, Anze Kopitar and Tomas Tatar.
