Canada, US score ice wins
The Americans edged Switzerland and the Canadians dominated Russia.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Team USA coach Ron Wilson understands that few would have predicted the success his young and inexperienced hockey club has had so far at the Olympics.
“If you had said at the beginning of the tournament that we’d be 4-0 and the No. 1 seed, everybody would say you are on crack or something,” Wilson said.
Wilson, however, left out the best part.
The U.S. also is in the semifinals after a nail-biting 2-0 triumph over Switzerland in Wednesday’s quarterfinals. The Americans will face the winner of the Czech Republic-Finland quarterfinal at 3 p.m. on Friday.
Left out of most medal conversations before the tournament, Team USA has a chance to leave Vancouver with a piece of hardware, playing in either Sunday’s gold-medal game or Saturday’s bronze-medal game.
“We’re down to the final four now,” U.S. forward Ryan Kesler said. “We’ve got to get ready for that game, and each game is going to get bigger.”
On Wednesday, Zach Parise came to the rescue for the Americans with his first two goals of the Olympics, breaking open a scoreless game in the third period with a power-play goal and adding an empty-net goal with 11 seconds to play.
The U.S. outshot Switzerland 42-19, but in the end, beating the Swiss for the second time in eight days proved to be a tough task. The Americans edged them 3-1 in the preliminary round on Feb. 16.
“It was a surprise the first time how hard they played, and they picked it up a notch or two [Wednesday],” Team USA forward David Backes said. “It was almost like someone came in their locker room and said, ‘If you really stick it to these guys, you have a great chance against them.’ They were the best I’ve seen them in six or seven international games against them.”
Canada 7, Russia 3
The Canadians got a goal and two assists from Dan Boyle during a take-charge first period to beat the world champions and surge into the Olympic semifinals.
The physical, focused Canadians took advantage of terrible goaltending by Evgeni Nabokov and superior depth and size to open leads of 3-0 and 4-1 in the first period and 6-1 early in the second period, and the unexpected rout was on.
The resurgent Canadians meet the Sweden-Slovakia winner in Friday’s semifinals. If they advance, they might face the United States in a rematch of the 5-3 loss on Sunday.
That disappointment marked their first Olympic loss to the U.S. since 1960; the punishing win over Russia was their first since the same tournament in Squaw Valley and only the second in 11 Olympic games against the Russians or Soviets.
Corey Perry upstaged Russia’s big-name, big-contract forwards with two goals, Shea Weber also scored and set the tone by upending Maxim Afinogenov with a board-rattling hit in the opening seconds and Ryan Getzlaf had a goal and two assists. And Boyle frustrated Nabokov, his NHL teammate, by scoring a power-play goal and creating two others.
And that was only the start.
Almost as surprising as the score was how Canada pulled it off. Sidney Crosby went scoreless in a subordinate role, with less celebrated players and grit negating Russia’s cast of stars and supposedly superior speed.
Nabokov, whose NHL San Jose Sharks are perennial playoff underachievers, allowed several soft goals early, one to Patrick Marleau, and the letdown was evident on a downcast Russian bench.
Coach Slava Bytov didn’t pull Nabokov until Weber scored at 4:07 of the second to make it 6-1. Given the looks on the players’ faces, the move came about two or three goals too late.
Remarkably, almost none of the pregame story lines played out. The Canadians didn’t need a big game from Crosby, who was as quiet offensively as Ovechkin was, a huge game in goal from Roberto Luongo or a shutdown defensive performance.
Luongo, who took over for a benched Martin Brodeur after the U.S. loss, gave up goals to Dmitri Kalinin, Afinogenov and Sergei Gonchar while making 25 saves, but didn’t need to be brilliant with all that was going on around him.
Canadian coach Mike Babcock kept rolling his four lines and relying upon his much bigger defensemen to push around Russia’s forwards — Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Semin were ineffective, too — and discourage them from trying to find open lanes.
Ovechkin, whose one-upmanship duels with Crosby keep getting better and better, was a surprising nonfactor. The word in the Russian camp — the players haven’t talked much — was that Ovechkin was determined to play one of the best games of his life.
Instead, the two-time NHL MVP was about as invisible as hockey’s top offensive player can be after being upended twice in the first period, and his trademark big hits and end-to-end rushes were missing.
Instead, Rick Nash and Brenden Morrow also scored during the kind of dominating first period that Canada didn’t seem capable of playing as it lost to the U.S. and nearly lost to Switzerland in its first three games.