ROC moves into final four
Wednesday was quarter-finals day in the Olympic men’s tournament — and Team ROC progressed to a match-up against ... in the final four. The Russians beat Denmark 3-1, while ... In the other side of the draw, Slovakia surprised the USA in a shoot-out and will play Finland in the semi-finals.
Stubborn Denmark can’t stop defending champ
Team ROC 3 Denmark 1 (1-0, 1-1, 1-0)
The Olympic defense continues, with team ROC advancing to the semi-final after defeating Denmark for the second time at the Games. Once again, though, the underdog Danes put up a fight against an opponent it has never beaten in international play, while the Russian offense continues to raise questions as it misses chances all too frequently.
The first period here was a case in point. ROC outshot Denmark 18-1, yet had just a solitary goal to show for its efforts. Happily, Vadim Shipachyov was the scorer. The captain faced criticism after the group phase and in some quarters seemed to be held responsible for every attacking weakness shown by the team. Today, he opened the scoring midway through the first when he forced home Nikita Gusev’s feed at the far post.
That was something of a pre-determined play, the Dynamo Moscow center revealed afterwards. “Gus said that I should go to the far post,” said Shipachyov. “And it was already rush-hour there with all the ricochets. I’m not quite sure what happened, but we can say that we agreed what to do before.”
There were alarm bells at the start of the second period when Denmark tied the scores. Frans Nielsen, in the final year of his long and distinguished career on both sides of the Atlantic, beat Ivan Fedotov and suddenly those missed chances early on looked costly. For a time, the tempo slowed and the Danes looked far more comfortable in the game.
The next goal was crucial, and Nikita Nesterov provided it with a rocket of a shot that flew back off the equipment at the back of the net. However, there was no doubt that it hit the target and team ROC was back in front.
Denmark continued to press, fighting to save the game in the third, and Nielsen felt he could have done better with a good shorthanded chance that Fedotov slid across to stop. The same power play saw Slava Voynov add a third goal and make the game safe. The defenseman also made a vital block, stopping the puck in front of an empty net as Denmark kept the battle alive until the end.
“Once again, it was a very tough game,” Voynov said. “We created a lot but couldn’t score. We let the opposition create a lot of chances too and our goalie bailed us out. That block was just a split-second thing. I saw there was a bit of a slip and tried to get in position in front of the net.”
His fellow goalscoring blue liner, Nesterov, was concerned that as the competition reaches the business end, the team still has work to do. “We need to play better the next game,” he said. “We need to take the puck to the net, do more screening, play more comfortable with the puck.”
Denmark’s head coach, Heinz Ehlers, summed up his thoughts on the game. “The best team won,” he said. “We knew it would be tough, the Russians have a fantastic team, great players. But we kept the score close and, if luck had been on our side, we might have tied the game in the third period. We had some great chances and I’m proud of my team.”
His counterpart, Alexei Zhamnov, added: “It was a hard game. Denmark is a very good team. As we expected, it was a tight game. We wanted to settle it in the first period and went out to do exactly that, to spend as much time as possible on the attack and play a tight game. But we couldn’t take the chances we created.
“Now, the two most important games are left and we’ll get ready for them.”
Canada crashes out as Wallmark tops goal chart
Sweden 2 Canada 0 (0-0, 0-0, 2-0)
Goals from Lucas Wallmark and Anton Lander settled a grinding battle between two of hockey’s big hitters, with Sweden advancing to the semi-final and leaving Canada out of the medals for the first time since 2006.
Swedes seeking good omens will recall that their team won gold in those 2006 Games in Torino, but most neutral observers would feel that there was little golden about Wednesday’s arm wrestle.
For long periods, the teams cancelled each other out. Chances were at a premium throughout and it wasn’t until the latter stages of the third period that the deadlock was broken. In keeping with what came before, the game hinged on a defensive error: Canada’s Jack McBain played an ill-advised pass to try to clear his zone and presented the puck to Wallmark. The CSKA man seized the opportunity, evading Tyler Wotherspoon’s efforts to cover and firing a shot inside Matt Tomkins’ near post. That moves Wallmark to five goals in Beijing, putting him level with Slovakia’s Juraj Slafkovsky in the snipers’ race.
“I saw him do the little back pass there and I had a step on them and got it,” Wallmark said. “Then I was lucky that it went in. I think it hit the D-man’s stick, but I’ll take that any day.”
Prior to that goal, Canada had managed just one shot at Lars Johansson in the third period. Even after falling behind, the Canadians struggled to generate clear cut chances. Sweden, strong on the draw and disciplined in front of Johansson’s net, closed out the game. Lander got the second of the night, firing into an empty net to put the result beyond doubt.
Canada was disappointing. Claude Julien’s team created little, with Johansson stopping 24 shots for his shut-out. They did get the puck in the net in the second period when Ak Bars defenseman Jason Demers fired in from the point. But it was never going to count; the whistle had already gone while Demers’ team-mate Jordan Weal was impeding Dinamo Minsk D-man Lukas Bengtsson as they battled in the slot.
Sweden’s SKA goalie Lars Johansson credited his team-mates with stifling the Canadian offense. “It’s a great win and a great performance by the team tonight,” he said. "They played a solid 60 minutes and barely gave up any chances, and after we got that 1-0 goal, I think we controlled the game and didn’t give them anything.
“They had a couple of chances on the power play but other than that, they didn’t really get into the net like Canada is famous for — getting in front, screening, getting tips. I think we kept them on the outside and I could see the pucks. We have a solid defence, we know that, but it’s really important that they stepped up here in the quarter-finals.”
Now Sweden moves on to play the Russians. The countries have met twice before in Olympic hockey since the break-up of the Soviet Union, and both times the Swedes have gone on to win gold. But Wallmark, who will be up against several CSKA clubmates in Friday’s clash, is only worried about the present day.
“It’s a good team, right? They’re super skilled,” he said. “Every team in the semi-finals is good but we’re ready and we look forward to it.”
Slovaks stun USA, face Finland in semis
Slovakia 3 USA 2 SO (1-1, 0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 1-0)
Slovakia advanced to an Olympic semi-final for the first time since 2010 thanks to great performances from Avangard’s Peter Cehlarik and Dinamo Minsk’s Patrik Rybar. Goaltender Rybar stopped everything that came his way in the shoot-out, while forward Cehlarik potted the only goal of that exchange to set up a clash with Finland in the final four.
However, team USA had cause for frustration. It led 2-1 until very late in this game, but Slovakia’s last surge saw Marek Hrivik, late of Torpedo, stuffing the puck home after a Michal Cajkovsky point shot. That was Hrivik’s first goal of the Games.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle for me personally to score goals in this tournament, but I’m just happy that it came at the right time,” Hrivik said. “We had a bit of a rough start and we needed a few games to sort of find the chemistry in the team, and it’s worked out.”
This youthful USA roster impressed in the group stage, winning all three of its games to top Group A. But in its first taste of knock-out action, David Quinn’s team came up short. Slovakia got the early lead through its own young talent, 17-year-old forward Juraj Slafkovsky. That’s his fifth goal in Beijing, putting him ahead of the field. The Americans tied it up late in the first through Nick Abruzzese. Sam Hentges gave Team USA the lead midway through the second period, but Hrivik’s late leveller changed everything.
After 10 minutes of goalless overtime, it came to a shoot-out. Cehlarik was the only player to score, executing a planned move to avenge his country’s World Championship loss to the Americans last year.
“We had some pre-scout on the goalie from some previous games,” said the Avangard forward. “I tried this move in the warmup and I knew, if I had the chance, I would use it and I believed in it. I still had the (quarter-final) game from last year’s World Championship in my mind, where we lost to them, so this was revenge time.”
Slovakia came into the game as the outsider, but kept their spirits up in the build-up to the quarter-final. Libor Hudacek, currently with Dinamo Minsk, summed up the mood: “I joked that we couldn’t lose to a bunch of college kids,” he said after the game. “I’m glad that my words came true and we won.
“In fact, I think [Team USA] is the best in this tournament. I’m glad we could handle them and stepped up to the pressure. In the end we succeeded and Cehlo and Pat [Rybar] won it for us in the shoot-out.”
