Oh Canada! Oy Russia Nyet.

Common theme: Canada celebrates, Russia left for dead

Turn your head and Nabokov.  Now I know why San Jose chokes in the playoffs year in and year out.  When it comes to big games, Evgeni Nabokov is just plain terrible. In the two game’s he’d played, he was awesome. You couldn’t ask for anything more from him. In this game, all you could ask of him was to leave early. But no, the stubborn, and unprepared, Russian coach didn’t make any changes when there was still a chance.  I don’t care how early it was in the game, but a 2-0 deficit and a team playing nonchalantly needed drastic change. They didn’t get it until it was too late.

I don’t know what the Russians were thinking when they came up with their strategy.  They had way, way too much room between their forwards and their defensemen on breakouts.  Instead of short passes to work the play up, they tried the home run pass, almost every time.  They assumed that they could take advantage of their speed to make Canada pay.  Instead, they looked like a bunch of cherry pickers.  When they did get entry into the zone, the reverted to their scaredy cat style of ripping shots from far away.  I blame the coach completely for this loss.  He picked the team, he didn’t make adjustments, he didn’t play with his lines to find the right formula, and he didn’t have a good game plan.

Something I haven’t really talked about is his line combos.  He had 6 NHL forwards, and 6 KHL guys.  For whatever reason, he didn’t mix up the players.  There were 2 NHL lines, and 2 KHL lines. Why? Radulov and Morozov looked decent, but the rest of the KHL guys were pretty much ghosts.  Why not get them going by putting them with NHL players.  There’s plenty of talent to go around, so try some new things.  Kovalchuk has played his entire career pretty much on his own, and he’s done more than fine.  Maybe separating him from Datsyuk and Malkin would yield better results.  All three of them like the puck, so maybe it’s better to put them with people that don’t need to dominate possession.

On the flip side, Canada came to play.  They hit, they supported each other, and they never let up until it was easily in hand.  They embarrassed one of the best goalies in the world, and made a pre-tournament favorite look like a team that was just happy to be at the Olympics. Luongo played awesome, and if he keeps it up, this team will easily win gold.  I don’t see how anyone else can beat them.  They’re loaded at every spot, and they’re finally playing like it. An upset is possible, but I think unlikely. These guys are just too smart, to talented to lose to anyone when they play like they did their past two games.  We can all thank the weak-ass Germans for giving Canada the confidence boost that they lacked coming out of the round robin. At least Richards and Pronger might come back in a good mood for the playoff stretch.

Thanks for reading!

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