The Russians are considered one of the heavy favorites to medal at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, and showed their dominance on Tuesday night with a stiff 8-2 beating of their Latvian neighbors. Like the Canadians, however, they ran into a fired-up underdog in Slovakia on Thursday, and, unlike Canada, were unable to finish the Slovaks off in the shootout. Pavol Demitra scored the winning goal for Slovakia, while Jaroslav Halak stopped all but one of Russia’s 7 shots, including 2 from Alex Ovechkin.
The Russians came out loaded for bear against the Latvians, netting 3 goals in the first period, including Ovechkin’s first goal of these Games, and added a 4th in the 2nd. The Latvians scored their first goal early in the 3rd, and would add another after 2 more Russian goals, but they were clearly overmatched throughout the contest. After Herbert Vasiljevs drew Latvia within 3 with his goal at the start of the 3rd, Ovechkin scored his 2nd goal of the night to restore the Russians’ 4 goal lead. Danis Zaripov scored a few seconds later, also his 2nd, to put an exclamation point on the Russian dominance in the game. Latvia would add another goal late in the period, but that was all they would get out of Evgeni Nabokov, who turned in an 18 save performance.
Thursday was the night of the underdog, apparently, and the Slovaks must have been watching the Swiss push the Canadians to the brink in the earlier game, because they played a great game, even outshooting the Russians 10-8 in the first period. Alexei Morozov scored early in the 2nd to give Russia a 1-0 lead, but Marian Hossa knotted the game at 1-1 with his goal at the midway point of the 3rd period. After a back and forth overtime, fans at the Hockey Place in Vancouver got to see their 2nd shootout of the night. Jozef Stumpel and Alex Ovechkin both scored during the teams’ first three shots, forcing sudden death. Ovechkin was given two more chances, but Halak was more than up to the task, stopping both of Ovie’s tries, as well as shots from noted scorers Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Evgeni Malkin.
Russia’s loss gives the Czechs a golden opportunity to give themselves a bye to the quarterfinals. The two clubs will meet on Sunday afternoon, and, since the Czechs already have wins over the Slovaks and Latvians, all they have to do is force overtime and they will finish the preliminary round with more points than the Russians.