Drew Doughty, with another long shot from the blue line with 2:28 remaining in overtime, helped Canada maintain a high spot in the men's hockey pool with a 2-1 OT win over Finland.
Canada has needed all the offense it can muster, and that blue line scoring needs to continue for the Canadians to play for gold. Doughty scored the lone regulation goal for Canada.
The Canadians now have 11 goals, 6 from the blue line (4 by Doughty, 2 by Shea Weber). Take away Jeff Carter's natural hat trick in a blowout, and you have 2 other goals from forwards.
Carey Price stopped 14/15 shots for the Canadians. Tuukka Rask, Price's NHL rival, had 25 saves.
A regulation win would have given Canada the #1 seed. By winning, Canada stayed away from the more uncertain #4 seed.
Canada will play either Switzerland or Latvia on Wednesday. The qualification games are on Tuesday.
---
The difference between regulation and overtime. …
Canada fell from the #1 seed to the #3 seed. Canada had a better goal differential than Sweden but 2 fewer than the U.S. The difference between 2 and 3 matters in terms of which team you draw in the quarterfinal and the home team in the semifinal, assuming the higher seeds win through.
The difference between 3 and 4 is huge in that Finland will likely play Russia in its quarterfinal. Canada will draw Switzerland or Latvia on Wednesday.
If Canada had been the #1 seed, the United States wouldn't have been a potential opponent until the gold medal game. Now they could meet on Friday in the semifinals.
---
Though Canada has 1 overtime goal, the team went through the round-robin games without scoring a single 3rd period goal. Besides struggling for offense, goals late will be huge.
Carey Price and P.K. Subban are a great combination for Les Habs. While both of them are on the Canadian Olympic Team, they haven't played on the ice at the same time. The talk is on chemistry on these teams; Subban and Price have great chemistry, yet Canada isn't taking advantage.
---
The Rick Nash goal that wasn't in the first period is still rather mysterious. Unlike the NHL, there is no call on the ice. So the judgment is based purely on the replay. On the U.S. feed, we didn't see Nash touch the puck.
There may be an applicable rule that could explain what happened or what Nash could have done to properly get a goal. But we didn't get any explanation as to what that was.
---
Fans of Canada and the United States won't have to worry about getting up early to watch either the qualification games (Tuesday) or the quarterfinal games (Wednesday).
All the contests in question will run at noon Eastern on both days. That is the good news. The TV picture in North America gets a little fuzzy.
CBC will carry Czech Republic-Slovakia; cbc.ca/olympics will stream Switzerland-Latvia. MSNBC will show Switzerland-Latvia in the States.
CBC will carry Canada while MSNBC will carry the Canada quarterfinal game in the States.
Check the Twitter feed for updates.
---
Updating the medals …
Denny Morrison won his second medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Morrison won the bronze in the men’s 1,500m long track speed skating event.
Morrison posted a time of 1:45.22, which temporarily gave him the lead. Ultimately, Poland’s Zbigniew Brodka won gold at 1:45.00. Koen Verweij of the Netherlands finished just 0.003 seconds for the silver.
Dominique Maltais won the silver medal in the Olympic women's snowboard cross event. Maltais won the bronze medal in 2006 in Torino. She crashed in 2010, ultimately finishing in 20th place.
Jan Hudec became the first Canadian in 20 years to win a medal in the alpine medal event. Hudec's bronze medal was due to a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but might have had some luck thanks to a lucky loonie.
Hudec planted the coin at the finish line a day before the race. On the day of the race, he crossed that finish line with a time of 1:18.67 seconds, tying him with American Bode Miller for the bronze.
Hudec finished .53 seconds from the gold.
Comments