dat's sick

I'd settle for playoff team. Half the season gone now. We can't do much about our goaltending but hard decisions must be made. The fact we still have Sammy, Cleary, Kindl and Quincey playing is sad.

Ouch at the lines. We're really hurting with Pav, Helm and Mule out and no Jurco either. Glad to see Dekeyser in. Don't understand why they don't bench Kindl/Quincey and give Marchenko another game though. Got a feeling he could be an upgrade, especially since he'd give us a right-handed shot.

Sooner or later the US will understand, like the rest of the civilized world, that soccer and hockey are superior sports compared to American Football, basketball and baseball. It's just going to take a while, I think it's ingrained in the american mentality to focus on the individual over the team. It's all about the quarterback or the pitcher or the Lebron. In hockey/soccer it's not as simple to focus on one player.

OEL, Ericsson, Hjalmarsson are the stay-at-home guys. Karlsson, Kronwall, Oduya the offensive guys. Pretty simple. Of course Kronner is still great defensively.

It was also confirmed that Zetterberg will be wearing the C, with Kronwall and Henrik Sedin the Assistants. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by the team. They didn't just take the 'best' players like Team Sweden has had a tendency to do, they've actually thought about everyone's roles and it makes sense. I obviously would have liked to see Nyquist, and it seems he was one of the last players to get cut, and Zibanejad would have been a more offensive choice than Berglund or Kruger but overall I think this is a great team on paper. 2 things working against Hedman: Kronwall/Ericsson and Hjalmarsson/Oduya are established pairings which helps in a short tournament with little time to build chemistry. And Hedman has some really bad performances for the national team in the past. Tallinder is not going to play very much and is brought along as a character guy. Edler is the guy I'd cut for Hedman/Brodin but he has been good for Mårts in the past.

Deserved win by the Finns. They executed their gameplan almost perfectly. Didn't think Sweden reached their normal level, they really looked nervous or maybe they thought it was going to be easier than it was.

Chill dude. The Finns have been on the defensive since the 1-0 goal. It's a dangerous tactic and it could end up costing them the win. None of the calls have been bad, they've just been a result of playing all game in the defensive zone, it's kind of amazing the Finns have been able to play defense as cleanly as they have, or rather the Swedes have been bad at forcing them to take more penalties.

Sweden hasn't been forced to play much defense so they haven't been in a position to take many penalties. It's just how it is. And I agree finland plays great defense and they are very disciplined. Swedes aren't getting many dangerous chances. Reffing has nothing to do with the result so far and probably won't impact the outcome either.

Don't know how you can say that. Swedes are in the offensive zone 90% of this game and have like 3 PPs. And the missed hit to the head. I really don't think that's true for this tournament. No team has been passing the puck as well as the swedes, almost too much passing at times. But this game they look nervous and they're not supporting eachother as well as before, leading to guys trying to skate through the fins by themselves. Easily the worst game the swedes have played in the tournament and I think they need some kind of fluke to tie this up.

Can't believe the refs didn't see/call that. Textbook 5 or so game suspension in the NHL.

Swedes looking really nervous so far. And the crowd pretty much died when the fins scored, doesn't help the swedish team that they crowd support went AWOL.

No. Franzen was huge for us before getting hurt. I want to see that Franzen-Zetterberg-Nyquist line reunited.

I strongly disagree.

Isn't Sproul struggling defensively? Haven't watched GR much but that's what I've read. Good to see this kid, but it should be because Quincey or Kindl got scratched not because of an injury.

That was a sick shootout move.

And that's when you have to realize that for the rest of the world, the NHL is what's poorly televised and the Olympics are an amazing opportunity to actually see all the best players in the word on live television. Not to mention it's a great tournament that the players and fans love.

He's been out a long time. Groins will be sore. As long as he doesn't get hit with anything long-term I'm not worried about him. Though it sucks to be without him, we're a different team when he plays.

This has been fun. Glad it's going to OT and let's face it; most likely shootout.

His hand-eye is just too good.

Tatar's been our best forward so far.

9 times out of 10 when Datsyuk tries that give and go with Bertuzzi it ends with Bert losing the puck. It kills a lot of our zone entries on the PP. Then you have Cleary ruining the 2nd unit. Sigh.

The snowy conditions kill a player like Datsyuk. Zetterberg on the other hand looks to be in his element. Have a feeling if we're going to get anything good out of this game it will be from Z.

You mean...plow....

Noooo, Helm is out? Why? This team and it's rotating list of injuries..

Man I hope Howard bounces back from last game. Otherwise this could be ugly. Z and D together should be able to cause some problems for the Leafs though. Abby and Helm together is as it should be. Nyquist gets the short end of the stick. Go Wings!