sibiriak

He probably got Holland's house too in that trade.

Is that USA Hockey president, talking about team USA? You mean team usa already trashed their rooms after being shut out by Team Canada?

OV and DAtsyuk did play on PP together and that didn't work much better. But if we had Datsyuk-OV-somebody on the first line, then there would have had to be Malkin-Kovy-Radulov. Which would have created 2 untested lines instead of one that was working pretty well and one that wasn't. it's a tough call. In hindsight, I wish we went with OV-Datsyuk-Radulov, Tarasenko-Tikhonov(or Tereshchenko) - Kovy, and Semin-Malkin-Nichushkin (or Kulemin). But then, I wasn't at their practices, so maybe those combos were tried and didn't click.

Tereshchenko and Popov are both KHL players, so that wouldn't have changed the balance of ice time b/w KHLers and NHLers.. Also, Tereshchenko is a center, and if he played with Malkin and the bum, er OV, then we'd had no center for the 4th line. And lastly, but most importantly, OVECHKIN was the one who was supposed to "disrupt defenses"!!! Instead, he kept standing there with his stick cocked waiting for a perfect pass. Newsflash, Alex, you ain't in Washington anymore! And Popov wasn't the original choice for OV-Malkin line. Semin started there and they looked just as bad together. After Semin got switched with Popov on the 3rd line after game 3, that 3rd line started to show some flashes of not brilliance, but at least competence. OV-Malkin line however continued to stay useless. Either Ovechkin didn't know what his role was, in which case it is coach's job to explain it to him. Or he didn't want to do his job, in which case it was coach's job to sit his ass down. As you can tell, I'm not the biggest OV fan right now. Nobody made Datsyuk to apologize on the national TV. He was asked that question in a press conference, and I bet you that if they lost at home, Crosby as captain, would have been asked he same type of question.

If Canada lost in Vancouver, Crosby would've been dead tired of the same question.

What did Nichushkin or Tarasenko showed you that makes them preferable to Popov? Remember, Popov was playing with Malkin and Ovechkin, his function was to do dirty work for those two. Nichushkin is not responsible enough defensively, at least yet. Tarasenko is a scorer first, his line with Tikhonov and Tereshchenko looked lively at times, but if I'm Russian coach, I am sitting my youngest and least experienced players when I'm down 2 goals in an elimination game. As to NHL-KHL thing, both teams had 7 non-NHLers on the ice today. & KHLers for Russia and 6 KHlers and one Sweden leaguer for Finland. That is not at all why Russia lost.

No, I guess I was too hot under the collar and missed the sarcasm. Sorry.

OK, who were the KHL players on the team that got more ice time than any NHLers, although the NHlers played better than those KHLers?

There's no evidence whatever that the Russian coaching staff was in any way pressured to take KHL players over NHL ones. It is a non-issue. I ask again, who is there in the NHL, that would've been better than what we had in Sochi?

Sorry, hand on puck is not reviewable. Puck didn't cross the goal line, that's reviewable. War room location is in Sochi and it is not staffed by Russians but bu IIHF officials that (apparently) have no nationality

Sorry, but that analysis is utter BS. Medvedev played over Nikulin (KHL), Nikitin (NHL), and Belov (AHL mostly). He was one of the better D-men for Russia. Not great, but then noone on our blue line was even above average. On the 3 Finnish goals today: 1st, Nikitin, NHL Dman got beat like a schoolchild; 2nd, Voynov had a puck bounce over his stick, and didn't have enough speed to recover, so he lost the puck to Garnlund, but his D-partner, the most titled of the Russian D, Markov fell down and left Selanne wide open; what happened to play the pass, not the man on the 2-1???; 3rd PP goal for Finland - Tyutin, our supposedly 2-3rd best D, got blocked out by Granlund and had a best seat watching him score. This was not KHL-NHL problem. Our only effective forward line was Kovy-Datsyuk-Radulov, KHL(sorta)-NHL-KHL. OV-Malkin-Semin didn't work at all, in spite of Malkin's efforts, so coach broke them up, putting Popov on that line so at least somebody would chase the puck and backcheck. As a result, 3rd line of Semin-Anisimov-Kulemin got at least some shots. Perhaps Tarasenko, Nichushkin, Tikhonov with Tereshchenko centering might have gotten some more time, but they weren't standout either. IMO, the major problems were Ovechkin never finding a place, being unable to change his game from stand-wait-shoot approach. Use your GD speed Alex... The constant attempts of our D to find forward with a long stretch pass at other blue line drove me bats***. That never works. Our PP wasn.t working. If they scored on just 15% of the PP opportunities, they'd be in the semis now. Other than that, they did just about what i expected. The players we had were the best of a short list, so all the KHL-NHL talk is uniformed. Who was left at home that was better than the ones on the ice for Russia?

The land that gave birth to Mike Ricci should stay forever silent in any male beauty discussion.

hate is an ugly feeling.

He wasn't troubled overmuch. Just an adequate goaltending was sufficient. Congrats, Sweden is going to be a tougher opponent.

No argument there

Masalskis (Latvian goalie) looked half dead after today's game. Look for him to get shelled tomorrow. They don't have an adequate #2 goalie to spell him. Canada will have a cakewalk tomorrow. Yeah, he of 2.94 GAA and .872 SV% in these Olympics. If I were the Finns, I'd gone with Lehtonen tomorrow. IMHO, Czechs are not nearly deep enough to compete with the US. If Pavelec plays well, they'll lose in a close game, otherwise, a 4-5 goal blowout.

Russian coach agrees with you. He shook up the lines today. OV and Semin are no longer together. OV is a howitzer, he needs a crew to service him. 1 guy (Malkin/Datsyuk) to set him up and another guy to go get the puck (Popov/Radulov). Coach Bill had OV-Malkin-Popov today vs Norway, while Semin was on the 3rd line and looked better for it.

I am debating with you not fighting. And in the winter sports where the US are good, Russia isn't. So the only sports where they compete on more or less equal footing historically were hockey (mens) figure skating (mens) and that's about it. I can't think of any more.

I'm sorry. Let's ask a hundred Russians who'd they hate to lose to in hockey more, US or Canada. I bet you 75%+ will say Canada. In winter sports in general, the US is not often prominent where Russians are competitive. So there's no real rivalry with the US in Winter Olympics. On geopolitical level it is different, but I don't really care about that particular pissing match.

Let me disagree with you there. Beating Canada in hockey IS a big deal in Russia. Losing to the US in the round robin game is not too important. Losing to them in an elimination game would be worse, but about as bad as losing to Sweden or Finland, and not as bad as losing to the Czechs or especially some minnow like France. (Yeah we did that last year in the WCH)

I know they would not've called Quick. A man can wish though And you can have Radulov. Take him off our hands. PLEASE.

True, although i could wish the refs called Quick for delay of game for the push on post.

Whose responsibility is it to check if the net is on its moorings? Head refs or the linesmen? The refs were a Swede and an American, the linesmen were both from Canada. From replays it looks like Quick was a bit more forceful then necessary, when sliding along the goal line and kicking out the left post. Probably not intentional, but with a US ref, it gives all sorts of ammo to the conspiracy minded among us.

The first 3 shooters must be different, after that anyone can shoot as many times as the coach wants. O'Shie was hot, so Bylsma used him, and used him, and used him,... Good coaching. On an unrelated note, one of the refs today was American. The episode with the (correctly) disallowed goal proves that it is a bad idea to have a ref of the same nation as one of the teams playing. Appearance of a conflict of interest. Controversial decisions are bound to happen. It's tolerable in a round-robin game, but I hope it is not going to happen in elimination games.

Well, if US beats Slovenia (which they should) and Russia beats Slovakia in regulation, both teams will probably go straight to the 1/4 finals. I'm cheering for a regulation win in Canada - Finland game, whoever wins.