Saturday, February 27, 2010
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
U.S. forward Ryan Malone, right celebrates the first goal with Phil Kessel, left, and Joe Pavelski Friday.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- This was supposed to be the Olympics in which the United States hockey program achieved little more than a fresh start.
Management had put together the tournament's youngest roster and set a modest goal of finishing in the top four. And the players themselves, as had been explained by babyfaced forward Patrick Kane, were here "to have a lot of fun and do as well as we can."
How does gold sound?
The Americans blitzed Finland for six goals in the opening 13 minutes, two of those by Kane, en route to a 6-1 rout in the semifinals Friday at Canada Hockey Place. And their reward was a place in the championship game, 3:15 p.m. Sunday, against Canada, a winner against Slovakia in the other semifinal later in the evening.
As Al Michaels once famously spoke: Do you believe?
"Our guys are young, excited, and there's good chemistry," goaltender Ryan Miller said. "There are a lot of positive feelings with this group right now. We don't have a lot of experience, but we have a lot of talent. And when we push like that, we're a tough team to hang with."
"We came into this tournament believing in what we have," forward Jamie Langenbrunner said. "And we don't care what anyone else thinks."
To be sure, there is nothing miraculous about this: The U.S. is 5-0, the only team with a perfect record, the only team that has yet to trail in any game, the only one with a scoring disparity as large as 22-6, the only one to have beaten the favorite Canada and, maybe most important, it has steadily raised its level of play each step of the way.
That was abundantly evident Friday with maybe the most lopsided period in Olympic history between teams considered hockey powers, one that rivaled Canada's electrifying 4-1 first-period pounce on Russia Wednesday. That score ended up 7-3.
"It felt like we were putting a puck in the net every shift, and it was amazing," Kane said. "I've never been a part of something like that."
Left winger Ryan Malone, the Upper St. Clair native, opened the red-light parade 2:04 into the game: Because of a hard forecheck by Phil Kessel, Finland goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff charged way out of his net to stick the puck away. But he sent it right to Malone just inside the blue line, and Malone flicked it into the vacated net.
"Kessel did a great job of pressuring Kiprusoff," Malone said. "I just tried to get up there and take away his options. I'm not sure if he fanned on it or what, but I was happy to see it come my way."
And once he had it...
"You want to make sure you don't miss those," he said with a laugh.
Soon after came power-play goals by Zach Parise at 6:22 and Erik Johnson at 8:36 -- after two ill-advised penalties by the usually disciplined Finns -- then a Kane rebound at 11:08 to make it 4-0.
Kiprusoff was yanked after that last one, having allowed four goals on seven shots after entering with a sterling 1.33 goals-against average.
He seemed to regret Malone's goal the most.
"I made a bad read," Kiprusoff said. "I thought our defenseman was going to be there, and he wasn't, and I gave an easy tape-to-tape pass for them."
Niklas Backstrom replaced Kiprusoff and quickly was beaten by Kane and Paul Stastny, spelling a stunning 6-0 lead with the game just 12 minutes, 46 seconds old.
For the Finns, who generally play with palpable pride and were silver medalists four years ago in Turin, Italy, the humiliation clearly was hard to take. Still, they came here a roster that was the opposite of the Americans', the oldest at an average age of 30.3, and relying heavily on veteran mainstays such as Teemu Selanne.
"It's very disappointing," Selanne said. "It was 2-0, then 4-0, then 6-0 ... the game was over in just a few minutes."
For the Americans, this will mark the first appearance in the gold-medal game since 2002, when they lost to Mario Lemieux and Canada at Salt Lake City. And it will be the second since the 1980 Miracle on Ice.
After the Canada upset, U.S. general manager Brian Burke accused half the players of being passengers, and the team as a whole has responded with tighter defense, more methodical breakouts and far more balanced scoring from the speedy forwards.
As coach Ron Wilson put it after this one, "We feel we've gotten better every game we've played."
This one was headlined Friday by the waterbug Kane, who previously had skated well but produced little -- one goal, no assists -- despite a top-shelf pedigree.
"Getting Kane scoring really helps," Langenbrunner said. "He's an unbelievable player."
The final will have four Pittsburgh ties in Malone and Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik for the Americans, as well as the Penguins' Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury for Canada.
Malone, Pittsburgh's only born and bred Olympian, was visibly moved by the chance at gold.
"It's awesome," he said. "As a kid you grow up wishing for an opportunity like this. To be part of it is going to be ... just awesome. We're 60 minutes away from something great."
Finland and Slovakia will meet tonight for bronze.
Dejan Kovacevic: dkovacevic@post-gazette.com. Find more at our Dejan Kovacevic at the Olympics blog.
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First published on February 27, 2010 at 12:00 am
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