Monday, February 22, 2010
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- No, this was not a Miracle.
Nothing will match what those college kids achieved at Lake Placid, 30 years ago today, against the mighty Soviet machine. Not in hockey. Maybe not in American sports.
Matt Slocum/Associated Press
Brian Rafalski, No. 28, scores one of his two goals past Canada's Martin Brodeur.
But this edition of the United States hockey team, an underdog in its own right as the youngest in these Olympics, did carve its own small slice of history by getting two goals from Brian Rafalski and 42 saves from Ryan Miller for a 5-3 toppling of Sidney Crosby's gold-medal favorite Canadian team Sunday night.
And the scope of that result might have been best measured through the stunned silence of the capacity crowd at Canada Hockey Place-- never mind the bulk of the 33 million citizens watching on TV north of the border -- that was in stark contrast to the raucous atmosphere that had greeted the home team.
"You look up, and everything was red and white, with very few American flags," U.S. coach Ron Wilson said. "That's fine. We expected a hostile welcome, and I think that helped us."
"It was an unbelievable atmosphere," forward Ryan Kesler said. "To beat Canada on their home soil ... that's pretty special."
It was only a preliminary-round game, albeit one that gave the U.S. a 3-0 record, the Group A title, the No. 1 seed of all 12 teams and a bye into the quarterfinals against the winner of the Switzerland-Belarus game Tuesday.
But this most assuredly qualifies as a landmark in the proper context:
• It was the Americans' biggest Olympic upset since 1980. They reached the gold-medal round in 2002, but that came by beating a Russian team not nearly as strong as these Canadians.
• It was the Americans' biggest international upset at the top level -- meaning NHL players -- since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, when they took a best-of-three final from Canada in Montreal.
• It was the Americans' first time beating Canada in the Olympics since 1960 in Squaw Valley, Calif., when they went on to win gold. There was a tie in 1994 and the championship loss in 2002.
Perhaps the most important distinction between this upset and those of the past is that, plain and simple, this one did not require a Miracle. Not with more Americans than ever in the NHL. And not with the record number of players at the developmental levels. That includes Pittsburgh, where there are 10 times as many rinks now than before the Penguins drafted Mario Lemieux in 1984.
One of those, Upper St. Clair native Ryan Malone, was wearing the red, white and blue in this one, the only Olympic hockey player born and trained in the Pittsburgh area. Another, Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik, was raised in Buffalo and named after Herb Brooks, the late architect of the Miracle.
One telling sign of how far the U.S. has come might have been the reaction afterward: The players congratulated Miller, patted each other on the helmets and, for the most part, downplayed it all.
"It feels good," Malone said. "I think we realize it's not the end, though. It was important to finish on top of our group. There's a lot left in front of us."
"It's a huge win," left winger Patrick Kane, one of the team's many Olympic first-timers, said. "And it's exciting. Hockey's come a long way in our country, and I think we're showing that here."
But Kane stopped there.
"We're not done playing yet, and we know that. But I also know that it's going to be fun. This is a lifetime opportunity for a lot of us, and we're going to have fun with it."
Julie Jacobson/Accociated Press
Chris Drury, left, slams home a shot into Canada's vacated net. Only defenseman Dan Boyle had a chance to stop him.
That would make the Americans the antithesis of the Canadian group, what with the relentless talk here of pressure regarding all athletes. When the U.S. took a 4-2 lead early in the third period, the place fell deathly silent.
That is pressure as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Wilson had been determined to play up this angle in the days leading to the game, talking about "pressure on Canada" and portraying his team as the hopeless underdog. At the same time, he clearly toyed with his players' minds -- something Brooks famously did in 1980 -- by publicly questioning how they might handle facing Canada "emotionally."
That carried into Sunday, when Wilson and general manager Brian Burke arranged for the Americans to wear replica 1960 sweaters. There also were Miracle members in the arena: Mike Eruzione, who scored the winning goal in 1980, as well as goaltender Jim Craig and forward Mark Johnson, now coach of the U.S. Olympic women's team.
Reminders of great history were installed everywhere and, yet, Wilson downplayed the victory as much as his players did.
"We skipped a round to get to the quarters. That's it," Wilson said. "We're looking ahead."
Any intangibles, of course, should be ranked well below the performances of Miller and Rafalski.
Miller, star of the Buffalo Sabres, was brilliant from front to finish, including a first period in which the U.S. was outshot 19-6 but emerged with a 2-1 lead, and a third period in which Canada dominated to the extent the ice looked tilted.
"He was awesome," Malone said.
"It's probably one of the most intense games I've ever played in," Miller said. "But when things happened, we responded. We didn't get nervous or anxious. We just kept playing."
Rafalski, of the Detroit Red Wings, scored both U.S. goals in the first period, then set up Jamie Langenbrunner's eventual winner in the third. All that, and he was the team's best defender and penalty-killer.
"It wasn't me or Ryan," Rafalski said. "We all worked hard."
The Americans will finish first or second in the overall pool of 12 teams. If first, they get Switzerland or Belarus in the quarterfinals. If second, they get Slovakia or Norway.
Canada, now 2-1, must play in the qualification round Tuesday against Germany. If it advances, Canada will play Russia in the quarterfinal, a matchup many had forecast for the gold medal.
Crosby, the Penguins' captain, tried to find the positives, just as he did after his team needed his shootout goal to beat Switzerland.
"I thought we bounced back and put a lot of pucks at them," Crosby said. "And there were some bounces that went their way. When you're playing just one game, those make a big difference. But, if we play hard like that from here on, I like our chances."
Canada used its superior size to attack Miller with relentless shooting, deflections and traffic and, thus, dominated the first half of the game. But there was only a 2-2 tie to show for it at that point.
About midway through the second period, the Americans found some equilibrium and, at 16:46, Chris Drury rapped a loose puck into the vacated net behind Canada's Martin Brodeur to restore their lead, 3-2.
That posture did not change in the third and, on the second of the power plays they earned, the Americans went ahead by two when Langenbrunner tipped Rafalski's point shot through Brodeur at 7:09.
Crosby scored on a redirect with 3:09 left to cut the U.S. lead to 4-3 and add to the tension, but Miller held strong and Ryan Kesler dived to score an empty-netter that sealed it.
"Those last few minutes were like hours," U.S. center David Backes said. "But we made it."
Dejan Kovacevic: dkovacevic@post-gazette.com. Find more at our Kovacevic at the Olympics blog.
U.S. rolls on by T-Ryan harder
By MIKE VACCARO
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
February 22, 2010
VANCOUVER -- All around him, a packed arena was begging for a miracle, praying for divine intervention. Beyond the walls of Canada Hockey Place, an entire nation was pleading, yearning, dying. You want to know what desperation sounds like? It sounds like the last three minutes of this hockey game.
Ryan Kesler could hear that, of course. He could sense it in what he was hearing from the tense, baying crowd and also what he saw of Team Canada's collection of stars. Time wasn't melting off the clock as much as it was tip-toeing away. How long can three minutes last?
"Every second," he said, "felt like an hour."
NO EMPTY FEELING: Team USA's Ryan Kesler (bottom) is mobbed by teammatesafter scoring a game-clinching empty-net goal in the Americans' 5-3 victory over Canadalast night in Olympics hockey.
Team USA was nursing a 4-3 lead (sound familiar?) and Canada was assaulting the American end, assaulting Ryan Miller, peppering him with pucks. Miller, brilliant all day, was nearing his breaking point, the way all of them had.
"Exhausted," the goaltender said, "doesn't begin to describe it."
But now, Zach Parise had poked the puck out of the American zone, and Miller could catch his breath, except what he saw now nearly took it away again. Up ahead, in the neutral zone, Kesler was chasing after the puck, the kind of laudatory effort designed to bleed the clock, push it ever closer to triple zeroes.
But Kesler wasn't content to stop there. It was him and Corey Perry battling for the puck, and Kesler really didn't have much of a plan in mind. He just saw the puck. He just heard the crowd. He just knew what the stakes were: win and get a bye into the quarterfinals, lose and play an extra qualifying match before the medal round.
Maybe that's what fueled him. Or maybe it was simpler than that.
"Go for the puck, good things happen," he said. "You're taught that the first day you show up in Pee Wees."
He went for the puck, and conflicted Vancouver Canucks fans who have seen Kesler sweat and bleed on this ice plenty started to gasp. He dived, somehow got his stick on it, somehow managed to re-direct the rubber toward the abandoned Canada goal. There will be some bitter natives who will lament this morning that Martin Brodeur had left that crease abandoned most of the night, and it's true, this wasn't Brodeur's finest hour.
But Marty was on the bench now, and he was on his feet, same as everyone else inside this building, everyone else on both feet. And when Kesler's prayer crossed the goal line, then settled in the back of the net, the strangest, most surreal sound of all descended on Canada Hockey Place.
Desperate became desultory. Deafening turned depressing. And suddenly it was apparent to everyone that the U.S. was going to win, was going to knock the Canadians into the outbracket with a 5-3 win. Thirty years minus one day after another American team wearing white had stunned another heavy favorite wearing red, they'd done it again, this time with the empty-net cushion they never did get back in Lake Placid.
This was no miracle on ice, just one of the greatest hockey games you're ever going to see. And maybe just a taste of what lies ahead in this competition.
"You could tell we were in the middle of something special, just the way the guys on both sides were getting after each other," said Chris Drury, who reaffirmed his reputation as a big-game assassin, scoring his second goal in as many games, the one that put the U.S. up for good late in the second period, and who later served as a human racquetball wall, absorbing one puck after another with his body in those desperate final minutes.
"Guys were just leaving everything they had out there."
And so much of it was symbolized by Kesler's mad dash at the end, a dive and a flick and a goal that seemed to remove 88 percent of the available oxygen inside the arena. The Americans were quick to say they still have plenty of work ahead, and anyone who saw the Russians and Czechs earlier in the day knows that's an absolute truth.
Still, no one's figured them out yet. And there's no law, Olympics or otherwise, that says anyone has to. Not as long as they want it as badly as Ryan Kesler did last night.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com
VAC'S WHACKS
The coolest thing about the Russia-Czech Republic hockey game that preceded the United State's 5-3 win overCanada was the ferocity of every check. You could almost hear them say, "That was for Prague spring!" and "The People's Militias say hello!" every time someone went grinding into the boards.
Brodeur's mistakes sink Canadians
By Bruce Arthur
The National Post
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/
February 21, 2010 10:00 PM
VANCOUVER -- So it's on to Russia, now. Yes, there will be a date with Germany in between, but even in this most unpredictable Olympic hockey tournament, the odds Canada loses that game are the stuff of serious computers.
After that, though, the odds are the stuff of a coin. If Canada had not lost to the United States to conclude group play last night -- lost 5-3 in a game that the Canadians dominated, to little end, for what felt like endless stretches -- then the road would be smoother, and the quarter-finals assured.
Canada's goalkeeper Martin Brodeur misses a shot by USA's defender Brian Rafalski during the Men's preliminary Ice Hockey match at the Winter Olympic games in Vancouver's Canada Hockey Place on February 21, 2010. LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images
Instead, Canada's goaltender was outplayed, and the Americans played without fear, and now it's Russia in the quarters. Which in Torino, if you remember, was how the ship began to sink.
"We've just chosen a longer route to where we want to go," said Canada coach Mike Babcock. "And a more difficult one."
Indeed. The Russians haven't been uniformly terrifying in this tournament, strafing Latvia, losing to Slovakia in a shootout, and outlasting the Czechs here on Sunday. But Canada has crushed Norway, been life and death against Switzerland, and lost to this American underdog. With, it should be said, great goaltending, since Ryan Miller stopped 42 shots.
"Best goalie in the world," said U.S. defenceman Jack Johnson. "He was the reason that we won that game."
Canada's Martin Brodeur, meanwhile, was one of the reasons Canada lost it. His defence wasn't stellar, true, but Brodeur took unnecessary risks, made some baffling decisions, and paid for it, dearly. Brodeur, when his career is done, may be considered the greatest goaltender of all time. Sunday night, he wasn't.
"Obviously tonight was a night where we would have liked to have been better in that area," said Babcock, who said he would review the film and decided whether or not to start Roberto Luongo against Germany on Tuesday. Frankly, it seems like the obvious decision.
"We're still alive," said a drained-looking Brodeur, who stopped 18 of 22 shots. "We're throwing 45 shots at these goalies, and they're making stops -- forward, backward, sideways. Eventually, if we keep doing these right things offensively, we'll be more successful."
Eventually is a word that doesn't quite fit. The elimination games begin tomorrow, and they only stop for Canada with a loss. And Brodeur found the heart of this -- his team has only scored five goals in two games against NHL goaltenders, in part because other teams' goaltenders are stealing games, or in the case of Switzerland's Jonas Hiller, coming close. Brodeur made some terrific saves in this game, but he was the second-best guy on the ice.
It was a wildly partisan atmosphere, with Canada Hockey Place smothered in red and white, but the fever broke early, when the United States scored 41 seconds into the game on a Brian Rafalski point shot that deflected in off Sidney Crosby's stick.
Canada would tie it for all of 22 seconds. After an Eric Staal goal, Brodeur boldly tried to bat a shoot-in out of the air. It went straight to Rafalski, who slid a puck under Brodeur's sprawling pads. Canada tied it again on a rebound goal by Dany Heatley, and looked clearly superior for long stretches. But they never got the lead.
And then Brodeur made a split-second decision that may have ended his tournament, and eventually, Canada's. With the puck rattling around in the slot late in the period, he dove at it, trying to clear it with his stick. It was a high-risk play. It was dangerous. He missed.
A few seconds later Dan Boyle was trying to play goal, and Chris Drury, the American warhorse and Miller's old teammate, was scoring the go-ahead goal. As Miller said, "Memories, huh?"
And in the third, Canada took bad penalties, looked uncertain, couldn't pull it together, and allowed an American power-play goal. The inevitable all-out assault closed the gap to 4-3 on a goal by Crosby -- who, along with Rick Nash, was a minus-3 on the night -- but it started too late.
Still, Canada had chance after chance, only Miller was the equal to all of them. And Ryan Kesler, who had said the day before that he hated Canada -- and who, for the record, guaranteed a win over Canada back in 2009 -- ended it with an empty-net goal.
"They were hyped up as one of the greatest teams ever assembled, but we're a confident team," said Johnson. "We knew that we could win."
The U.S. hadn't beaten Canada in a men's Olympic hockey game since 1960, when the Americans won their first Olympic hockey gold in Squaw Valley. And Josh Sacco, the child YouTube sensation who memorized and delivered the Herb Brooks speech from the movie Miracle, reprised the speech for the Americans during a team dinner Saturday.
This, however, was not a miracle, any more Slovakia defeating Russia was a miracle. No, this was Olympic hockey. And at that, we can lose to anybody. No, this was not a game that Canada had to win. No, this isn't over.
But there's rough ice ahead, to be sure. Rough ice, and maybe worse.
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