Canada Owns Russia; One Step Closer To Gold Medal Rematch Against U.S.

I said before the 2010 Winter Olympic hockey tournament began that goaltending would be the biggest factor in the games.

Once in the single-elimination round, a goaltender could single-handledly make the difference for his team.

Well, that sure was the case in the eagerly-anticipated Canada/Russia quarterfinal last night.

Goaltender Evegni Nabokov completely blew it for his Russian squad, getting torched for 6 goals in only 24 minutes of work as Canada romped over the Team Russia, 7-3, to advance to the semifinals.

It's funny, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about this game. He's definitely a Penguin fan, but a little green when it comes to other teams in the NHL, particularly those in the Western Conference.

Anyway, we were talking about the Canada/Russia contest, he asked me who would start in goal for Russia. I told him Nabokov. He said he never heard of him and asked me if he was good. I told him that I thought he was probably top 10 in the league. To back up my point -- yet keep it simple -- I told him that Nabokov is the #1 goaltender for the San Jose Sharks and then asked him rhetorically:

"Are the Sharks good?"

He answered yes, obviously, but pointed out that just because the Sharks were good didn't mean their goaltender was good.

Insightful man, that friend.

Interestingly, it wasn't just Nabokov who was bad last night. Almost everything about the contest failed to live up to the competitive hype. It was a blowout from the drop of the puck and, while Nabokov played one of the worst games of his career, he was hardly alone on a Russian team that lacked anything even resembling intensity.

Canada, on the other hand, came out firing on all cylinders. When asked about how Canada seemed to want the game while his team did not, Russia backup goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov -- who stopped 18 of 19 shots in relief of Nabokov -- had this to say post-game:

"They came like gorillas out of a cage"

And they certainly didn't need a virtuoso performance from Sidney Crosby to win, as evidenced by the fact that he was pointless in a game where his club hit the back of the net 7 times.

Maybe they should check to make sure one of his shots didn't go THROUGH the meshing, like a shot from teammate Shea Weber did the night before in Canada's rout of Germany?

Interestingly, Crosby going pointless put him in the same category of Russia star Alexander Ovechkin, who also didn't put one up on the board and was a total non-factor in the game for his club.

Crosby's teammate back with the home team, Evegni Malkin, also was almost invisible out there, although he did assist on Sergei Gonchar's goal to make the score 7-3, but by then, the game was well out of reach.

So, Canada now moves on to face Slovakia -- who upset defending Olympic champion Sweden last night, 4-3 -- in the seminfinals on Friday. And that puts them one game closer to a rematch in the gold medal game with the U.S.A., who beat Switzerland, 2-0, to also advance yesterday.

The U.S. has to get by Finland -- a 2-0 winner over the Czech Republic last night -- if they want to make that game happen.

More on the Olympics over the weekend.

Meanwhile, as the non-Olympic Pens' players returned to the ice yesterday, look for my analysis of the team at the three-quarter pole tomorrow.