Canada easily beats Germany to set up quarterfinal match with Russia

Team Canada did what it had to do to stay alive at the men’s Olympic hockey tournament, defeating Germany 8-2 in one of the four qualification playoff games.  Canada will now face Russia in the quarterfinals tomorrow evening at 7:30 pm EST / 4:30 pm PST, a matchup that over 19,000 partisan fans at Canada Hockey Place boldly requested with three minutes remaining in tonight’s game when they chanted, “We want Russia!” repeatedly in unison.

Jarome Iginla scored twice and new linemate Eric Staal picked up three assists to pace the Canadian attack.  Just like the opening game of the tournament, goaltender Roberto Luongo was hardly tested.  He faced 23 shots and made 21 saves.

Canada set the tone early, recording the first nine shots of the game, peppering German goaltender Thomas Greiss with pucks and wearing out his teammates by consistently cycling the puck in the offensive zone.  In the first period, Canadian defenceman Shea Weber fired several high-speed slap shots from the point, one of which broke a pane of glass above the end boards.  Canada created several scoring chances and was finally rewarded at 10:13 when Joe Thornton scored his first goal of the tournament.  Duncan Keith fired the puck along the left boards where it rolled to Dany Heatley behind the net.  He quickly passed to his fellow Shark in front, who one-timed it into the net for the opening goal.

twitter.com/PenguinsMarchHockey Independent on Facebook

In the second period, Canada scored its second goal, but no one knew about it until the next stoppage of play thirty-eight seconds later.  Weber had fired a puck at the top-left corner of the German net that ripped through the mesh undetected.  Jarome Iginla scored Canada’s next two goals, the first on a power play when he literally crashed the net moments after tapping in a cross-crease pass from Staal and the second on a one-timer that shook Greiss’ water bottle, again on a pass from Staal.

After Marcel Goc’s wraparound goal cut Canada’s lead to 4-1 ending Luongo’s shutout streak at 96:34, Sidney Crosby restored Canada’s four-goal lead just seventy seconds into the third period with his third goal of the Olympics.  Crosby led Canada with five shots on goal tonight and he is now tied with Dany Heatley for the team lead with six points.  Mike Richards, Scott Niedermayer and Rick Nash finished the scoring for Canada.  Niedermayer’s goal came on a breakaway after he picked up a loose puck in neutral ice that deflected off German forward Travis Mulock’s stick.  Manuel Klinge earned the distinction of scoring Germany’s final goal of the 2010 Winter Games when he scored on a rebound of a breakaway shot by Marcel Muller with 1:02 left in the game.

Of note, Nash was hauled down by German defenceman Alexander Sulzer at 11:23 of the second period and immediately the referee signalled for a penalty shot.  Under Olympic rules, any player on Canada could take the shot and head coach Mike Babcock, like he did in the sudden-death shootout round last Thursday, did not hesitate to send Crosby over the boards.  Crosby tried a backhand flip but was stopped by Greiss.

There will be little time and little reason to celebrate this win as Canada will need to prepare for the coming clash with Russia tomorrow evening.  The context of the game will make it an exact rematch of the last time the two countries met.  At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, Russia eliminated Canada 2-0, also in the quarterfinals.  Alexander Ovechkin and Alexei Kovalev scored power play goals in the third period and Evgeni Nabokov made 27 saves for the shutout to give Russia a ticket to the semifinals.  Just eight of the Canadian players dressed for that game are on the 2010 roster while twelve Russians from the 2006 team will be on the ice tomorrow looking to repeat the triumph of four years ago.