VANCOUVER—The United States-Canada gold medal game is pre-ordained according to sports reporters and talk radio both north and south of the border.
It started to look that way after the U.S. sent Finland to a devastating 6-1 loss in their semifinal game at Canada Hockey Place on Friday.
The U.S. finshed off Miika Kiprusoff and a tough Finnish team without much trouble after the game looked all but won after the first 10 minutes of play.
Kiprusoff was hot coming into the game, with a goals against average of 1.33, a 0.947 save percentage and a shutout in his belt. However, he chose the wrong time to have an off-game.
Ryan Malone beat Kiprusoff at the 2:04 mark of the first and the flood gates opened up. Kiprusoff didn’t help his cause here as he simply passed the puck straight to Malone.
Zach Parise, Erik Johnson, and Patrick Kane all scored subsequent goals and the Finns decided to change up their goalies at 10:08 putting Niklas Backstrom in for a flustered Miika Kiprusoff.
Barely halfway through the first period, the Americans had a 4-0 lead.
The song remained the same as Kane put one past Backstrom and Paul Stastny followed suit some 15 seconds later.
The Finnish went into the first intermission facing a very steep 6-0 deficit, only having fired four shots in U.S. goalie Ryan Miller’s direction. The U.S. outshot them by more than 3 to 1, plastering the Finnish goalies with 13 shots.
“Finnish ‘em off” read a three-part sign in the stands but unfortunately for the family wearing Finish colors holding it, the game was only close for the first few minutes.
Miller didn’t face much action after the first period, but when he was challenged, his intensity never dulled and the U.S. goalie continued to move in rapid, controlled movements.
The second period passed without a goal and the U.S. brought in back-up goalie Tim Thomas in the third to finish the game.
Thomas lost the U.S. shut-out when Finland’s Antti Miettinen blasted one past him with five minutes left.
Finland’s coach Jukka Jalonen told reporters afterwards that it would be a hard game to forget.
“The game was over after the first period,” he said.
Shortly after leaving the ice, Finnish forward Teemu Selanne said the game was a huge disappointment.
“It’s something you don’t want to experience, it’s just unbelievable. We didn’t even compete.”
Penalties were a major factor in the game, with the U.S. establishing its dominance during the Finns’ first two trips to the box. In the final tally, the Finns had twice as many penalties as the U.S. at six to three.
U.S. coach Ron Wilson credited part of his teams success to their ability to not be drawn into penalties.
“I just love our discipline throughout this tournament,” he said, referring to his players not getting retaliatory penalties and instead turning the other cheek.
With Canada facing Slovakia tonight, pundits are already getting ready for a Canada-U.S. gold-medal final on Sunday.
Wilson said both Canada and the U.S. have improved in every game and if they do face off in the gold medal final the American team will need to fight hard, especially in the crucial first five or ten minutes.
“They get better every game,” he said of the Canadians. “It is hard to beat a team twice in a tourney like this.”
“The team with the best goalie will usually win,” he said.
American players left the ice happy with their win, though surprised by the landslide.
Jack Johnson said the team came in expecting to win today, but not by five goals.
“Once we started to smell blood, we kinda got that killer instinct. We really wanted to take away any hope early, because we haven’t won anything yet, we have to win on Sunday.”
But the U.S. didn’t expect a game like this, he said.
“We were going in expecting an absolute to-the-buzzer game, every shift was going to be a battle, we were expecting.”
Forward Ryan Kesler said the U.S. got the jump on the Finns and that surprise was hard to overcome.
“We got a gritty almost lucky goal to start off and then we just kept coming in waves. It was almost like we were skating downhill at them.”
It started to look that way after the U.S. sent Finland to a devastating 6-1 loss in their semifinal game at Canada Hockey Place on Friday.
The U.S. finshed off Miika Kiprusoff and a tough Finnish team without much trouble after the game looked all but won after the first 10 minutes of play.
Kiprusoff was hot coming into the game, with a goals against average of 1.33, a 0.947 save percentage and a shutout in his belt. However, he chose the wrong time to have an off-game.
Ryan Malone beat Kiprusoff at the 2:04 mark of the first and the flood gates opened up. Kiprusoff didn’t help his cause here as he simply passed the puck straight to Malone.
Zach Parise, Erik Johnson, and Patrick Kane all scored subsequent goals and the Finns decided to change up their goalies at 10:08 putting Niklas Backstrom in for a flustered Miika Kiprusoff.
Barely halfway through the first period, the Americans had a 4-0 lead.
The song remained the same as Kane put one past Backstrom and Paul Stastny followed suit some 15 seconds later.
The Finnish went into the first intermission facing a very steep 6-0 deficit, only having fired four shots in U.S. goalie Ryan Miller’s direction. The U.S. outshot them by more than 3 to 1, plastering the Finnish goalies with 13 shots.
“Finnish ‘em off” read a three-part sign in the stands but unfortunately for the family wearing Finish colors holding it, the game was only close for the first few minutes.
Miller didn’t face much action after the first period, but when he was challenged, his intensity never dulled and the U.S. goalie continued to move in rapid, controlled movements.
The second period passed without a goal and the U.S. brought in back-up goalie Tim Thomas in the third to finish the game.
Thomas lost the U.S. shut-out when Finland’s Antti Miettinen blasted one past him with five minutes left.
Finland’s coach Jukka Jalonen told reporters afterwards that it would be a hard game to forget.
“The game was over after the first period,” he said.
Shortly after leaving the ice, Finnish forward Teemu Selanne said the game was a huge disappointment.
“It’s something you don’t want to experience, it’s just unbelievable. We didn’t even compete.”
Penalties were a major factor in the game, with the U.S. establishing its dominance during the Finns’ first two trips to the box. In the final tally, the Finns had twice as many penalties as the U.S. at six to three.
U.S. coach Ron Wilson credited part of his teams success to their ability to not be drawn into penalties.
“I just love our discipline throughout this tournament,” he said, referring to his players not getting retaliatory penalties and instead turning the other cheek.
With Canada facing Slovakia tonight, pundits are already getting ready for a Canada-U.S. gold-medal final on Sunday.
Wilson said both Canada and the U.S. have improved in every game and if they do face off in the gold medal final the American team will need to fight hard, especially in the crucial first five or ten minutes.
“They get better every game,” he said of the Canadians. “It is hard to beat a team twice in a tourney like this.”
“The team with the best goalie will usually win,” he said.
American players left the ice happy with their win, though surprised by the landslide.
Jack Johnson said the team came in expecting to win today, but not by five goals.
“Once we started to smell blood, we kinda got that killer instinct. We really wanted to take away any hope early, because we haven’t won anything yet, we have to win on Sunday.”
But the U.S. didn’t expect a game like this, he said.
“We were going in expecting an absolute to-the-buzzer game, every shift was going to be a battle, we were expecting.”
Forward Ryan Kesler said the U.S. got the jump on the Finns and that surprise was hard to overcome.
“We got a gritty almost lucky goal to start off and then we just kept coming in waves. It was almost like we were skating downhill at them.”
