Team Canada vs. Team Russia (pretournament game)

[Kgbeast 195]

The game was somewhat typical of Canad vs Russia. Canada came out blazing with lots of energy and talent. Russia started rather laid-back with barely noticeable presence of its superstars such as Datsyuk, Ovechkin, Malkin. Russia often starts slow and keep a rather passive game for a first period at least, but even taking this into the account, they sucked against Canadian offence in the big way. Russia played pretty disorganized and at a lower level than expected. Thanks for exceptional work of their goalie Bobrovski, it was a no complete double digits wipe-out. To me personally, this far Bobrovski is the super goalie of the pretournament games. I thought it would be impossible to outshine exceptional performance of Quick in Canada vs USA, but Bobrovski was almost laughing at the pucks thrown at him (i believe it was over 2 dozens  of them in the first period alone). He would literally swipe the pucks of the air with his glove. At least two times it reminded me the fight between Neo and the Agent in the end of the Matrix when Neo came to his power. It looked like Bobrovski did not even look at the field or even moved, just casually extended his arm out and caught the puck. Absolutely spectacular. Whomever enjoys to see a goalie gets rained on with pucks and being able to deflect or catch basically 90% of them, this is the game to see. As the game progressed, gradually, Russian offence gotten better and better. But Canadian defense proved to be almost impenetrable. Price saw a dozen or so of pucks this game, and had some nice saves. A couple of iconic shots from Ove, one of which found the back of the Carreys net, and another two left two Canadian players limping for a minute.   

Towards the end of the game,  team Russia was able to show a little bit of the game we would expect to see, especially in the overtime. A somewhat weird sequence of shift changes during the OT, I think ultimately costed Russia the one one one between Bobrovski and Getzlaf which did not work out very well for Bobrovski. Canada wins 3-2. A very well deserved win. Russia had a solid chance to take this game as they did dominate the OT but if they would have won it, it would have been solely on the shoulders of Bobrovski this time around. 

I must say, I am very eager to start watching the actual tournament. I anticipate it to be very exciting. 

[Bakum 25]

I'm also pretty excited. Before any games, I think Canada was a clear cut favorite. But this tournament is totally up for grabs. With the exception of Team Europe. Europe is the only team that didn't seem to mesh well. Team NA I think is a dark horse to get out of group play. 

[Vet88 674]

That doesn't say much for Sweden after Europe took them to the cleaners the other day, but I thought it was 2 potentially good teams playing a very average game. Agreed that NA is the dark horse and I hope they get out of group play, up front all the skill in the world but their defence is a worry.

[Chadd 916]

On 9/15/2016 at 2:56 PM, Bakum said:

I'm also pretty excited. Before any games, I think Canada was a clear cut favorite. But this tournament is totally up for grabs. With the exception of Team Europe. Europe is the only team that didn't seem to mesh well. Team NA I think is a dark horse to get out of group play. 

Team Europe looked pretty good against the US in the opening game. 

[Bakum 25]

22 hours ago, Chadd said:

Team Europe looked pretty good against the US in the opening game. 

They sure did. US look amateur in that game. NA tonight was incredible as well. They are so fast.