USA rips Slovakia to reach quarters

THE United States’ top scorer Ryan Donato and goaltender Ryan Zapolski helped the US past Slovakia 5-1 and into the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics men’s hockey quarterfinals yesterday.

Har vard University s t ar Donato scored two goals and Zapolski made 22 saves to drive the Americans, who haven’t taken Olympic gold since 1980, into a last-eight clash against the unbeaten Czech Republic today.

“We came in feeling confident about not going home. Putting goals in makes us feel a lot more confident,” Donato said.

“The chemistry is nice and is kind of meshing.”

Also advancing was Norway, which edged Slovenia 2-1 on Alexander Bonsaksen’s overtime goal to reach a quarterfinal agai nst the Olympic Athletes from Russia.

Later games were to pit Finland against South Korea, the wi n n e r f a c i n g t wo- t i me defending champion Canada in a quarterfinal, and Switzerland against Germany, with the winner meeting unbeaten Sweden today.

Donato, who a lso net ted t wo goals against Slova k ia in a 2-1 g roup-st age v ic tor y, blasted a rebound into the far top corner 96 seconds into the second period to put the USA ahead 1-0.

Slovakia responded 26 seconds later with a body-slamming retaliation sequence as Michal Cajkovsky was sent off for 25 minutes for a blow to Donato’s head.

‘A little bit of a scary thing’

“I just dipped my head for a second to look at the puck and looked up and had an elbow in my mouth,” Donato said. “It didn’t feel good.”

At the same moment, Ladislav Nagy was whistled for flattening Zapolski, who was slow to rise off the ice.

“He hit my head and pinched my neck,” said Zapolski. “It was a little bit of a scar y thing.”

That gave the Americans a two-man powerplay and they converted just 18 seconds in when James Wisniewski, a German League defenceman whose father Jim was quarantined with the norovirus, scored to provide a 2-0 US edge.

“It was huge for our confidence going into [the quarters],” Wisniewski said. “We’re getting better and better.”

The resu lt lef t t he A mericans with less than a day to recover to face a Czech squad seek ing its f irst Oly mpic gold in 20 years.