Canada set to face Germany in semifinal
Team Canada’s Olympic hockey journey just got a little longer, and a little stranger.
It took a while but the Canadian men — with backup goalie Kevin Poulin called on to replace the injured Ben Scrivens — finally figured out Finland’s neutral zone trap and rode Maxim Noreau’s third-period goal for a 1-0 victory Wednesday. That moves Canada one win away from the gold-medal game, with only unheralded Germany standing in its way.
The Germans, seeded 10th in the draw, upset Group C winner Sweden 4-3 in overtime in the other late quarter-final. The win snapped Germany’s 12-game losing streak to Sweden in Olympic and world championship play, improving its record to 2-14-0.
The Czechs meet the Russian entry in Friday’s other semifinal. The Russians downed Norway, 6-1, and the Czechs edged the U.S., 3-2, in a shootout, in the other quarter-finals.
Wednesday’s developments means Canada will play for a medal whatever happens, with either gold or bronze on the line.
While parity was expected in Pyeongchang with NHL stars on the other side of the world, not many would have foreseen a Canada-Germany semifinal. Told that Germany awaited Canada, centre Eric O’Dell started to say perfect, but then caught himself.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, drawing laughs as he stopped midword and returned to the party line. “Nice. We’re ready for any team, and every team from here going forward is going to be tough.”
Canada coach Willie Desjardins was also surprised to see the Swedes to go down.
“But saying that, Germany must be playing well,” he said. “You don’t get luck in this tournament. And Germany’s got some confidence and they’re going to be a tough team to play against.”
Germany, whose NHLers number less than 10, are 3-2 in the tourney with the wins coming at the right time. They lost 5-2 to Finland and 1-0 to Sweden before beating Norway 2-1 in the preliminary round. Then they upset Switzerland 2-1 in overtime.
After a lacklustre scoreless first period, the Canadian men turned it up a notch in the second and outshot the Finns 18-10. The breakthrough goal came 55 seconds into the third period with Noreau blasting a point shot stickside past Mikko Koskinen on a set play after a clean O’Dell faceoff win.
“I saw it from the bench. It had eyes,” captain Chris Kelly said of the shot.
“A fantastic (faceoff) win by (O’Dell). That’s kind of what it takes. Just one play and that’s the difference.”
“That was a bomb,” added defenceman Chris Lee.
Noreau, a 30-year-old defenceman from Montreal whose resume includes six games with the Minnesota Wild, did not speak in the mixed zone after the game in a bid to catch up with his family.
Canada, which outshot Finland 30-21, gritted it out in the third after going ahead.
“I thought we played hard. We played disciplined. We played our identity in terms of not giving up too much and making them work for everything,” said Kelly.
Scrivens returned to the Canadian goal after being rested in the final preliminary-round game. But he gave way to Poulin at 4:17 of the second period after being flattened by Finn Veli-Matti Savinainen, propelled into the crease thanks to a crushing O’Dell check. The Finn’s leg caught Scrivens in the head cleanly along the way.
Desjardins said Scrivens would be further evaluated Thursday.
Poulin was rock-steady in relief, stopping all 15 shots he faced including some tough ones off the bat. Justin Peters took over as backup on the bench with Scrivens dealing with what the team called an upper body injury.
“Unbelievable” was Lee’s review of Poulin’s play.
Canada, which advanced directly to the quarter-finals by virtue of being the best secondplace team, finished runner-up to the Czech Republic in Group A. The Canadian men sandwiched wins of 5-1 over Switzerland and 4-0 over South Korea around a 3-2 shootout loss to the Czechs.