ALEXANDER, THE NOT SO GREAT
But Ovie & Russians advance
SOCHI, Russia − Alex Ovechkin last week scored just 77 seconds into this hockey tournament, a goal against Slovenia that was going to set the tone for his Olympic experience, and for the Russian team. Except that four games into this tournament, some 77 minutes of personal ice time later, the Caps’ star hasn’t scored again.
“It’s not about personal statistics,” Ovechkin insisted, after the Russians had more trouble than expected before beating lowly Norway, 4-0, in a play-in elimination game. “We’re here to win gold medal.”
The Russians, however, do not look like a gold-medal team at the moment. They are counter-attacking, as usual. But they are not finishing their chances, which is atypical. Ovechkin, who has a league-leading 40 goals in 55 NHL games for Washington, was frustrated again Tuesday by diving and stick-checking Norwegians. “They had four players on blue line, their goalie
played well,” Ovechkin said. “In neutral zone we have little mistakes.”
Imagine the embarrassment. Already relegated to the first-round elimination round and playing a winless opponent before an impatient home crowd, the Russians found themselves scoreless 24 minutes into their game against Norway.
Ultimately, inevitably, Russia found a way to score a couple of ugly goals before a third, an open-netter, sealed things late in the game. It has become clear that the home team is no steamroller here. Two of the Russians’ previous games went into overtime, and now they cannot be considered much of a favorite on Thursday in a quarterfinal against tough, rested Finland − a team that beat Norway, 6-1.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” Ovechkin said. “We will watch film.”
While the Russians scout Finland, the Americans will do a quick study on the Czech Republic, their next opponent, in a quarterfinal matchup between two “Original Six” nations. The Czechs scored two goals in a span of 29 seconds in the first period on Tuesday, soared ahead, 4-0, late in the second period and then hung on for dear life to defeat their sister nation Slovakia, 5-3.
The game wasn’t sealed until Tomas Plekanec scored an empty netter with 39 seconds left. Settling on Ondrej Pavelec in goal has certainly helped the
Czechs, who started this tournament in shaky fashion.
Against Russia, Norway was missing its top forward, Mats Zuccarello of the Rangers, who was out with a hand injury. So it was unlikely from the start that the last-place team in the tournament would score against goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Soon, however, it became questionable whether the Russians would ever manage to push the puck past Lars Haugen.
Finally, at 4:12 of the second period, Alexander Radulov threw a puck in front of the net that deflected unluckily off a Norwegian defenseman past Haugen. Later in the period, Ilya Kovalchuk batted in a sloppy rebound from close range for a 2-0 lead. The Norwegians eventually pulled Haugen for the extra attacker, which only padded the final score.
“The fact that their goaltender made mistakes is probably because we made him make them,” insisted Russia coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. “There were sufficient shots and screens in front of him to make mistakes.”
The Russians, however, failed to score on three power-play opportunities or finish several breakaways and odd-man rushes. For a team featuring Ovechkin, Kovalchuk and Evgeni Malkin, this is becoming a terribly frustrating tournament.
The Norwegians actually dominated much of the third period.
“A lucky goal gave us more opportunities,” Ovechkin said. “Now we’re ready for Finland.”