[align=center]2010 OLYMPICS GROUP B GDT
FEBRUARY 18 • 9 PM PT • 12 AM ET (Feb. 19) • 6 AM CET (Feb. 19) • 8 AM MT (Feb. 19)

vs.


Canada Hockey Place, Vancouver, BC, Canada


Slovakia

10 Marián Gáborík-38 Pavol Demitra (A)-81 Marián Hossa (A)
20 Richard Zedník-15 Jozef Stümpel-24 Žigmund Pálffy
91 Marcel Hossa-26 Michal Handzuš-23 ?uboš Barte?ko
82 Tomáš Kopecký-8 Martin Cibák-92 Branko Radivojevi?


33 Zdeno Chára (C)-14 Andrej Meszároš
77 Martin Štrbák-17 ?ubomír Viš?ovský
44 Andrej Sekera-68 Milan Jur?ina
7 Ivan Baranka

41 Jaroslav Halák
30 Peter Budaj

Scratches: G 35 Rastislav Sta?a, F 18 Miroslav Šatan


Russia

71 Ilya Kovalchuk (A)-11 Evgeni Malkin-61 Maxim Afinogenov
8 Alexander Ovechkin (A)-13 Pavel Datsyuk-28 Alexander Semin
25 Danis Zaripov-42 Sergei Zinoviev-95 Alexei Morozov (C)
52 Viktor Kozlov-29 Sergei Fedorov-47 Alexander Radulov

51 Fedor Tyutin-55 Sergei Gonchar
37 Denis Grebeshkov-22 Konstantin Korneev
79 Andrei Markov-5 Ilya Nikulin
7 Dmitri Kalinin-6 Anton Volchenkov

30 Ilya Bryzgalov
20 Evgeni Nabokov

Scratches: G 40 Semyon Varlamov[/align]

6-2 Russia. Slovakia doesn't have enough fire power to hang in this one.

Should be an exciting game though.

Slovakia wins and upset the Russians 2-1 in a SO!

Wow, the favorites are looking shaky all of a sudden.

Big loss for the Russians. Still should get to the next round but their seed for the medal round won't be what they had hoped.

I'm going to quit predicting winners...I was way off all day.

The game between the Czech Republic and Russia looms big now for the entire field because if Russia loses, and fails to get points, they will finish 3rd in that group and most likely be the 7th seed. It would put the Czech Republic no worse than 3rd, and likely 2nd or 1st, which could mean a turnaround game against Russia or Slovakia (who likely finishes 6th).

With the shaky Russian defense, the Czech's should get a lot of chances against them. If it's low scoring, Russia isn't going to win. They need to get the offense going outside of Ovechkin.

^^^^^Great point. The Czechs as of right now look like the scariest team in this tournament.

Agreed. Slovakia, 23 hours after losing a tough game against their biggest rival, the Czech's, came out and looked better and had almost twice as many chances against Russia. I thought that after the tough loss, Russia would whip on Slovakia because Halak was due to have a bad game, but it was the complete opposite. I think the circumstances say a lot more about A) how good the Czech's might be and B) how premature the Russia as gold favorites talk may be.

Then again, watch Russia come out and blast the Czech's and then nobody will have any clue what to think. I do however know that Slovakia winning that game gives them essentially a 5-day break to get Gaborik and possibly Hossa 100%. They should be able to handle Latvia handily, and finish with 5 points, which might be good for one of the top 4 seeds depending on possible tie-breakers.

Sweden/Finland winner 8/9 pts
United States (if they beat Canada) 8/9 pts
Czech Republic (if they beat Russia) 8/9 pts
Sweden/Finland loser 6/7 pts
Canada 5/6 pts
Slovakia 5 pts
Russia 4/5 pts
Switzerland (if they beat Norway) 4 pts
Germany/Belarus winner 3 pts
Norway 0/1 pts
Germany/Belarus loser 0/1 pts
Latvia 0 pts

Clearly the #1 seed is HUGE, as after the top 7 teams, it's a step down, even though the Swiss played Canada to a shootout. IMO, the toughest spot is going to be getting that 5-seed, because you don't get a bye, play a very quality opponent (possibly one of the favorites who fell, Canada/Russia) in the quarter finals, a rested #1 seed in the semifinals, all just to get to the gold medal game.

Lots of hockey left though haha.

What I believe that is going on with the Russians is that their coach Bykov has a love affair with KHL players and he plays them too much. He got out coached last night.

Czechs are playing very well and Russia better find a way to slow them down or they will be in big time trouble come the medal round. I still like Sweden to repeat as Olympic Champions but we shall see.

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