USA thru to medal round in hockey

danmc77 said

I didn't say the US wasn't outplayed, but the end result is what's important - the win doesn't need to be further qualified. Now if it was a shootout win and a one-goal difference, that's a different story - the point is that although Canada carried the play for most of the game - the US actually capitalized on it's chances and scored 5 goals. Give team US credit for a playing a smart game. They were willing to block pucks, use the body, and just do what needed to be done to win.

Yes, I did watch the game.

The US may very well have woken the sleeping beast, because Canada didn't look all that impressive up until the Germany game, but I'm not going to panic because you guys trounced an unprepared, unmotivated Russian team that was clearly overrated. All the talent, but no team.

We'll see what happens if they meet again - I can garuntee the US will put up a better fight than Russia did.

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My original comment on all this was about how goaltending is the name of the game and I stand by that. When one goalie outplays the other by a wide margin and gets the win people will always comment on it, or quailfy it I guess. Basically it was a one goal difference, the 5th goal you got was an empty net one and maybe the nicest I've ever seen. Until then there was quite a flurry in your end so it was far from a ho hum we won by 2 goals kind of game. I'm a Canucks fan so I was happy to see Kessler get that goal, he's turned into quite a player.

I was shocked to see the poor effort by the Russians, they're goaltending certainly didn't help their cause. I was expecting a close game but we beat them in all areas without them putting up any fight. While winning is always what you want, a closer game is far more exciting.

I fully expect the US, should we meet in the final and I hope we do, to play a far more inspired game than the Russians did. The last game was truly a great game to watch and I'm sure every player on the US team knows they'll have to play far better than they did in the last one if they expect to win. If Luongo keeps playing well Miller will have to be even better than he has been and that's a tall order.