Olympic Pool Update (Day 5, Feb 16)

The final day of the Olympic tournament started with an inconsequential game to the pool, as Austria and Norway went head-to-head to play for 3rd place in Group B.

Well, who knew it was going to be the Austrian, Michael Grabner, who would be far and away the best player to come out of Box 13?  Not anyone in the pool, I can tell you that much.  Grabner scored another 2 goals on Sunday and he finished the round robin with 5 goals and 1 assist in three games played.

Grabner led the way for a 3-1 Austrian win over Norway and his fellow NHLer teammate, Michael Raffl, chipped in with the second goal, which turned out to be the winner, to round out the scoring.  Unfortunately, everything fell into the points abyss and the standings remained unchanged through the 1am MT game.

The Americans needed a win in regulation to guarantee their bye into the playoff round of the Olympic tournament and in their way was the Slovenians, who already had a win under their belt from Saturday.  In the end, the USA was ready to go and dominated the game from start to finish, giving up one goal with only 17 seconds left in regulation, scoring 5-1 win and a bye through the qualification round.

Remarkably, the two stars of the game for the USA, Phil Kessel (natural hat-trick & GWG) and Joe Pavelski (3 assists), were not taken at all in the pool, so another 7 points dropped into the abyss, never to be seen in the standings.  Kessel, among the pool leaders in points, with 8, was overshadowed by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in Box 1, but is spanking both of them in points thus far.

The only pool player to make a significant difference in the pool for the USA, Ryan Miller, who got the start and the win, making 17 stops for the victory.  Miller was taken three times in the pool and won't leave those teams on the lurch, but we have to expect that Jonathan Quick will get the call for the playoff round.

Derek Stepan did make it into the game for the Americans, taking out the most popular player on the team, Max Pacioretty, but there likely won't be any word on who will stay in the line-up, when the Americans start up again in the playoffs.

I don't think I am the only one to think this, but it really seems that the Russians are making this tournament much harder for themselves than it should be.  Tell me I'm wrong.  Go on.

The host country could be having trouble underneath the considerable amount of pressure of having to win a gold medal on home soil, as that would be the only real reason why they have gone to a shootout in two of the three round-robin games in the tournament.

On Sunday, the Russians had their hands full with Slovakia, a team that was winless in the tournament, but still played a hard enough game to take this game through extra time and to the skills competition, with a score of 0-0.

In the shootout, Semyon Varlamov stood his ground, stopping the only two shooters necessary for Alexander Radulov and Ilya Kovalchuk to score in a best of three situation.  With all of that considered, Varlamov came away with a 4-point shutout win and Radulov got the only scoring point, with the winner in the shootout.

It may not be much, but... well, but nothing.  The Russians didn't earn a bye through the qualification and that is likely considered a failure.

Finally, in the marquee game of the last day of the round robin, the Canadians played the Finns for 1st place in Group B and it was quite the game.

With 1st place through the round robin on the line, assuming one of the teams won in regulation, both Canada and Finland played pretty close to the vest.  After Canada took a 1-0 lead in the 1st period, the push wasn't quite there and Finland was there with a good drive to the net, tying up the game before the end of the 2nd period.

Instead of trying to win the game, both teams were trying not to lose, which led to extra time, where Drew Doughty, the scorer of the opening goal of the game, scored the winning goal and gave Canada the group win.  Seeing as though the game went to extra time, Canada finished 3rd in the overall standings, while Finland kept the standing in the bye position, finishing 4th.

With two goals, including the winner, Doughty finished atop the scoring table with 3 points, while Carey Price, who was chosen over Roberto Luongo, finished with the win and another 2 points.

On the roster side, P.K. Subban became a healthy scratch again, while Patrick Sharp and Dan Hamhuis returned to the line-up.

It was another flip-flop of Rob A.'s teams, as his first team overtook his second team again.  His first team finished with 9 points on the day, while his second team finished with only 3.  The difference between the two teams is only 3 points, while Chris J. sits in 3rd place, 5 points out of 1st.

The top team in the pool on Sunday belonged to Thor, who's team had 12 points, thanks to a couple of wins from Ryan Miller and Carey Price, while having Drew Doughty to help out the cause.