Men's Olympic Hockey: Road to the Gold A Rocky Ride

The brackets are all set for the qualification round after a Super Sunday that lived up to the hype.

Alexander Ovechkin’s hit on Jaromir Jagr turned the tides in Russia’s favor and propelled them into the quarter finals, where they sit third overall.

USA, though out-played and out-shot, overcame the daunting task of beating the pre-tournament favorite Canadians and now sit atop the standings.

Sweden who is defending the Gold medal from 2006 in Turin, haven’t been the most explosive team offensively, but have given up the fewest goals in the tournament relinquishing only two. They handed a very good Finnish team a 3-0 loss and sit second overall. The Finn’s are sitting in fourth. Both teams have a bye into the quarter finals.

1^st USA

2^nd Sweden

3^rd Russia

4^th Finland

Four games will be played Tuesday between the bottom eight teams to see who will face off in the quarter finals Wednesday.

The 5^th seeded Czech’s play the 12^th seed Latvia.

The 6^th seed Canada will play the 11^th seed Germany.

The 7^th seed Slovakia will play the 10^th seed Norway.

The 8^th seed Switzerland will play the 9^th seed Belarus.

The Czech’s, Canada, and Slovakia should all win their games as their opposition has been fairly tame thus far. The Switzerland-Belarus game is somewhat of a toss up as both teams have similar statistics and roster depth, though it could come down to goal tending, in which the edge would have to go to the Swiss with Jonas Hiller.

If that’s the case the quarterfinals match ups will be:

The USA (1) vs Switzerland (8)

Sweden (2) vs Slovakia (7)

Russia (3) vs Canada (6)

Finland (4) vs Czech Republic (5)

At this point there are no guaranteed wins, but fatigue could become a factor. The teams that had to play in the qualification round will be playing back to back games, where as the top four teams will be well rested.

All eight of these teams have goalies that can steal a game for them. We saw with Jaroslav Halak and Slovakia who beat the Russians in a shootout, and the Swiss with Jonas Hiller who took Canada to overtime and eventually a shootout, yet lost.  

The excitement is building and I will be glued to the television for all of these games. How they play out is anyone’s guess, but one things for sure—it’s going to be a great ride along this rocky road to the Gold!

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