2010 Men's Olympic Hockey: The Puck Drops For Six Teams Tuesday

In less than 24 hours, something that has been a topic of speculation for the hockey world since Canada was given the games, the 2010 Olympic Men’s Hockey Tournament will take place.

The world’s best hockey players on the world’s biggest stage: Ovechkin, Crosby, Jagr, Selanne, Zetterberg. These names, synonymous with greatness, will gather and battle for Olympic gold.

The first day of action begins at 3 pm EST with evenly-matched teams in the USA and Switzerland, followed by Canada against Norway at 7:30 pm EST. This should be a blow out and the evening will finally be capped off with Russia against Latvia at 12 midnight EST— another mismatch.

USA against Switzerland

These two sit side by side in world rankings: USA sixth and Switzerland seventh. Right off the bat, this is a very important game for both teams.

If either team hopes to make it out of the preliminaries and into the qualification round, both need these points in this game, as they are in Group A with powerhouse Canada and bottom of the pile, Norway.

Switzerland will rely on great goal tending from Jonas Hiller and smart defensive play from Mark Streit who will have to lead a fairly inexperienced group.

Up front are purely a European set of forwards from a number of leagues.

The Swiss shouldn't put up much of a test for the states, but could surprise.  

Between the pipes for the USA, will be one of the best goalies in the NHL this year, Buffalo Sabres Ryan Miller. They will rely on him greatly.

The backend of the states isn’t the most physical group aside from perhaps Ryan Suter, but the defensive core should be able to move the puck quickly up to their speedy forwards and keep some of the pressure off Miller.

One of the biggest problems this team will face may be the other teams' offensive zone cycle as they are not a big group.

The forwards have a lot of speed and will try and utilize that, while carrying the puck through the neutral zone.

Patrick Kane, Phil Kessel, Zack Parise, Joe Pavelski, Ryan Kesler, Bobby Ryan and Paul Stastny, will be the forwards that should generate a lot of that speed and will be dangerous.

This will be a great game to watch and get a good read on what the USA is bringing to the table. It could be a close one, coming down to which team can gel quickly and overcome the jitters that come with playing in the first game to open the tournament.

Canada against Norway

This game is going to be a blowout as Canada is ranked No. 1 in the world and is the favorite for the gold medal; Norway is ranked at the bottom.

This will be a great game for Canada to start with as it gives them time to get used to each other and settle themselves into the Olympic hockey tournament atmosphere—crazy for them being the host country.

Ryan Getzlaf who was questionable up until last night when he played for his Anaheim Ducks in the last game before the break; he registered four assists. Hockey Canada has sent home his replacement Jeff Carter as Getzlaf is ready to rock.

Between the pipes for Canada should be possibly the best goal tender of all-time, Martin Brodeur. Here's more on Canada’s goalies . 

The defensive core for Canada is solid straight across the board and is one of the best . 

Canada’s forwards are solid up and down. Here's a closer look .  

Norway has one NHLer on the roster with defenseman Ole Kristian Tollefsen. The rest of the team is comprised of players from from European leagues. I will be surprised if they are even in any of the games they play, much less score more than two goals during the tournament.

Russia against Latvia

Russia is ranked second in the world and has one of the most dangerous one-two punch lines—perhaps ever assembled. They are pretty solid between the pipes, but lack a solid defensive core.

In net will be either be Ilya Bryzgalov, Evgeni Nabokov, or Semyon Varlamov. I would expect Nabokov to get the start in this one, but we may end up seeing Bryzgalov as he has had a solid season in the NHL.

The backend is where the problems may lie for this Russian team.

Veteran Sergei Gonchar and Anton Volchenkov, along with Fedor Tyutin, should lead the team from back here along with a couple other NHLer’s and a couple of guys from the Russian league the KHL.

Not a very physical bunch and they will have problems handling big forwards who park themselves in front of the net.

The forwards for Russia starts with arguably the best player in the world right now, Alexander Ovechkin, joined by Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk, Evgeni Malkin, and Alexander Semin—all highly talented players that can steal the show on their own.

From the KHL as well as being ex-NHLer’s they have Sergei Fedorov, Viktor Kozlov, and two of the best players from outside the NHL, Alexander Radulov and Alexei Morozov.

This group of Russian forwards has so much talent and so much scoring ability, they will be hard to stop for anyone.

Russia will be taking on Latvia and it is going to be very similar to the Canada-Norway game: a total blowout and a good chance for this Russian team to gel.

Latvia has two NHL defensemen, Karlis Skrastins of the Dallas Stars and Oskars Bartulis of the Philadelphia Flyers. Again as with Norway, don’t expect much from this team. They will be lucky to get a couple pucks into the net for the whole tournament.

All in all, the beginning of this Olympic Hockey schedule has electricity running through my veins along with I am sure the rest of the hockey worlds.

I am totally stoked for this to start! Follow me on Twitter for updates [e-mail]