2010 Olympic Mens Hockey: With the Czechs Finnished, Team Finland Advances

It's been said that there are two ways to play a game: to win, or, not to lose.

On Wednesday night in the men's hockey quarterfinals, both Team Finland and Team Czech Republic, employed the later strategy.

However, thanks to a brilliant goal-tending performance from Miikka Kiprusoff and a busted chin-strap (more on that later), Team Finland will advance to the semi-finals and face Team USA on Friday.

The malaise that plagued Finland during Sunday's game against their arch-rivals from Sweden appeared to still be present at the start of their elimination game against the Czech Republic.

Neither team played with much emotion and both seemed more concerned about making anything resembling a risky play than trying to generate a scoring chance.

Finland had several opportunities to take control of the game in the form of four straight power-play chances.

But, their power-play which had generated six goals over the first two games of the tournament was tentative and disorganized, much like it was on Sunday.

The Czech's didn't provide much of an offensive threat, but Finland's defensive awareness was the only thing that seemed intact in the first period.

The Finns started the second period with much more energy, executing their fore-checking game which, considering the forwards they have, is capable of being among the best in the entire tournament.

Tuomo Ruutu, Niklas Hagman, and Valtteri Filppula in particular seemed to carry the charge for the Finns in the second.

This eventually prompted the Czechs to press a bit more and the two teams eventually turned the second period into somewhat of a goal-tending duel as Czech goalie Tomas Vokoun made several good saves, equally matched by his opponent in Finland's net.

The third period began much like the first, but the Czechs had the better of the offensive chances early as Czech captain Patrick Elias and superstar Jaromir Jagr combined on two excellent scoring chances.

One, a top of crease tap-in attempt by Jagr on an Elias rebound, the other a 3-on-2 rush resulting in a sure-fire goal by Jagr denied by the left pad of Kiprusoff.

With less than seven minutes to play in the scoreless game, Czech forward, Martin Erat was whistled for a delay of game penalty when his clearing attempt went over the glass and into the crowd.

As Finland began their power-play, a positional battle in front of the net between Finnish forward, Niklas Hagman and Czech defenseman, Filip Kuba resulted in Kuba's helmet being knocked off due to a broken chin strap and skidding behind the net.

Kuba left his position at the front of the net to retrieve his helmet (Olympic rules require that all players wear head protection at all times, regardless of the situation).

At the same time, Finnish defenseman Janne Niskala let a slap-shot go from the blue-line that glanced off of Hagman's shin pad and into the net for the game's first goal.

Had Kuba stayed where he was, he would easily have been able to block the shot or eliminate Hagman in front of the net.

From that point, the game's outcome was inevitable.

Valtteri Filppula added an empty net goal with less than two minutes left in the game and Kiprusoff finished with 31 saves for his first Olympic shut-out.

Both of these teams were virtually mirror images of each other until the Hagman goal.

Both finished with 31 shots on goal and both seemed outright averse to open the game up and take offensive chances.

The tilt simply became a waiting game.  As the game progressed, it looked as if the smallest of mistakes was going to lead to a goal for one side or the other.

In the end, that's exactly what happened.

Though Finland is certainly glad to be progressing to the medal round, they are going to have to play a much more up-tempo game if they are going to pose any serious challenge to Team USA.

They've already shown they have the ability to run a lethal power-play and goal tending is, as expected, their greatest asset.

Nevertheless, it will take quite a bit more than a broken chin strap for Finland to overtake Team USA on Friday.