As we head into today’s Olympic action, every team in the tournament has played in exactly one game — just enough for all of us to wildly overreact to their performance and use it to guess what will happen moving forward. Good times! Regardless, all four of yesterday’s heavy favorites won their respective games, and I’d say each of today’s games has a pretty heavy favorite as well.
Yesterday’s Games
Finland 8, Austria 4 (Group B)
Brief Recap: Austria actually got out to a pretty good start, taking a lead just 36 seconds into the game and then going ahead 2-1 later in the first. Unfortunately, they were pretty outmanned by Finland from the start, as the Finns took a 4-2 lead into the first intermission and controlled play from the outset. They outshot Austria 52-20 on the day.
Flyer Watch: Michael Raffl assisted on two goals for Austria, both of which were scored by Michael Grabner of the Islanders, and got 15:45 of ice time. For Finland, Kimmo Timonen played 17:31 — second-most of any Finnish defenseman — and had an assist on the eighth and final goal.
USA 7, Slovakia 1 (Group A)
Brief Recap: Slovakia was powerless to stop the American death machine, which rolled to a half-dozen goals in the second period alone (which ties a Team USA Olympic record) and breezed to a win. Duh.
Flyer Watch: Andrej Meszaros played 13:56 and somehow came away without being on the ice for any goals against.
Russia 5, Slovenia 2 (Group A)
Brief Recap: In what at one point in time seemed like it had the potential to be a stunning upset (albeit one that faded quickly), Slovenia really did give the home team a fight for most of the game, trailing by just a single goal at the end of the second intermission. Russia turned it up in the third period and scored two more to put the game away, but it was a decent game for Slovenia, which scored its first two goals in Olympic history (both from one Ziga Jeglic, with the second being assisted by the team’s only NHLer, Anze Kopitar).
Flyer Watch: None.
Canada 3, Norway 1 (Group B)
Brief Recap: Facing off against a team with all of one NHL player, it took Canada 25 minutes to get on the board, and Norway was able to briefly make it a 2-1 game in the third period before a quick response by Drew Doughty put Canada up 3-1 and put the game away. It was a much closer game than anyone realistically could have anticipated, even though it was one that Canada more or less controlled throughout (including a second period in which they outshot the Norwegians 14-2).
Flyer Watch: None. Though Noted Former Flyer Patrick Thoresen scored Norway’s only goal, and Other Noted Former Flyer Ole-Kristian Tollefsen spent the whole game hitting as many Canadian players as he could.
Today’s Games
Czech Republic vs. Latvia (Group C)
Game Time: 3:00 a.m. ET
TV: MSNBC
Flyers? Jakub Voracek (Czech Republic)
Sweden vs. Switzerland (Group C)
Game Time: 7:30 a.m. ET
TV: NBC Sports Network
Flyers? Mark Streit (Switzerland)
Canada vs. Austria (Group B)
Game Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
TV: USA Network
Flyers? Michael Raffl (Austria)
Finland vs. Norway (Group B)
Game Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
TV: MSNBC
Flyers? Kimmo Timonen (Finland)
Enjoy.
