U.S. Wins the Goal War

It might take another 22 years just to get their breath back.

The U.S. men’s hockey team was still standing Friday night, its Olympic gold-medal hopes still alive, its 24-game unbeaten streak in Olympic Games on home ice still intact.

Barely.

And only after withstanding a furious charge from Russia in the last period of a 3-2 victory that closed with 20 minutes of exhilarating, nerve-rattling hockey in a game that took place on the 22nd anniversary of the United States’ “Miracle on Ice” against the Soviet Union.

Even Jeremy Roenick, one of the most quotable players on the U.S. roster, said: “I’m beyond words right now.”

It was as if the Russians tried to take out two decades’ and two periods’ worth of frustration at the end. If they couldn’t erase the memories of their country’s most infamous loss, they did their best to wipe out the United States’ three-goal lead.

Only the quick reflexes of goalie Mike Richter and a favorable bounce off the goal post prevented them from succeeding and enabled the United States to move on to the gold-medal game against Canada on Sunday.

Russian Coach Slava Fetisov also seemed to believe the International Ice Hockey Federation and the NHL brought about the matchup.

“It was designed to have this final between Canada and the United States,” Fetisov said.

There was definitely an air of Cold War subterfuge surrounding this game. It came a day after the Russians threatened to pull out of the Olympics because of perceived bias against them by officials and governing bodies. It came a few hours after the Russian Olympic Committee demanded a second gold medal for Irina Slutskaya, the runner-up to American Sarah Hughes in the women’s figure skating competition.

Early on, however the Americans dominated play. They outshot Russia, 20-4, in the first period and 18-7 in the second. Goalie Nikolai Khabibulin did his best to keep his team in the game. He stopped 46 shots overall, and the Americans could not beat him at even strength.

But they did get a power-play goal late in the first period and two more power-play goals in the second.

First, Bill Guerin caught a rebound as he skated from left to right and fired it into the net with a little more than four minutes left in the first period.

Seven-and-a-half minutes into the second period, Khabibulin deflected a Scott Young shot with his stick, but the puck went high into the air and came down right in front of the crossbar, then landed across the goal line for a 2-0 lead.

On another power play 10 minutes later, Tony Amonte fired a shot at Khabibulin that was so hard the rebound went out to the top of the faceoff circle. Phil Housley swooped in, collected the puck and zipped a shot past Khabibulin into the upper left corner of the net.

“I just saw Tony take a whack at it,” Housley said. “I was on the weak side. I just tried to control the puck--it was hopping--and take a shot on net.”

The Americans took plenty of shots throughout the first two periods while the Russians played timidly.

Russia showed that the third period would be different from the outset. A dump-in deflected off a stick, rattled off the boards and came out to Alexei Kovalev, who beat Richter 11 seconds in.

The Americans spent the first 31/2 minutes pinned in their own zone, while Russia fired off five unanswered shots.

At the 3:21 mark, Vladimir Malakhov fired a slap shot from the blue line that beat Richter and cut the U.S. lead to 3-2.

After managing only 11 shots on goal in the first two periods, the Russians matched that number within the first nine minutes of the third.

“It’s a lot of guys coming at you full speed,” U.S. center Mike Modano said. “They’re very dangerous with the puck.”

It was getting frantic. Richter scrambled to stop one wraparound shot, only to have his stick lodge beneath the net. He lifted the net and grabbed his stick just in time to use it to stop yet another Russian shot.

“You know you’re playing Russia, they’re not going to roll over and die for you in the last period,” Richter said. “It was getting ugly out there. You are trying to control the rebounds with the puck jumping all over the place.”

A little past the halfway mark of the period, Russian forward Ilya Kovalchuk just missed from the right side, and Sergei Samsonov’s shot off the rebound hit the post and bounced across the crease.

The Russians thought it had crossed the goal line. They pointed at the giant replay screen above the other end of the ice and wanted a video review. It wasn’t granted, one of numerous complaints the Russians had about the officiating.

“Definitely, they didn’t help us,” said Fetisov, who blamed the tournament’s use of NHL officials.

“They live here. They know the players, they’re Americans, they’re Canadian. In a crucial situation, it’s human reaction. They’re not going to call it.”

The Americans were too caught up in the wave of emotion and patriotism to worry about officiating. This might be the closest they’ll get to experiencing the excitement of Lake Placid in 1980. The 8,600-seat E Center buzzed during every faceoff in the final two minutes, with fans standing, cheering and waving flags

“You know the country’s watching, and there’s a lot of pride,” Young said. “It’s a really a special feeling to hear that U-S-A chant. It goes back a lot of years, watching on TV, and now we’re here experiencing it.

“It was great. We could hear it. We were a little too focused on the game to be looking around in the stands and noticing particular things. But we could hear it. They were there, they were behind us, and it was a great atmosphere.”

It should be even louder Sunday, when the United States tries to extend its 21-0-3 run on home ice that dates to the 1932 Lake Placid Games, while Canada tries to end a gold-medal drought that dates to 1952.

“You know it’s going to be a good, North American brand of hockey,” U.S. forward Brett Hull said.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Gold-Medal Game

United States vs. Canada

Sunday, noon, Channel 4

Right at Home

The U.S. has had great success in the home Olympics, currently on a 21-0-3 streak. The records:

1932...4-1-1 (Silver)

1960...7-0-0 (Gold)

1980...6-0-1 (Gold)

Road to the Gold

Results for the U.S. and Canada in the Olympic tournament:

United States

Feb. 15: def. Finland, 6-0

Feb. 16: tie Russia, 2-2

Feb. 18: def. Belarus, 8-1

Feb. 20: def. Germany, 5-0

Feb. 22: def. Russia, 3-2

Canada

Feb. 15: loss to Sweden, 5-2

Feb. 17: def. Germany, 3-2

Feb. 18: tie Czech Rep., 3-3

Feb. 20: def. Finland, 2-1

Feb. 22: def. Belarus, 7-1