Canada struggles to men’s hockey victory over Switzerland in shootout

Sidney Crosby didn’t know that Olympic rules permitted him a second shootout attempt after his first try for Canada caromed off the right leg pad of Switzerland and Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller in the teams’ preliminary-round game Thursday.

“I wasn’t sure what the format was,” the Pittsburgh Penguins’ franchise player said. “Then the coach came over and said, ‘You want to go again?’ ”

Given a second chance by Coach Mike Babcock, Crosby didn’t miss. He beat Hiller to the stick side to start the fourth round of the tiebreaker and Canada goalie Martin Brodeur stopped Martin Pluss to salvage a 3-2 victory and two points for Canada against the hard-checking and resilient Swiss at Canada Hockey Place.

Under procedures introduced for the Vancouver hockey tournament, teams get three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime or shootout win and one point for an overtime or shootout loss. After routing Norway in its opener, Canada has five points, one behind the U.S., to set up a dramatic scenario for Sunday’s U.S.-Canada preliminary-round finale.

“I think this is a huge step for our team to understand how hard it is and how well we have to play,” Babcock said.

They had a tough time against the Swiss, who play a North American-style of game and whose core included many players from the team that upset Canada, 2-0, exactly four years ago at the Turin Olympics. The goalie for Switzerland in that game was Martin Gerber, who is injured and unable to play here, but Hiller was outstanding against the big, net-crashing Canadians.

“Wow, that guy was amazing,” Brodeur said. “If it wasn’t for him, a lot like Marty Gerber did to us in ‘06, that game would have been over a long time ago.”

Hiller said he was eager to show how far Swiss hockey has come in recent years. “I’m a little tired now but I think I’m going to feel good after we played so well against Canada in Canada,” he said.

“This was one of the best games ever for sure for the Swiss team.”

Canada scored once in the first period, after Dany Heatley took a pass from San Jose teammate Patrick Marleau and swept the puck past Hiller’s glove side at 9:21. Canada extended its lead to 2-0 just 35 seconds into the second period, after a point shot by Shea Weber hit Heatley in front of the net and fell at the feet of Marleau, who swatted the puck home.

Switzerland closed its gap to one goal at 8:59 of the second period on a well-placed slap shot by Ivo Ruthemann past Brodeur’s glove, and tied it on a fortunate bounce. Defenseman Patrick von Gunten was trying to center the puck and got lucky when it caromed off Marleau’s skate and into the net.

Canada got a power play with 2:51 left in the third and sent out a parade of fearsome scorers: on its first unit were Crosby -- back after getting a bloody nose from a high stick -- Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, with Weber and Scott Niedermayer on the points, and on the second unit were the Kings’ Drew Doughty with San Jose’s Dan Boyle at the points and Heatley, Marleau and Joe Thornton up front. None of them could get the job done.

The Swiss team’s mental and physical toughness had a lot to do with that. Its coach, Ralph Krueger, is a Canadian who still has a cottage in the Winnipeg area, and he guided his team to a better performance than it had given in a 3-1 tournament-opening loss to the U.S. on Tuesday.

“In the second period I thought our team showed a lot of courage and unbelievable character,” Krueger said.

In the shootout, Brodeur stopped former NHL player Hnat Domenichelli and Hiller stopped Crosby. Romano Lemm of Switzerland and Jonathan Toews were stopped in the second round, as were Roman Wick and Getzlaf, Hiller’s Anaheim teammate.

Then Crosby made his second chance count, and Brodeur stymied Pluss to trigger a sigh of relief from the heavily pro-Canadian audience.

“The first one, I tried to get him to move,” Crosby said. “It was one of those nights he wasn’t going to budge a lot.”

Canada bent but didn’t break. “This is an incredible experience,” Crosby said. “Being a hockey player and playing here in Canada, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

IIHF: Please Come to Sochi. NHL: Um, Maybe

Rene Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, came close to begging NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to bring the league’s players to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

After telling Bettman, “for our game, for our fans, Gary, we need you,” Fasel got a sardonic “It’s nice to be needed,” in response during a news conference Thursday. Bettman made no promises other than he would keep the lines of communication open with the IIHF and International Olympic Committee. “There’s plenty of time,” Bettman said of resolving the situation.

The Vancouver hockey tournament is the fourth for which the NHL has halted its season so players could represent their homelands. Players’ participation in the Games is determined through collective bargaining, and the current labor agreement expires in September, 2011, before the Sochi Games.

Bettman said the NHL believes enough in the potential value of Olympic exposure that it has disrupted its season for an event in which it makes no money, doesn’t determine the TV schedule -- which minimizes its chances for prime-time coverage in Games held many time zones away in Russia -- and has no control over $2.1 billion worth of players.

“You have to look at the impact on our season,” he said, adding that NHL teams have played 80 games more under this season’s Olympic-compacted schedule than they had at the same point during 2008-09. “There are a lot of decisions yet to be made.”

Fasel contended that accelerating hockey’s growth should outweigh business concerns. “For our game, this tournament is the pinnacle in our history,” he said.

Asked also about the lack of depth in the women’s tournament, Fasel rejected suggestions that the field should be trimmed. The women’s game is growing, he said, though slowly in many countries.

“The women will come. Don’t worry,” he said.

helene.elliott@latimes.com