A country asks: Huh, Canada?
Drew Doughty started getting frantic calls and text messages before the shock waves had faded from Canada’s 5-3 loss to the United States in the preliminary-round finale of the Olympic hockey tournament.
What, they asked, was wrong with their hockey team?
“Canada as a country is worried about how we’ve been so far,” the Kings’ precocious defenseman said Monday, “but I know in the room we’re still confident. We’re going to take a longer route to the gold-medal game, but I know we’re still confident we’re going to do it.”
Losing to the U.S. consigned Canada to the qualifying playoff round Tuesday against Germany, while the U.S., Sweden, Russia and Finland earned byes to the quarterfinals as the top four seeded teams.
From here a loss means elimination, and after a distinctly subpar performance by goaltender Martin Brodeur against the U.S. on Sunday, Team Canada will start Roberto Luongo on Tuesday in the rink he calls home with the Vancouver Canucks.
If Canada wins, it will face Russia in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, the Sidney Crosby-Alexander Ovechkin marquee matchup hockey fans did not expect before the gold-medal game. But Luongo, anointed the starter the rest of the tournament by Coach Mike Babcock, said he’s not thinking beyond Tuesday.
“We’ve got a big test,” said Luongo, who started in Canada’s tournament-opening rout of Norway but watched Brodeur play in a shootout win over Switzerland and the loss to the U.S.
“We can’t get ahead of ourselves. That’s where you get in trouble.”
Canada shouldn’t have much difficulty with Germany, which has a handful of NHL players and former NHL defenseman Uwe Krupp behind its bench, but there’s absolutely no margin for error now.
“I think each game we’re getting better,” burly winger Rick Nash said. “Before, we had something to fall back on, but now we’ve got to make sure we’re going to be at our best.”
While Canada sorted through its national angst, Team USA had a day off and awaited the winner of Tuesday’s noon PST play-in game between No. 8 Switzerland and No. 9 Belarus. Switzerland, which took Canada to a shootout and beat Norway, should be favored because it has Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller in net and plays a North American style.
Other games Tuesday match the fifth-seeded Czech Republic against No. 12 Latvia for the right to face fourth-seeded Finland, and No. 7 Slovakia against No. 10 Norway for the right to face No. 2 Sweden.
FOR THE RECORD:
Olympic hockey: In Tuesday’s Vancouver Olympics section, an article about that day’s qualifying games in ice hockey said No. 7 seed Slovakia would take on No. 9 Norway for the right to face No. 3 Sweden. Norway is seeded No. 10, and Sweden is No. 2. —
Brian Burke, Team USA’s general manager, said Monday that despite his team’s upset of Canada, he’s not happy with the performance of his hand-picked roster.
His primary complaint is that they’ve had too many passengers and too few people stepping up besides goaltender Ryan Miller, who stopped 42 shots by Canada, defenseman Brian Rafalski, who shares the tournament lead with four goals, and forward Chris Drury, whose selection was questioned because of his mediocre season with the New York Rangers.
Translation: They don’t have any laurels to rest on just yet. And if players don’t understand that, he will be happy to help them get the point.
“I’ll see to it by tomorrow that they understand first-hand how I feel about it,” Burke said. “Everything gets ratcheted up now and we’ve got to ratchet it up too, or all this goes for naught. They don’t hand out any medals for finishing first in the preliminary round.”
The Americans were outshot by Canada and won thanks to Miller’s acrobatics, the gritty, timely goal by Drury that put them ahead to stay at 16:46 of the second period, and Rafalski’s second two-goal game. Role players like penalty killer Ryan Callahan and faceoff aces Ryan Kesler (76%) and Joe Pavelski (69.4%) have also contributed to Team USA’s 3-0 record and tournament-leading plus-9 goal differential.
Drury said he has been encouraged by the team’s ability to bond quickly but agreed with Burke’s oft-repeated claim that the U.S. is not the favorite
“I would still say we’re underdogs because of our lack of experience,” said Drury, one of only three U.S. players with previous Olympic experience. “And certainly now that the tournament is single-elimination, we do have to get a lot better.”
Or get packing.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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