Let's start here today. I'm happy to see that Roberto Luongo and the rest of Team Canada are keeping it loose in the face of the Olympic pressure. Here's the group watching Canada's Brad Jacobs at curling:
This is the fashion sense you can buy with a $64 million contract:
Mike Babcock has refused to announce which goalie he'll start against Finland on Sunday so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. We do know that Dan Hamhuis will be back in the lineup, though Babcock hasn't said yet which forwards he'll be taking out.
The game is crucial for Canada in terms of seeding.
Click here for the standings after Saturday's games.
The top four teams win a bye past the next qualification round, straight into the quarterfinals. So, the winners of each group will advance, as well as the second-place team with the highest number of points.
Canada and Finland are both 2-0 so far, so whoever wins Sunday's game will advance automatically. If Canada loses, even in overtime, things get tricky.
Let's assume that the U.S. and Russia both win their final games, against Slovenia and Slovakia, respectively. That would put Russia in second place in their group, with seven points. If Canada or Finland win in regulation, the loser will have just six points and Russia would automatically get that fourth spot. If Canada/Finland goes to overtime or a shootout, the loser would get a single point and would also finish with seven. Then, the tiebreaker would be goal differential, which could still go either way.
Yes, a qualification game should be a relatively easy matchup, but the Slovaks are 0-2 so far and look like they'll finish near the bottom of the standings. They finished fourth in the 2010 Games, so they're exactly the kind of team that could step up and surprise in a one-game elimination. None of the favourites will want to find themselves in that situation.
The Finns are leading the tournament in goal-scoring so far, with 14 goals in two games. The situation should be different when they match up against Canada's strong defense and solid goaltending, no matter who plays.
I will be running what looks like it'll be a wet and windy half-marathon tomorrow at the exact time that Canada/Finland is on, so I'll check in on Sunday afternoon to look at the results.
In other action, Team USA beat Russia in a game that I'm seeing described in many places as "one of the best ever." Though I know the result, this one sounds like it's worth watching the replay, which CBC has available.
Click here to watch the game in its entirety.
Say what you will about the shootout being a skills competition, but you can't deny that it's super-exciting when it goes down this way.
@strombone1 has been quiet on Twitter, until today. In addition to his curling Tweet, he weighed in with his patented self-deprecating humour after T.J. Oshie's heroics in the U.S./Russia game:
From the stat sheet, it looks like Ryan Kesler had a quiet but solid day, mostly in a defensive role. He had one shot on goal, went 15-9 in the face-off circle and I hear he was a shot-blocking machine.
The Group C teams wrapped up their games with all four Canucks players on the winning side of the ledger. Alex Edler drew back in after his suspension, in place of Henrik Tallinder. He had a goal and an assist in 17 minutes of icetime in Sweden's 5-3 win over a pesky Latvian team. Daniel Sedin had two assists—on the same goals Edler was involved in.
Meanwhile, Switzerland ground out another low-scoring affair, beating the Czechs 1-0. The Swiss have scored just two goals in three games but have two wins thanks to shutouts in both games by Jonas Hiller.
NHL Revealed
I finally got around to watching episode three of the NHL Revealed series, which ran last week. It was chock-full of Canuck content, though still operating on the assumption that Henrik Sedin was headed to Sochi. In addition to a re-hash of the Canucks/Blackhawks game from January 29, we saw both Daniel and Henrik taking their kids to riding lessons down in Southlands, and a surprisingly sentimental at-home segment with Ryan Kesler and his family. The man with the surly reputation was on his best behaviour as the NHL's cameras rolled.
The series is on pause until after the Olympics; if you missed this episode when it aired, you can download it on iTunes.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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