Better. . .best yet to come?

TURIN--The overall performance was better, and about, oh, a dozen or so Team Canada players were demonstrably superior Tuesday in a 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic than they'd been in the previous four games.

And they'll need to all be a little bit better again in Wednesday's quarterfinal collision with Russia.

Yup, I'm almost certain these two nations have met more than once before in an important hockey game over the decades.

Tuesday, the noteworthy Canadian performances, began with goalie Martin Brodeur, acrobatic as Johnny Bower on the day, and continued with Tampa Bay centre Brad Richards, who scored the first goal of the game early in the first and was a calming, puck control factor for the black-and-red jerseyed Canadians at key points in the contest.

Funny how those guys with Stanley Cup rings seem to raise their games in the big matches, huh?

Brodeur, with three Stanley Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal in his personal treasure chest, allowed an iffy goal to Peter Cajanek but was otherwise spectacular despite suffering a worrisome injury during the game.

"He's a guy who is a captain without carrying the designation on his sweater," said head coach Pat Quinn Tuesday. "Everything says leader about him."

Jarome Iginla was feistier and more involved. Chris Pronger stayed out of the penalty box and scored a goal. Ryan Smyth has found a purposeful home on a line with Vincent Lecavalier and Marty St. Louis. With a lead that needed defending, Kris Draper finally had a role to play. Jay Bouwmeester was much, much more effective.

So after being shutout in two weekend games in which pretty much nobody looked good, even the fact the Canadians had to hang on to win the game by their fingernails shouldn't detract from the improvement in their performance.

But will it be enough, starting with Wednesday's quarterfinals?

"I'm not sure where we are," confessed Quinn. "We're going to find out, obviously. We're going to have to play."

If there was a negative side to the victory, it was that Canada was outshot 33-16, including 26-8 over the final two periods. Rick Nash, benched in the third period against Finland on Sunday, played only a handful of shifts, while Leaf defenceman Bryan McCabe continues to struggle to find his game while getting less than one-third of the playing minutes he usually gets in the NHL.

McCabe saved what looked like a sure goal by Ales Hemsky in the eighth minute of the second, but he took two penalties that simply weren't necessary and showed poor judgment.

Quinn had success grafting Shane Doan on to a line with Joe Thornton and Todd Bertuzzi in the place of Nash, mostly because that line continued to turn the puck over in dangerous place and needed Doan as a defensive conscience. With Doan, not Nash, that was the line that was on the ice in the final seconds when Canada confidently protected its one-goal margin.

After the game, assistant coach Wayne Fleming and goaltending consultant Andy Moog headed off to the Torino Esposizioni to scout Slovakia, a possible quarterfinal opponent at the time Canada's game ended, while Quinn, Jacques Martin and Ken Hitchcock stayed at the Palasport Olimpico to scout Russia and the United States.

Russia, as it turned out, was the team worth watching most for the Canadian coaches. They knocked off the Americans 5-4 with Maxim Sokolov in goal, but it'll be Evgeny Nabokov today.

Canada thus ended the round robin portion of the Olympics 3-2. The regulation win over the Czechs was their first in a decade after a shootout loss in Nagano eight years ago, a round-robin draw in Salt Lake City four years later and an overtime semifinal win at the World Cup of Hockey in 2004.

In the other quarterfinals, the Czechs and Slovaks meet in what promises to be a hugely emotional contest between the two portions of the former Czechoslovakia. The unbeaten, untied Finns take on the U.S., while Sweden plays Switzerland.

The winner of Canada-Russia takes on the winner of Finland-U.S.

Comments

[Jan]

For the quality of players, this has probably been so far the worst performance in Canadian hockey history.

Slow, disorganized, uninspired. Only Brodeur and a couple weak goals allowed by Vokoun saved this from being a Czech blowout.

This sorry team will be eaten alive by Russia.

[Rob]

Isn't anyone else concerned about the coaching staff's inability to get the forward lines scoring? In the 3 games against legitimate contenders their offense has scored one goal - the fluke goal by Richards today. I thought the preliminary section of this tournament was to play with the lineup to see what works best. With the crowd of coaching and management staff on this team, it appears that any decision has to go through a committee.

The Canadian team is obviously not playing with any offensive confidence. I don't like their chances should the Russian team, the team with arguably the most talented set of forwards, gain the lead.

The writing appears to be on the wall here. The blame will be on the players when, in fact, the coaching and management staff will be at fault for their inability to make obvious changes.

[Arthur]

What a surprise.

Think about it - Canada was outshot and outhustled all day after the first period, but won anyway thanks to some world-class goaltending. Does any of that sound familiar? All we needed was Kaberle faking around twenty-eight point shots on the power play and we'd have had a trademark Quinn/Leaf victory.

Thank goodness for Canadian hockey fans he's marshalling the efforts of a 90 million dollar roster instead of the dud Leaf squad I've been tortured with all season.

But if Quinn ultimately loses with these guys, at least Ferguson has all the ammo he needs to put Quinn's head on a stake. "Well, if he can't win at the Olympics, what can he do for us?"

On the other hand, if he DOES win gold again, Toronto fans are stuck with him at least for the rest of the season.

What should a guy hope for?

The Leafs weren't winning the Cup this year anyway, I guess...

[Tom]

This mens team should be embarrassed to step on the ice. They bill themselves as the best in the world-HA, they're not even the best in a midget tournament. I've seen all the games and I dont believe they've played a full period of solid hockey in total...and I dont count the first two wins, a patch work team from a Sunday game in Brampton could have beaten Italy, no offense to Italy or Germany. I hope I'm wrong but they're done. Also, these whinning millionaires should learn a thing or two from the ladies, they showed class and poise representing our Country and our sport, they're not whinning about "the pressure", hell these men dont know pressure, these woman sacraficed allot to represent us and dont receive millions in pay and they cant affort the expensive hotels - the womans team deserves the attention not these bummmmmmms - jump on your private planes and go home, the woman are the champs the men are the chumps.

[Will Carson]

Well the quarter final game against the Russians will start in roughly thirty minutes time and I feel Canada is as poised to get their game together as I have ever felt during this tournament.

While the hockey club has yet to play a complete three periods of hockey up to their capabilities, there were signs of progress in the early goings of yesterday's game verus the Czech's.

As we have seen in more than a few times in this Olympics, and in other similiar events, it is hard to fully see what a club is made of until the chips (or medals in this case) are on the line. There is no doubt this Canadian club has the talent and experience needed to find success once again.

It will be interesting to see what strategies the coaching staff will take as far as ice time, line matching and who will be on the ice during certain situations through out the the contest.

I look for Canada to put together it's best game in the tournament. This club is too proud and too good to let others walk all over them and give up their title of defending Olympic champions.

[Torbjorn Westman]

Best yet to come sort of turned on its head when it has become obvious, although it should have been that right away, that there actually was a legitimate 1-1 goal.
What will the response be to this, as the game became uninteresting to many after this blunder?

[Imants Lacplessis]

This is one sad team. No finesse. No discipline. No coaching. How did McCabe ever become a starter? He's such a liability. And what's with this dump-the-puck-in with no strategy play? Bertuzzi truly does look like he hasn't played in over a year. Crosby, Phaneuf, Staal and Spezza would have all looked so good out there. We lost our hockey magic a long time ago when we stopped teaching kids the basics in favour of a bleeding-heart mentality that allowed every child who wanted to play competitively the chance regardless of skill and what it would do to the more natural talents.
Go Finland!