AHL- Apolyton Hockey League III-- Olympic edition

[Asher]

Alex Burrows is really lighting it up tonight.

There's goal #2.

[Asher]

Jarome Iginla hattrick.

Iggy is the problem. Not sure why the man is on the Olympic team.

Dany Heatley 		Sidney Crosby		Martin St. Louis
Alexandre Burrows	Joe Thornton 		Rick Nash
Brad Richards		Patrick Marleau 	Corey Perry
Patrick Sharp		Vincent Lecavalier 	Ryan Getzlaf

Ben.

[Guynemer]

Looking forward to Sunday.

[Flubber]

Pekka

I see the Russians as being very different than the players of 10-12 years ago and even a marked change in just the last couple of years. THe Russian players now largely seem to be physical, passionate, energetic and driven (not the somewhat roboticcogs of the old USSR team stereotypes). Its a short tournament and anythuing can happen, but I fully anticipate a big effort and a great showing from the Russians

[Flubber]

Team USA-- I sort of group them with Finland. RYab Miller has been exceptional this year until recently and vezina guy Tim Thomas can also be top-notch but I think for this team to win the tourney the goaltending has to be exceptional. But this is a very young team so in many ways their full capabilities are somewhat unknown. Its weird since its hard to point at a single player that would absolutely crack the top 2 lines of Canada or Russia yet I think they will be a very dangerous team to face in a single game showdown.

Czech--still in that second tier the czechs also have a solid complement of talent. Vokoun is their potentially game changing keeper but I just cannot believe much in this team. Maybe its the 'Maple Leafs taint" but I find it hard to envision a defence team of Kaberle and Kubina holding off the elite Canadian and Russian forwards. The idea of Jagr playing at this level is intriguing though, I will be curious to see if he remains a star even at 36

Slovakia--Goaltending is probably the least proven of any team in the top 7 but anyone that has seen Halak's play this year knows he can steal games. If the often injured duo of Gaborik and Hossa are healthy this team will have a first line threat that matches up reasonably well against any team out there. IN Chara they have a premier level d-man as well. This team is a real threat. Interestly they fall as the number 8 seed with the Swiss as number 7.


So as usual there is a big 7. The other 5 I assess as having zero chance at gold and about only slightly more chance at a medal. The Swiss could see Hiller steal a game I guess but in this format the likely quarter-final opponent would be the number one or two seed

[Flubber]

A note on the format (which I do not like that much)-- You have three pools each doing a round robin. Then based on those 3 distinct RRs they then rank everyone? WTF? So realistically if a team goes 3-0 in each pool it comes down to how much they can blow out their worst opponents by ?? Canada was 8-0 versus Norway and Russia "only" won 8-2 vs Latvia so onthe system Canada would be #1 seed at the moment? Ridiculous. maybe Latvia is a far better team than Norway. Maybe Sweden or Finland gets the #1 seed because it turns out both Belarus and Germany are candicates for big blowouts etc etc

Oh and I found a little inconsistency in the ctv site I wondered about

The ctvolympics.ca site has a detailed description where the top 4 get byes to the quarters and then its 5v12,6v11,7v10 and 8 v9 to get back to the quarters but their "hockey schedule" http://www.ctvolympics.ca/hockey/res...les/index.html doesn't show these qualifying playoff games. Its probably just an omission on their site since it shows Mens RR concluding on Feb 21 and the quarters on the 24th with no intervening games and no hockey at all (men's or womens) on the 23rd. I am guessing that the 23rd would be the day for those qualifying games and the winners have to go back to back.

I wonder would some teams secretly even prefer the "extra" game? An overall 5 or 6 seed will almost inevitably get Norway, Latvia, Germany or Belarus so there is scant chance of losing and a further opportunity to gel.

Interesting calculations ahead with respect to matchups-- Heck if either Russia or Canada drop a game while the other goes undefeated, they could end up facing each other in the quarters. In that regard Sweden and Finland may have an "advantage". Since they play the last game they will be able to know exactly where any given result places each of them and the opponents and potential opponents that would result

[Pekka]

Flubber, agreed, players like Ovechkin are the new breed. I still think they haven't been stable enough, I mean they did lose to Belarus in their own games not too long ago with their star team. Of course it's not an indicator of their team in these games, but just saying... if they get their mentality right, it's a tough team to beat. It's a team that can beat any team, even Canada.

Today will tell us a lot about our team. If we win with few goals, we're doomed. The players we need hot and score against the big countries should perform well tonight as well or not at all. So even though it's Belarus, it's a good indicator for the future. Germany will be better indicator and naturally Sweden will give us the full picture.

[Flubber]

Today will tell us a lot about our team. If we win with few goals, we're doomed. The players we need hot and score against the big countries should perform well tonight as well or not at all. So even though it's Belarus, it's a good indicator for the future. Germany will be better indicator and naturally Sweden will give us the full picture.

The games with the minnows do tell you a little. Almost every team has a pretty good goalie and many of the third tier teams got to the "A" pool by playing disciplined systems and reasonably strong defence. So they are reasonable teams for the elite to work themselves up against-- Good practice partners as it were

I just wish it were a 10 team -- 2 pool field

Right now teams play 3 RR games (potentially 1 qualifier) and then 3 more for gold so 6 or 7 games depending

I would go much simpler 5 team RR in two pools-- Top two in each pool make it to the semis in a cross over-- 7 games--

From this field we would lose Latvia and Norway (according to the seedings). If any positions were determined by goals for and against it would be between teams that had played each other and all the same opponents.

For good teams its better-- They can go 5-0 or 4-1 and then need to lose twice to be denied a medal--

In the current system you can go 3-0 in your RR --get first seed overall then get stoned by goalie on a reasonably good team (say the Czechs or Slovaks since easily either of them could be the 8th or 9th seed)-- One loss and you are playing for 5th.

I just think you should have to lose more than once before someone declares you are fifth.

[Asher]

The games wity the minnows do tell you a little.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

[Flubber]

Interesting

Finland dominates belarus 5-1 with a 45-12 shots advantage while Sweden looks quite ordinary in a 2-0 win over Germany where shots were close to even. I expected more but the reality is that its a first game win at a time when all the squads are trying to gel as a team.

Based on this one game though it looks as if the germans are full value for their #9 seed. I wouldn't expect them to beat any of the top 7 usually but they can keep it respectable

[Pekka]

Interesting

Finland dominates belarus 5-1 with a 45-12 shots advantage while Sweden looks quite ordinary in a 2-0 win over Germany where shots were close to even. I expected more but the reality is that its a first game win at a time when all the squads are trying to gel as a team.

Based on this one game though it looks as if the germans are full value for their #9 seed. I wouldn't expect them to beat any of the top 7 usually but they can keep it respectable

Germany is kind of like Belarus in strategy, except better. They just play trap and few better players. Didn't watch the game though, we'll be pushing through that wall in a few days as well. I think our team was reasonable, could have had some more efficiency from scoring chances, few guys in the defense looked a bit lazy at some point. PP was good, Mikko Koivu was excellent, we just need more guys like him. Koivu-Selänne wasn't working as well as it should work. They can make few nice plays, create some crafty things, move the puck fast and confuse everyone but 8 out of 10 times the puck doesn't end up in the net so that's a problem.

[Ben Kenobi]

Jarome Iginla hattrick

We were all concerned about Canada vs Norway.

[Kitschum]

Finland dominates belarus 5-1 with a 45-12 shots advantage while Sweden looks quite ordinary in a 2-0 win over Germany where shots were close to even. I expected more but the reality is that its a first game win at a time when all the squads are trying to gel as a team.

It doesn't help for Sweden that the coach is a bit of a ******, which is exactly the impression he gives in interviews. He doesn't seem to know anything that has been going on in the NHL since last season which showed in his selection and then again when he composed his lines.

He put Franzén in the 4th line which only makes sense if you expected him to completely take over the role that Holmström was supposed to have. Weinhandl is another mystery who only seems to perform in Russia (I guess he's the anti-Russian secret weapon), but him in a line with the Sedins, let alone the first line is just madness and based on the coincidence that they played together a decade ago.

On the plus side, Öhlund looked great both defence and offence and Lundqvist was fine too apart from the excusable post hit in 3v5. Forsberg showed some good tendencies. If only he'd start to take shots when he gets the opportunity.

Belarus seemed significantly slower than Germany, and hopefully by that game out of plain sense and necessity Sweden has shaken some of the clueless experiments and nervousness no doubt stemming from the top.

[Asher]

Any idiot can play with the Sedins right now and look like a star (see Alex Burrows).

[Asher]

We were all concerned about Canada vs Norway.

Doesn't matter who the competition was, he was the best player on the ice in the game. That says a lot seeing as who was on the ice with him.

Just admit it. You were very wrong when you mentioned he shouldn't be on the team.