| 26 February 2010
vs. 
Semi-final 2: Canada vs. Slovakia - February 26, 2010 6:30pm PST - Canada Hockey Place
The next test for Team Canada comes against Team Slovakia in the second semi-final game of the day. With most of Canadian fans already looking to a game on Sunday against the Americans, Slovakia may bring a few surprises with their competitiveness tonight. Unlike in the earlier semifinal, both Canada and Slovakia went the qualification playoff route, with Canada winning over Germany and Slovakia winning over Norway. Slovakia advanced to the semifinal after a win over the pre-tournament favorite, Team Sweden who were the 2006 Olympic champions.
The Slovaks are not underdogs in the matchup in the way you thought of Norway or the Swiss team as an underdog, they are just not the heavy favorites like that of Team Canada. Team Slovakia has a hot goaltender right now in Jaroslav Halak. They have a defencesive pairing in Zdeno Chara and Andrej Meszros that has been able to shut down the teams opposition. And they have firepower in the names of Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra. Like Canada, they have been able to beat the Russians.
What does Canada have? They have everything that the Slovaks have, but more. More elite defencemen and more firepower. Luongo right now hasn't had a big game saving performance, but he's come up with saves when he needed to, and has re-instilled the confidence in Canada's goaltending. Toews, Nash and Richards will likely get the job at shutting down the two Marian's tonight. After the game against Russia, Team Canada showed that it has had very balanced scoring coming from each line. The players that have put up the goals have varied from game to game, but when looked at a whole, its been pretty balanced. Last game the players from the Western Division, namely the players on the Sharks (Boyle) or Anaheim (Getzlaf, Perry) that showed up on the score sheet. Tonight the rest of the Sharks line of Thornton, Heatley and Marleau will be expected to step it up as they were quiet last game. Look for the Canadians to try to manage the players on the ice against Chara, and especially who is on the ice when Chara is, more importantly, not on the ice.
Since splitting from Czechoslovakia, this will be the best performance that the Slovaks have ever had in an Olympic event. The pressure is there to do well, but they have already come further than could have been expected out of their team.
The city of Vancouver is abuzz with the anticipation of tonight's game being a step towards the gold medal game, and a possible rematch of USA vs. Canada. Liquor stores have yet again been asked to close early because of the hockey game tonight in an attempt to curb public consumption in the streets. On game nights, up to 150,000 people congregate in the downtown core.
Getzlaf missed today's game day skate for maintenance, but is expected to play tonight.
Vancity Canuck writes about the Vancouver Canucks at Benched Whale and the Tampa Bay Lightning at The Hockey Bay Blog in addition to her work on Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog.
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