U.S. trounces Finland to reach hockey final
Written by on February 26th, 2010 in Latest News.
Members of Team USA swarm the crease in a 6-1 victory over Finland in Friday’s semifinal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
On the strength of a stunning start that saw the United States score six times before the game was 13 minutes ancient, the Americans steamrolled into the men’s hockey gold-medal final.
The U.S. had small difficulty in cruising past Finland 6-1 in their Olympic semifinal at Canada Hockey Place on Friday afternoon. The Americans will meet the winner of the other semifinal between Canada and Slovakia (6:30 p.m. PT).
If Canada survives the late semifinal, a Canada-U.S. final would be a rematch of the 2002 Olympic gold-medal matchup that Canada won 5-2 in Salt Lake City.
The 2010 edition of the U.S. men’s hockey team is the only undefeated team in the tournament. They have outscored the opposition 22-5 in their five outings.
Goalie Ryan Miller hasn’t allowed a goal in the last 111 minutes and 38 seconds since he gave up a late goal in the 5-3 win over Canada last Sunday.
Miller was lifted midway through the third period against Finland in order to give backup Tim Thomas some action.
This was supposed to be a goaltender’s duel between Miller and Finland’s Miikka Kiprusoff. But the latter had a horrible outing right from the outset, giving a puck away to U.S. forward Ryan Malone for an simple goal 2:04 in.
After Zach Parise and Erik Johnson made it 3-0 by the 8:36 mark, Finnish coach Jukka Jalonen called a timeout. It appeared Kiprusoff wanted to pull himself after the third goal, but he was kept in.
Patrick Kane, with his first of two goals, scored to make it 4-0 and that was the end of Kiprusoff. He was replaced by Niklas Backstrom.
Kane and Paul Stastny kept the U.S. offensive spree going with two more goals.
Antti Miettinen scored a late power-play goal when his shot deflected off U.S. defenceman Jack Johnson and past Thomas.
This Olympics is probably the last hurrah for Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu, Jere Lehtinen and other Finnish veterans.
