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 Friday, December 13, 2002
Five teams have legitimate chance
By John Davidson
Special to ABC Sports Online
The 2002 Winter Olympics should be the best hockey tournament ever because there are five teams with a chance to win gold: Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic, the United States and Canada all have a chance to win, while Finland can always win a 2-1 game.
It's all or nothing. As Dominik Hasek said, "This tournament is similar to the NFL playoffs -- if you lose, you can't win it." Once you get into that medal round, that's what it is like.
|  | | Dominik Hasek was been everything he was expected to be for Detroit since leaving Buffalo last year. |
When you get into a tournament like this, if you get a hot goalie, watch out. The two players capable of getting the hottest are Hasek and Nikolai Khabibulin. But every country has a goalie that is capable: Canada's Curtis Joseph and Martin Brodeur; the United States' Mike Richter, Tom Barrasso or Mike Dunham; and Sweden's Tommy Salo, whose shootout heroics lifted his team to a gold medal in the '94 Lillehammer Games.
Joseph has been good on penalty shots this season, but if you get to a shootout in one of the key games, wouldn't you want Hasek to be in net? It's going to be an intense tournament with fabulous goaltending.
The hero in Nagano was Hasek. Who will be the hero in Salt Lake City?
United States
If the United States won the bronze, that would be pretty good. If the U.S. won silver, that would really be something. If the U.S. won gold, that would really, really be something.
Being at home is a great advantage for Team USA. The place is going to be absolutely crazy. If the U.S. does well early in the tournament, the wave of support will just grow and grow. On a bigger scale, it's similar to doing well in the playoffs in New York City. I had the experience of playing in the Stanley Cup finals in New York. It's a gigantic event. In '94, the Rangers won it, and it was even better. Imagine having the entire United States behind you on home turf? It's huge. I don't think you can visualize or understand the magnitude of the support if the hockey team does well.
Team USA has enough ability to score goals, but it's going to take a team effort to prevent them. The U.S. is going to have to play a system and adapt to it quickly, whether it be puck possession or a trap. Coach Herb Brooks can do that. He's a smart hockey guy. If they can keep the puck out of the net, they should get enough goals. Richter, Barrasso and Dunham are all good goalies, but it is going to take a team commitment to defense assist them.
The key for the U.S. is Brooks. He knows the Olympics, he knows the experience and he knows how to make the players believe in themselves. He is very enthusiastic. He's made Chris Chelios the captain, and he is going to be the glue for the team. Brooks has to devise a plan, and the players have to implement it. Chelios will make sure the team believes in it.
Canada
Canada is a great team and has the most pressure. There's no second place for the Canadians. People want gold, and anything less would fall below expectations. That's the way they want it and that's the way they are going to deal with it, but it puts a lot of pressure on the organization.
Canada's biggest problem heading into Salt Lake City is the goaltending situation. They are without Patrick Roy. Although Joseph and Brodeur are fabulous goalies, both have to do something that they've never done before -- play in the Olympics. Canada will give Joseph and Brodeur each a start in the first two games and decide who to play from there, but coach Pat Quinn may be more comfortable with Joseph, his goalie in Toronto.
The other key question for Canada is the health of some of the players. Steve Yzerman (knee), Al MacInnis (foot), Mario Lemieux (hip), Owen Nolan (back) and Eric Lindros (knee) are all hurting. Will the players say they are OK, and not be OK? That would be selfish. If some of the players are not 100 percent, they owe it to Wayne Gretzky to tell him that they are only able to play at 70 percent, giving Gretzky a chance to replace them with someone who is healthy and deserving.
If he's healthy and he can play, Mario is the man. He has the best skill of any player going into the Games. If it's not him, the key will be the goalies.
Czech Republic
Expectations are high in the Czech Republic. After winning in Nagano and other championships since then, people in the Motherland expect nothing less than a gold medal in these Games. Those expectations may be too high. They were a great team in Japan, but the greatest one was Dominik Hasek.
The Dominator is in a big-time groove right now, which is scary. That gives the Czech Republic the confidence that it is going to play well and the players know they don't need to score much. Not having Martin Straka hurts, but Jaromir Jagr and Roman Hamrlik are getting healthy.
They have the respect of the hockey world, and while that is important, it can also be detrimental. Every team knows how good they are now. The U.S. will now give the Czechs as much respect as it would the Canadians. That wasn't the case before. But the Czechs have won the Olympics, the World Championships and the World Junior Championship. This is serious stuff.
Russia
They lost in the finals to the Czech Republic in Nagano, but this time around, the team will have Khabibulin in net. He is playing as well as any goalie in the world right now.
|  | | Igor Larionov is hoping to win his third gold medal. |
In the 2000 World Championships in St. Petersburg, they were brutally awful, losing to Switzerland, the U.S. and Latvia on home ice. The fans were disappointed and expected better. Coach Slava Fetisov has been important for hockey in Russia. He has helped revive the high level of hockey in the country. He brings both sides together -- the old country and the new wave of players who are in the NHL. He has gotten them to play. Some are not showing up in Salt Lake City, like Sergei Zubov and Alexander Mogilny, but he has the rest of the guys on the same page and going in the right direction.
Igor Larionov is the key player. He is 41 years old, but he has the ability to be the glue on the team. Pavel Bure gave up the chance to be the captain to Larionov, who centered one of the greatest five-man units in the history of Russian/Soviet hockey, leading the U.S.S.R. to the gold medal in '84 and '88.
Sweden
Mats Sundin is one of the best players in the world, but he does not get enough credit for it. He'll be the key player. Sweden is going to play a new system called the Torpedo. It's a different way of formulating offense -- more entertaining and wide-open, with one man back.
The Swedes were hoping that Peter Forsberg would have been available, but his ankle surgery means they are losing a great player. Then again, Canada was without Paul Kariya in '98.
Finland
Finland is the underdog of the "Big Six" teams. What makes Finland so strong is its ability to play a defensive-minded team game -- a sharp contrast to the old "Flying Finns" of the 1980s. That will keep the Finns in games. You may beat them, but it will be 2-1 or 3-1. They find a way to hang in there. And then if they get some power plays, they have Teemu Selanne who can break it open. Finland, however will be without Saku Koivu, who will be out because of his fight with cancer. That makes a big difference.
Finland has two goalies it can use: the Senators' Jani Hurme and the Oilers' Jussi Markkanen. They're good, but they are not Hasek or Khabibulin.
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