I thought our team started out great, good passing, very physical play ( something we are not known for ) were rewarded with 1-0 lead. Varlamov lets in two soft goals, and that really deflated our team, all the energy was gone, and as the time was ticking away, fatigue really set in. Datsyuk probably has the best balance out of any hockey player out there, but he was constantly tripping and falling, much like other Russian players. Pretty sure we had nothing left going into the third period.
As for the tournament overall, we had two shitty games where we played down to the level of our competition against Slovakia and Slovenia. I thought we played great vs. U.S.A. and completely outplayed them but didn't get some of the bounces and of course that whole dislodged net fiasco. I also thought we were a better team than Finland ( skating, passing, scoring chances, physical play) unfortunately our Goalie had an off night at a worst possible time. I thought our KHL players performed well, and while many people thought our Defense would be very exploitable, I thought they did a great job and really impressed me with their physical play and puck movement.
Radulov was by far the best Russian player in the tournament and the only one willing to go the front of the net, Datsyuk was great as usual with some great set ups. Ovechkin, Kovalchuk and Varlamov were the most disappointing for me. Ovechkin took way too many silly shots, seemed liked 90% were blocked, we kept losing momentum in the opponents zone tnx to those block shots and clears. Kovalchuk is head case as soon as things don't start going his way, he starts slashing, cross checking, roughing anyone around him, if the refs weren't blind they could have called 10 penalties on him in the Finland game alone.
Sucks to go out so early, but this is a one game elimination tourney and the best teams don't always win, best of luck to the rest of the teams.
EPT
