The highly anticipated game between Canada and Russia was over about five minutes into the second period as Canada jumped out to a 6-1 lead with more than 15 minutes remaining in the period, en route to a 7-3 victory
For the Canadians, their 7-3 rout of Russia was a dominating performance in all facets of their game as the Canadians overwhelmed the Russians physically.
Concerns coming into tournament was Russia’s depth upfront and their lack of physicality from their backend and those concerns were evident against Canada.
The Canadians were the deeper team and Russia had no answers for Canada’s depth upfront.
Canada scored 7 goals with their best player Sidney Crosby not recording a point.
“We played an awesome game for 60 minutes. We played a great game,” goaltender Roberto Luongo said, who made 25 saves to improve to 3-0 in the tournament.
Russia got terrible goaltending from Evgeni Nabokov but most concerning was the fact that Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin were no shows.
Although Sidney Crosby was not much of a factor, his teams own Alex Ovechkin thus far when it comes to games that matter.
The Canadians enter the semi-finals with momentum back on their side and are peaking at the right time.
For the Russians, they leave the Olympics as the most over-hyped team in decades.
The Russians had a ton of star power but they weren’t as deep as some thought they would be before the games began. The way they were constructed, they lacked grit, and the physical ability to matchup against a Canada or maybe even the United States and it can be questioned that they went with too many KHL players, by-passing the likes of Alexei Kovalev.
However, team continiuity appeared to be lacking for the Russians during the entire tournament, which was eventually going to cost them.
USA to play Finland in semi-finals
Finland defeated Czech Republic 2-0 Wednesday night and will meet the United States in the semi-finals.
Canada will face the winner of Slovakia-Sweden.