Russia ready
Crush Slovakia in playoff tuneup
By TERRY KOSHAN -- Toronto Sun
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Russia's Pavel Datsyuk is congratulated by teammates Andrei Markov and Alexander Khavanov (right) during World Cup of Hockey action in Toronto, Sunday Sept. 5, 2004. (CP PHOTO/Adrian Wyld) |
Outshooting A club by nearly a 2-1 margin is one thing. Being opportunistic is quite another. That's the lesson Slovakia learned last night when it suffered a 5-2 loss to Russia before 18,115 at the Air Canada Centre despite registering 27 shots to Russia's 15.
"There were more positive things for us but we made a lot of mistakes," Slovakia's Marian Gaborik said. "We have been struggling to score goals. The effort was good, but the discipline was not there at all."
Ilya Bryzgalov made 25 saves for Russia and watched as a couple of his teammates scored beautiful goals. In his World Cup debut, 18-year-old Alexander Ovechkin beat Jan Lasak with a sharp backhand in the third period.
Earlier, Alexei Kovalev, who scored perhaps the prettiest goal of the tournament last week in a win against the U.S., deked defenceman Ladislav Cierny and zipped a shot past Lasak low to the short side. Those were the kinds of plays Slovakia couldn't complete, even though they buzzed Bryzgalov at times. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks prospect stoned Miro Satan in the opening minute to set the tone.
Pavel Datsyuk, Sergei Samsonov and Alexei Yashin also scored for Russia (2-1 in the round-robin). Gaborik and Marian Hossa scored for Slovakia (0-3), the first points of the tournament for the two snipers.
Russian defenceman Darius Kasparaitis left the game, favouring his right hamstring, but is not expected to miss the quarter-final against the U.S., tomorrow night in St. Paul, Minn.
"I'm glad we came out strong," Yashin said of his team's final round-robin match. "We played well but I think we still committed some mistakes. We had a lot of turnovers in the neutral zone and we have to be better than that."
