Canada beats Russia 5-2, advances to World Cup finals

“Basically I said, we’re playing real well, here’s a couple things to consider, just keep doing what we’re doing”. “I’m still trying to take it all in”.

While Crosby was a dominant player on both ends of the ice, Ovechkin was invisible.

Marchand, who plays for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League, had a crack at a hat trick in the final seconds of the game but his shot at an empty net just missed to the left.

Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expected Team Europe, especially after they (perhaps intentionally) threw two pre-tournament exhibition games.

But, as so often has been the case, when things looked questionable for Team Canada, the Crosby Show took over. None of Russia’s extra-man chances were as good as any of those three shorthanded bids from Canada.

Shea Weber’s strong play against Ovechkin deserves notice, but the best way to shut down a great offensive player is to force him to defend – and Canada did that exceedingly well against Ovechkin.

Sidney Crosby put Canada ahead in the first period, but goals by Nikita Kucherov and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the second gave Russian Federation a 2-1 advantage by the 36-minute mark. But then he whiffed on another Marchand shot from long distance.

The second period started out as pure domination for Canada.

Just after the first television timeout of the period, the game took a surprising turn. The puck found Nikita Kucherov near center ice and he skated in on a 2-on-1 with Vladislav Namestnikov. It’s hard to score goals when you’re on the wrong side of the ice, and Canada spent long stretches in the offensive zone, keeping Ovechkin and the unsafe Russian forwards a safe distance from goalie Carey Price.

Russia’s Artemi Panarin closed out the scoring with 8.2 seconds to play.

Right now, Russian Federation really needs to hope to develop some more top end defensemen.

Russia’s first shot of the second period didn’t come until almost nine minutes had ticked by, but Nikita Kucherov made it count.

With NHL training camps starting to get underway, Trouba has informed the Jets he will not attend camp and would like a trade so he can have “the opportunity to reach his potential as a right shot NHL defensemen”.

It remained level until the final period, when Crosby assisted Marchand again, who this time beat Russian keeper Sergei Bobrovsky with a long, low strike.

“He played phenomenal tonight”, says Marchand of Bobrovsky.

The eighth-inning home run, Bautista’s 20th of the season, broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the eighth inning and was his second in the past three games, having hit a tying ninth-inning homer against Seattle on Wednesday. “So, I had a little bit more time than you typically get, but I was happy to see it go in”.

The Russian captain not only didn’t score in nearly 21 minutes, he made barely a dent on the game – managing only one shot on one attempt, while also throwing five hits. Like the 2008 IIHF world championships in Quebec City, when Alex Ovechkin and Russian Federation defeated Jonathan Toews’s Team Canada in overtime.

Here’s what it is: Russian Federation got great goaltending, got a lead, had a tie game going into the third period, and got wiped off the map.

Sidney Crosby had a goal and two assists for Canada (4-0). It’s going to be hard because we play here in Canada.

Corey Perry converted a rebound at 5:48, and John Tavares brought the puck to the net patiently before drilling a high shot in at 9:22 to make it 5-2 and give the fans some breathing room.

It means Canada will meet either Team Europe or Sweden in the best-of-three final series, with the second semi-final tomorrow.

“Toews does a lot of stuff so (Crosby) can do what he does”, Babcock said after Canada’s win over Russian Federation, which was highlighted by Crosby’s three-point performance.

There’s a feeling of invincibility right now for those on Team Canada. “But for now, we’ll keep that to here”.

“I just said ‘steady on the rudder, we’re doing things right, ‘” Babcock recalled afterward.