Olympic Blurbs : And Then There Were Eight

Tuesday was a big day in Sochi as the elimination round began and the men's ice hockey field was cut down from twelve teams to eight. The busy day started with Slovenia shutting out Austria 4-0. Anze Kopitar, Jan Urbas, Sabahudin Kovacevic and Jan Mursak all lit the lamp for Slovenia. Robert Kristan stopped all 30 shots he saw from the Austrians. Slovenia moves on to play Sweden, Wednesday morning at 2 am CDT on NBCSN.

Russia was able to avoid the upset and move on the quarterfinals with a 4-0 win over Norway. Alexander Radulov led the way with two goals while Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexei Tereshenko each had tallies as well. Pavel Datsyuk assisted on the first three Russian goals. Sergei Bobrovsky only saw 21 Norwegian shots and stopped them all. Russia will play Finland Wednesday morning at 6:30 CDT on NBCSN.

The later pair of games saw the first real upset of the tournament as Latvia beat Switzerland 3-1. Latvia got two goals from Lauris Darzins and one from Oskars Bartulis as goaltender Edgars Masalskis made 32 saves in net. The lone Swiss goal was scored by Martin Pluss. Switzerland gave up three goals after giving up just one in the entire preliminary round. On the flipside, only scoring three goals in four games usually means you are going home early. Latvia moves on to take on the David role versus Canada in an old fashioned David vs. Goliath matchup. That game can be seen on NBCSN, Wednesday morning, at 11 am CDT.

The final game between the Czech Republic and Slovakia got pretty interesting late. The Czechs jumped out to a 4-0 lead with two goals from Roman Cervenka along with goals from Ales Hemsky and David Krejci . Marian Hossa became the first Blackhawk to score since February 5^th with a late 2^nd period goal. Hossa would score again early in the 3^rd period and Tomas Surovy would cut the lead to one shortly after Hossa's second goal. Slovakia could not get the equalizer and Tomas Plekanec added an empty net goal in the final minute. Michal Handzus picked up assists on both of Hossa's goals. The Czech Republic will face the United States Wednesday, at 11 am CDT, on the USA Network.

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