Yes, I’m still alive.  I needed a hiatus for a little while to do some serious job hunting, and the Olympic breakwas kind of a perfect excuse to do that.  I didn’t, and still don’t, really have any plans for what to do here for the next week, anyway.

Yesterday was the men’s hockey Olympic Super Sunday, with three great rivalry games: Russia v Czech Republic, USA v Canada, and Sweden v Finland.  And yes, I watched all three of them.

As with all the Olympic hockey games, I keep an eye out in particular for Red Wings players.  Some of them did not disappoint, yesterday.

In Russia’s game, Pavel Datsyuk was one of the best all-around players for the Russian team.  He played directly against Jaromir Jagr for the most part, out with Kovalchuk on even strength, and Malkin and Ovechkin on the power play (what a friggin power play, holy shit.  A Hart Trophy nomination troika).  Datsyuk did an excellent job of shutting down Jagr for much of the game, who ended up with 0 points and 2 SOG, and -2.  Pavel led the Russians in TOI with 20:18 played.  The next player was Malkin at 18:43, whose PP goal he assisted on.  He topped it off with the empty netter.

For the USA, Rafalski has returned to a form that I thought long lost.  He was outstanding, scoring the first 2 goals in the game (and the last 4 for the USA), and almost had a hat trick (for all intent it’s his, because he took the shot and it ricocheted in off Jamie Langenbrunner’s skate, then Brodeur’s stick, and in).  He opened the scoring early, too, only 41 second into the game.  It was also great to see the USA roar back after Eric Staal scored for Canada, to get Rafalski’s second goal of the night about a minute later.  I sent a text to my friend during the game that said “who knew Rafalski could still play like that?” to which was responded “He and Miller won that game,” a statement that I can’t argue against.  Rafalski ended the night 2-1-3, +2, in 21:27 TOI (tied with Ryan Suter).  He had three shots on net, all three of which went in.  He was no slouch defensively, either, though I’ll admit that Canada didn’t have a very good game at all.  A lot of players on that team were just invisible all game long, and the ones who were noticeable were not because of good reasons.  Back to Rafalski, Discher has some more thoughts on his recent play, all of which are far more insightful and articulate than my own.

Sweden and Finland… well, I have to admit I zoned out on this one.  Petrella made the point that nothing could possibly be exciting after watching the end of the USA/Canada game, and to my defense, I’d been up since 7am.  Trying to actually pay attention to a fairly boring hockey game at 1:30am is not easy.

Here are the brackets for the rest of the Olympic tournament.  I really have hopes that Russia will play Sweden.  I think that would be utterly fascinating to watch what basically amounts to half the Red Wings take on Datsyuk and the insane firepower of the Russian team.  And, of course, that would mean that Canada wouldn’t even make it to the gold medal game.  I do fear for Stevie Y if Canada doesn’t make it, however.

Come back later for some H2H updates and information.

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