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Canada silences vaunted American attack in semifinals

Going into Friday's semifinal grudge match between the United States and Canada, Team USA had been the tournament's most explosive offensive team. In contrast Canada had struggled to generate goals, even needing 53 minutes and change to take the lead against a Latvian minnow in the quarterfinal round.

Facing one of the most explosive offensive teams at the tournament, however, Canada silenced the American attack almost entirely. They neutered it not by bunkering, or by playing well without the puck (although they did the latter too). They did it by dominating possession, and spending the majority of the game 200-feet away from their own net.

Scoring Chances

A scoring chance is counted any time a team directs a shot cleanly on-net from within the area where the most goals go in - between and below the circles. You can get a handle on what the scoring chance area looks like here. Shots on goal and misses are counted, but blocked shots are not (unless the player who blocks the shot is “acting like a goaltender”). Generally speaking, we are more generous with the boundaries of the scoring chance area if there is dangerous puck movement immediately preceding the scoring chance, or if the scoring chance is screened. Tip shots are only counted if they're obvious sets. 

Here are the individual scoring chances for the American side:

USA Taken Created Total
Patrick Kane 1 4 5
Paul Stastny 2 0 2
Zach Parise 2 0 2
Joe Pavelski 2 0 2
Phil Kessel 1 1 2
John Carlson 1 0 1
Ryan Kesler 1 0 1
Ryan Suter 1 0 1
Max Pacioretty 1 0 1
Brooks Oprpik 1 0 1

In particular Canada did a phenomenal job against the American first line of Joe Pavelski, James van Riemsdyk and Phil Kessel; limiting that fast, explosive group to just three combined chances. 

That top-line had powered Team USA all tournament, but they managed almost nothing against Canada.

Patrick Kane got his chances, however, his teammates (most notably Max Pacioretty) just couldn't pull the trigger on one of his many quality set ups on Friday. Paul Stastny got his two chances within a couple of seconds of each other on a jam play. His second chance beat Price five-hole but trickled safely wide of the Canadian net...

Here are the individual scoring chances for Team Canada: 

Canada Taken Created Total
Sidney Crosby 4 2 6
Chris Kunitz 3 1 4
Jamie Benn 3 0 3
Drew Doughty 2 1 3
Alex Pietrangelo 2 0 2
Patrick Sharp 2 0 2
Patrice Bergeron 1 1 2
Jonathan Toews 1 1 2
Jeff Carter 1 1 2
Corey Perry 1 1 2
Patrick Marleau 1 0 1
Jay Bouwmeester 0 1 1
Rick Nash 0 1 1
Ryan Getzlaf 0 1 1

Full credit to the much maligned Sidney Crosby, Chris Kunitz and Patrice Bergeron line: those three had an absolute whale of a game. 

Kunitz's inclusion on Team Canada never made sense to those of us who'd assumed and hoped that Canada would look to rely on their superior level of offensive talent at the Olympics. Perhaps what we'd missed is that this team was, all along, more interested in dominating the puck and defending in the offensive end than they were in hanging six or seven on the Latvia's and Norway's of the world

If that's the goal - and the way Canada played on Friday would suggest it is - then putting Crosby with two of the games best two-way forwards starts to make a lot of sense. Or at least a lot more sense.

Turning our attention to the goaltenders, they were both stellar on Friday. Carey Price was ridiculously good, especially in the games first ten minutes. In addition to having a "sticky" game in terms of his rebound control, Price stopped all 31 shots he faced and all 10 of the "difficult shots" Team USA tested him with in the semifinal. 

American goaltender Jonathan Quick was similarly excellent. The former Conn Smythe winner managed to get in front of 36 of Canada's 37 shots and stopped 14 of the 15 difficult shots he faced on Friday. That a bounce would have tied it late in the game is mostly a credit to Quick's play.

Let's get to the team totals:

Scoring Chances (EV) 1st Period 2nd Period 3rd Period Total
Canada 8 (6) 6 (6) 7 (7) 21 (19)
USA 5 (5) 5 (4) 3 (3) 13 (12)

Considering that Canada spent the games latter 40 minutes with a narrow lead, that they continued to out-chance the Americans by a wide margin is extremely impressive.

It may have been just a one goal win on the scoreboard, but in fact Team Canada put the boot to their American rivals on Friday.

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