Finland lost to Sweden yesterday when Kari Lehtonen allowed two goals and Finland only scored one. Finland will need more even strength offense to beat the Americans today. Team USA has killed about 90% of the penalty kills they’ve had so far this tournament. Team USA can do some serious damage against Finland on the man advantage, who has one of the worst penalty kills at just 60%. The thing is, they tend not to take a lot of penalties in the game.
A bronze medal would be something, but it’s not what most people expected from the USA men’s hockey team. Favored to at least challenge for silver, USA could walk away with no medals instead today. I would expect them to play with some fire so as not to have that happen. Finland is also disappointed, though many will write off their lack of success at this tournament as due to a lot of injuries to top offensive guys that should have been on the team but couldn’t make it.
Let’s get a medal.